Month: January 2023

(Colorado Peak Politics)

Get the popcorn popping and the beer cooling and gather round to watch the Colorado legislature as Democrats try to fix the car theft problem they and Gov. Polis created.

PeakNation™ will remember the excitement last year as Democrat lawmakers worked tirelessly to shake off their shame by passing legislation to fix the fentanyl crisis they also created.

But the legislature punted at the last minute with a weakened bill authored by then-state Sen. Brittany Pettersen who was running for Congress.

And for Democrats, even more important than saving Coloradans from fentanyl overdose deaths, was keeping control of the U.S. House.

And that didn’t work out so well for them.

This year, Democrat state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger of Arvada has teamed up with Republican state Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs to sponsor Senate Bill 97, while Democrat state Rep. Shannon Bird of Westminster Democrat and Delta Republican Matt Soper are sponsoring the House version.

Supporters of the bill say it’s not a fix-all for rampant motor vehicle theft, but the conservative Gazette editorial board is giving the effort an early thumbs up:

Praise is in order for all four of the bill’s prime sponsors and particularly for Zenzinger and Bird, who to some extent are bucking their own party on this issue. They essentially are calling back one of the more reckless provisions of their fellow ruling Democrats’ justice reform agenda — and considering instead what’s best for the general public.

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

Denver Democrat state Rep. Alex Valdez doesn’t think pet owners should be held financially responsible for the damages caused by cats and dogs in rental units.

Pet deposits should be banned and taxpayers should be forced to pay for all the damages, reports Page Two on legislation Valdez is pushing this session.

Just to be clear, we are avid dog lovers preferring them to people, and don’t wish to get sideways with all you cat lovers.

Rep. Valdez #coleg bill tells rental owners they can’t charge a pet deposit; state would pay for damage #copolitics https://t.co/tRwPK8uDqd

— Complete Colorado (@CompleteCO) January 30, 2023

But Valdez has taken our love for furry friends to the extremes, as only a Democrat can.

He claims his intention is just to encourage landlords to be more pet inclusive in affordable housing, and yet the language isn’t written to encourage, but to mandate.

And making taxpayers foot the bill up to $1,000 for pet damage isn’t the answer.

The Constitution does not guarantee the right to Lab, liberty, and the pursuit of freedom.

Pet owners must take responsibility in choosing which animal is compatible to their lifestyle, and factor in whether they can afford the vet bills for a particular breed, pay for food and medicine, and yes, cover deposits.

Responsible pet owners are thrilled for the opportunity to put down a pet deposit and lease good housing.

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

On January 25, the State Senate Transportation and Energy Committee heard testimony on a bill that would accelerate the state’s attempt to radically reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions, setting a goal of completely eliminating them by 2050.

In addition to directing state money to wastewater thermal energy, greenhouse gas sequestration, and electric lawnmowers, Senate Bill 23-016 would dragoon the state’s public pensions into service of the climate change agenda, fiduciary responsibility to the pensioners be damned.

The bill would require Colorado’s Public Employee Retirement Account (PERA) to “to adopt proxy voting procedures that ensure that the board’s voting decisions align with, and are supportive of, the statewide greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals.”  It would also require PERA to add a climate change portion to its annual Stewardship Report, describing alleged climate threats to its portfolio, and how PERA assesses and deals with those threats in its portfolio.

This would require PERA to examine all of its proxy votes and make sure that they aligned with climate change orthodoxy.  Since there is no other legal requirement concerning proxy votes, that priority is set to take precedence over every other consideration in proxy voting.  PERA itself estimates that this would require another 2½ full-time employees and cost roughly $430,000 a year.  More than that, PERA has virtually no expertise evaluating proxy votes according to climate change criteria, leaving it at the mercy of activist groups that make recommendations on them.

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

“No, Joe Biden is not coming for your gas stove,” Washington journalist Julia Lerner assures us. People can be forgiven for fearing the federal government would try to ban them. An NBC headline states bluntly, “Ban new gas stoves, a federal safety commissioner proposes.” What’s going on here, and do Coloradans who prefer cooking with gas have anything to worry about?

The national debate

Let’s start with the national debate before turning to local politics. A January 9 Bloomberg headline states, “US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears.” Richard Trumka Jr., a commissioner with the Consumer Product Safety Commission—the same organization that hounded a Boulder-based seller of recreational magnets out of business—told Bloomberg that gas stove emissions pose “a hidden hazard” and that “any option is on the table” for addressing the matter. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Trumpka said.

What are those crazy conservatives thinking, spreading fear that the federal government might ban gas stoves after a federal regulator said it might?

Trumpka clarified, “To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves. Regulations apply to new products.” Oh, so jack-booted thugs will not literally storm into your kitchen to tear your gas stove out of the wall. What a relief! Rather, the federal government may merely forbid you to buy a new gas stove. How beneficent! CPSC chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric further backed away from talk of a ban in a January 11 statement.

