The Northern Lights stole the show for Colorado this week.

There was also, though, plenty of action here on the ground from the federal government's dramatic reboot to the skeptical reaction to the governor's budget plan for Colorado.

Our stellar insiders are ready to weigh in on this week's Colorado Inside Out.

Hi, everyone, I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let me get right to introducing you to this week's insider panel.

We start with Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword.

Chris work, consultant with Roark Media.

Adam Berg, senior policy advisor with Foster Grand Milstein and her law firm.

And Alvina Vasquez, an advocacy leader here in Denver and also a member of the PBS 12 Community Advisory Board.

This week, we saw the end of the longest government shutdown in American history.

Colorado's congressional representatives voted along party lines.

Colorado's two senators voted against the plan last weekend.

So going forward, what does this mean for Colorado in terms of the cost of health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act?

What about the Snap benefits?

What about air travel in and out of Dia?

Now the federal workers are going to be paid to go back to work.

Patty, I will start with you.

It's like we have been in a bad dream and now we've woken up and it's worse.

Like, what did we really gain over the last 40 plus days?

What?

It's like a nightmare.

You have the federal workers who didn't have their money.

Who?

It's going to take a while for them to catch up.

In the meantime, they've got to deal with the time they went without paychecks.

You have snap, which is definitely going to take time to catch up with people.

And we have to remember that it's not like food banks were in a good position before the shutdown.

So the need for food is worse than ever.

Air traffic.

Let's remember our delays this summer.

So we are going to continue to have those air traffic delays as they sort things out.

But to add insult to injury, we are not going to have lower health care costs.

They are still skyrocketing.

So the main reason for the shutdown still exists, that people are going to be paying 200% more, 300% more under the affordable who had insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and some are getting rid of it altogether, which will just create more problems in the health care system down the line.

So nightmare.

Chris.

Well, I think what we've seen in this situation is a lot of the blame game, and we're going to be right back in this same situation in January again.

Perhaps there's time to solve the health care issue.

Democrats blame the shutdown on Republicans being uncompromising.

And then Republicans turned around and said they're they're using public extortion to get their way out of all of this.

Jeff Heard from CD3 in Colorado came forth with a bipartisan plan to phase out these health care benefits over the course of two years and have a transition which also allows for solving the issue.

I think often Republicans are looked at as not caring whether people have health care or not.

I don't think that's true.

I think we disagree on how to accomplish that.

And what is the best, best path forward.

I'm very hopeful that that herd brought brought forth this proposal.

Perhaps if all people come to the table and can discuss the best way, instead of going to their corners, we can actually have true solutions and we can move forward in January.

Can only hope.

Adam, I'd like to say we're back to regular scheduled programing at Congress, but the reality is there really isn't any more.

I mean, we have seen a Congress for multiple years that seems fairly dysfunctional, always punting budgets with cars and never really getting to pass full appropriation bills.

And since, you know, the 1980s, we've had eight government shutdowns that lasted more than two days, including the one we just wrapped up at 43 days.

And much like the previous standoffs, the party who initiated the shutdown in this case, the Democrats, refusing to pass the Republican measure without some of their own concessions.

They really didn't get much in return.

You know, 43 days in and the largest issue, which was the ACA subsidies remains unresolved.

There is a handshake agreement that we will talk about this in December.

And whether or not that comes to fruition, who knows?

And then all the other budgetary issues that Democrats were seeking to resolve through their negotiations, I think it leaves Americans and for sure, members of the Democratic Party asking, what was this all for?

At the end of the day, and we've seen that push back on Senator Schumer and some of the other party leaders.

And I do not anticipate that going away anytime soon.

I think we're going to see more frustration with Congress and what's happening in DC.

I mean, well, you can't say that Republicans have a majority and then blame the Democrats for a shutdown.

That's completely unfair.

However, I do have to say that what was shocking to me was the defiance in the administration to pay Snap benefits.

What a disappointment in our president that he didn't even want to help the most needy of our of Americans, the ones he claims to be supporting.

So what did we learn?

In 42 days, our president will fight in court to not pay families who need food.

That is so disappointing and disgusting.

Now the Snap benefits with this agreement now will continue through.

Is it September of next year?

Do you guys know?

I believe it's through September.

Yeah, I think it's through.

So but again, making catching up on the gap is going to be really challenging.

And I like Miss Little Mary Sunshine from the Western Slope congratulating Jeff Hurd.

But he did come up with a good proposal.

It's a shame it didn't go further.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Another example of an ongoing lack of collaboration.

This week there was a federal deadline to come up with a plan.

This was set by the Bureau of Reclamation.

Colorado and six other western states have to come up with a plan on how to manage the Colorado River water.

Chris, this deadline came and went, and there was no agreement.

And the current plan will be expiring also in this new year.

Yeah.

And the government could get involved at that point.

And who knows what will happen to Colorado at that point.

The 1922 compact was an agreement from seven states.

There the upper basin states, there are three upper basin states.

Colorado is one of them.

They get half the appropriation of water.

The lower basin states, four states get the other half.

It was based on river flows in 1922, however, and we have 20% less flows in the Colorado River now.

So there has to be an agreement on managing allotments from here on out.

The upper basin has been participating in voluntary conservation measures.

However, the lower basin says no, those needs to be mandates.

There's less water in the river, so you need to be using less.

Although the upper basin is not using its full allotment.

So there is the rub there between the states and the lower basin wants the upper basin to impose mandates.

Now, 55% of Colorado is currently in drought, ranging from, you know, a mild drought to an extreme drought.

Six out of ten of the basins in Colorado have 0% snowpack.

It's November.

We need snow.

So we have drought.

We have a lack of snow.

There's going to be impact to recreation.

And then there's also impact downstream because Lake Powell and Lake Mead have hydroelectric plants.

Powell has the the dead pool is the minimum that they can have to keep those plants running.

Lake Powell serves 5.8 million people with electricity.

Lake Mead serves 8 million.

So there are issues that have to be solved.

However, do we need the government solving our problems for us?

It would be great if all seven tables could come to an agreement and move forward, because that's what the government saying.

If you guys can figure out that, move in in so we'll see if that happens.

Adam, I think Chris painted a really important context for this conversation.

So current operating guidelines for the river.

It's supplies seven states, 40 million people, 30 tribes and 5.5 million acres of agriculture.

So this is a huge part of our system, especially out here in the West.

We're also talking about an agreement that is over 100 years old that was formed at the time, during wet seasons when the river was running high and the populations of many of these states was not nearly what it is today.

And there's a lot of shortcomings that were part of the initial deal that are still up for debate and probably should be one.

It doesn't really deal with shortages in the initial compact.

It largely did not quantify many Native American tribal water rights, which is also a big topic that needs to be resolved.

And then, of course, the fact that it is over allocated currently that is the biggest fight, right, is Colorado is a headwater state, in drought is very concerned about their allocation and the future growth here in Colorado.

It's kind of shocking that the 1920, 20 1922 law remains the law of the river.

And we've yet to really find an agreement forward.

So whether it is the federal government intervenes or these states hopefully can come to some solution, something needs to be done.

It sure does, Elvina.

Well, it's imperative that the states come to an agreement because we've seen how punitive this administration is and if they have to step in, we know he doesn't like Colorado.

What's he going to do to our water.

So I encourage everybody to talk about this issue.

It's a it's very old it's a justice issue.

It's an equity issue.

If it gets disrupted, we're talking about job loss.

We're talking about food supply.

We're talking about a whole economic disruption of our state.

No matter what part of the state you're in.

So it has to be a state solution.

It does.

And the the the the the US versus them.

We have to stop this.

We have to stop, in this case to Patty.

Think about it.

When this pact was approved in 1922, Arizona had only been a state for ten years.

So you didn't have vast golf courses.

You didn't have big green lawns.

You didn't have the kind of demand that was coming down.

You had basically something that was for human consumption just to live and agriculture.

And that's what people were thinking about the most.

And now that the governor of Arizona has the nerve to complain that the it's the upper basin people that aren't cooperating, when, as Chris pointed out, we're not using our full allocation.

We could go build some nice big dam, you know, over on the Western Slope and keep it all.

Not that anyone in Colorado is going to build a dam right now, but the fact that we are seeing this saber rattling out of Arizona, and we'll probably see it out of the other southern states in this project, isn't helping things.

I mean, we have shown we are willing to cooperate, even if it's against Colorado's own best interests.

So everyone has to sit down at the table right before Donald Trump just cut us off entirely.

All right.