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

Professional victim and part-time Denver school board member Auon’tai “Tay” Anderson has devised a scheme to block a former supporter turned critic from being mean to him by obtaining a restraining order and filing a criminal complaint.

Anderson called the law on Brandon Pryor claiming Pryor cussed and scared him in his place of employment at the Struggle of Love Foundation in the Northfield Business Center, the same building in which Pryor works.

Chalkbeat reports Pryor and Anderson got sideways over a proposal to put the Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy at the Barrett Elementary site.

Pryor is credited as the school’s visionary, and there’s a lot of history and some bad blood with that site.

Pryor said Anderson responded angrily when Pryor wanted to talk to him about the school move, in particular the claim that Smith STEAM Academy’s principal supports it. Pryor said school families are divided and some are angry at the principal because they blame her for the pending move.

“Because he didn’t have a valid answer for me, he got defensive, and now he’s the victim,” Pryor said.

Pryor maintains there were no threats, he didn’t ask Anderson to step outside, and said cuss words flew in both directions.

Calling the law on parents and community members just because they disagree with the local school board decisions is a troubling trend that doesn’t tend to end well politically.

PeakNation™ will recall how the national teachers’ union got the White House and federal law enforcement officers in the Justice Department to go after concerned parents in Virginia,

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(Complete Colorado Page Two)

DENVER — Denver Democrat Rep. Alex Valdez has introduced a bill in the Colorado legislature that would strip all residential rental-property owners of their ability to charge extra damage deposits or increased rent to tenants who wish to own pets, while forcing some to allow all pets regardless of size or breed.

House Bill 23-1068 — dubbed the Pet Animal Ownership in Housing bill — would also:

• Prohibit restrictions on dog breeds for obtaining homeowner’s insurance.
• Prohibit “pet animals” from being considered as personal property to satisfy restitution against an evicted tenant.
• Create a “pet friendly” landlord damage mitigation program.
• Require that anyone receiving the Colorado Affordable Housing Tax (CAHT) credit allow pets in their developments.

The CAHT is a state subsidy program created in 2001 under Gov. Bill Owens. It has been renewed several times over the past 20 years. It’s designed to encourage private-sector developers to build low-income housing units by offering state income tax credits on the developments. In 2022, developers were granted nearly $12 million in state tax credits for 1,463 housing units primarily in the Denver-metro area.

Alex Valdez

The text of the bill claims that tens of thousands of pets end up in Colorado animal shelters each year, and are often surrendered due to issues related to finding housing.  “Extensive restrictions on pets in the housing context disproportionately impact lower-income households and prevent lower-income households from experiencing the benefits of pet ownership,” the bill reads in part.

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

Gov. Polis all but ignored Colorado’s critical agriculture industry throughout his recent State of the State speech, preferring instead to preen before his base with nerdy references that serves to entertain his fans in the media establishment.

The governor’s dismissive attitude did not go unnoticed by rural lawmakers in attendance.

Republican state Rep. Ty Winter of Las Animas, a fourth-generation ag producer, noted the insult in a Colorado Politics opinion article.

In his 70-minute, 8,000-word monologue, the governor mentioned the word “agriculture” one single time. The words “farms” and “farmers” were each only used once as well. For comparison, the governor referenced the fictional Lord of the Rings character “Gandalf” three times. Add to this list Luke Skywalker, South Park, and a very awkward impression of Star Wars’ Yoda, and one could be left scratching their head about whether the governor cares more about making pop culture references than talking about rural Coloradans.

That’s because Polis is more interested in being popular than in governing a state blessed with wonderous natural resources that have been protected and enhanced by generations of Coloradans.

And as Winter noted, the state’s farms and ranches are difficult for Polis to recognize when lounging comfortably in ivory towers and from under gold domes.

It’s easy to see why rural lawmakers have little faith in Polis to protect and enhance the state’s second largest industry, when he devotes more time in his State of the State speech to electric bikes,

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(Colorado Peak Politics)

In reporting on two recent hotel purchases to house about 300 of Denver’s homeless at a cost of $30 million in taxpayer dollars, we referred to the projects as ghettos in the making.

Ghettos in modern terms were federal housing project experiments backed by liberal Democrats for the urban poor and middle class, many of which tragically spawned rampant drug use and violence, becoming so notorious that many of the slums were demolished.

From gang violence to the robust drug trade to the incompetence of many local housing authority offices, large-scale government housing has seen some very dark days. Sadly, it’s the projects’ most vulnerable residents, the young and the very old, who suffer the most. They are the ones who get caught in the crossfire of racially segregated, poverty stricken, structurally flawed buildings—the ones who the system truly fails.

But the Denver Post insisted in an editorial Tuesday that governments now getting into the housing homeless business will turn out nothing like government getting into the housing poor and middle class business that created the 20th century ghettos.

The Post applauds Denver’s plan to buy abandoned hotels to convert into so-called assisted living programs for transitional and long-term housing to eventually house nearly 1,000 street dwellers.

The Post grudgingly admits that Aurora’s plans to do more than just house but pursue actual commitments from the residents to get a job,

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