How many of our elected leaders in Colorado had big weeks?

Governor Polis went before the joint budget Committee with his proposed budget for next year, and was met with a very chilly reception.

Mayor Mike Johnson's budget was rejected by the city council, but it will still be enacted.

We saw Representative Lauren Boebert in D.C.

being singled out and brought to the Situation Room at the white House, to go over the Epstein files and talk about that situation.

And then even at the hyper local level, the Douglas County School Board's final meeting went seven hours.

So where would you like to start, Adam?

I'm going to start with, city council.

Okay.

There is a formal former mayoral staffer.

It's something I've followed closely.

So, as you know, the mayor had his budget approved.

It's a $1.66 billion city budget.

It has a 6% decrease from last year's spending plan.

And it's arguably one of the more conservative budgets in the last couple decades for the city.

That overall city budget, just for context, is 5.4 billion.

So significantly more.

But remember, these are a lot of obligated funds.

These aren't sort of discretionary dollars.

Council voted 6 to 6.

The mayor approved the budget.

As many people know, we have a strong mayor form of government in Denver.

So at the end of the day, while the mayor can make concessions and accepted ten amendments and negotiated with council, he in the end gets to choose when the budget gets passed.

And this was his moment to sort of push on council and say, I'm proceeding.

There's a lot of questions around process.

Council has said the process was not sufficient.

The mayor's office countered and said, we answered 600 questions.

You now have a 200.

Excuse me?

$200 million budget hole and flattened revenue projections for the city and the disgruntled council.

So when I look forward, I think we're actively going to see Denver City Council attempting to take more power from the mayor, specifically around the budget, but also look at negotiations around the soccer stadium or the Broncos stadium or other things that the mayor may want.

I think council is not particularly happy with our mayor right now.

Yeah, I would think so.

Okay, Alvina.

I think it's kind of trickle down dysfunction.

I think people feel such a sense of uncertainty and dysfunction at the federal level.

It's just trickling down over and over again through city councils, through school boards.

It's just kind of this, whatever institution that is in front of you, there's just distrust.

And that's a problem because nobody knows who's looking out for them.

People are asking, who are the leaders looking out for me because there's so much distrust.

Distrust in the media.

Distrust in our institutions, distrust in our administrations.

And so it's just, it's a note for our leaders that they're going to have to get back on the ground and start kind of connecting with people and talking about why these policies matter and what they're fighting for.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You.

Well, I'm sorry to say, I think the turf wars, they're local.

They don't need to look at Washington's dysfunction.

So when you go to the mayor's office, for example, last week, I said I thought it was the vibrant bond vote was a referendum on how people felt about investing in the city, not how they felt about Johnston.

And we saw that again when the soccer when the soccer program went before the committee.

And they're not rolling over for what Mike Johnston wants.

So he is going to have to really continue to sell that to city council.

City Council has its back up, and that's going to continue.

By the same token, Jared Polis is not going to find it all easy going either.

We see what the JBC turn out, not really questioning his budget and certainly questioning the Medicare rollbacks and pinnacle, which we've been through before, privatizing pinnacle, making some money off it.

There's no guarantee that that's going to be a panacea either.

Of course.

Well, speaking about not rolling over, you mentioned Lauren Boebert.

She was called to the white House reportedly because her name was on a petition to release the Epstein files.

She has long cried for the Epstein files to be released.

And apparently she was brought to the white House to discuss it.

She said, why wouldn't I go to the white House?

I love the white House.

I appreciate their transparency.

I sat literally and watched TV last night to find out, you know, kind of the debrief of what went down and what position she would take.

And sure enough, she left her name on that petition.

The petition has gone through, and there's apparently going to be a vote next week about whether or not to release those files.

I found it highly interesting because she's always been a pure Trump supporter, in really a way that is makes me question loyalty to a person over loyalty to a district.

I guess we're going to sit back and see what falls out from this.

I'm I guess I almost brought popcorn, you know, say, we'll just sit and watch popcorn, but we'll see how this all pans out.

Okay.

A lot of the news this week also had to do with home ownership, including a report that says 40 is now the average age of a first time home buyer in this country.

And there is also local data to back that up that says millennials are not house hunting as often.

And this week, the president floated the notion of creating 50 year mortgages as a way to help people afford homes.

I mean, is it a way for people to afford homes, or is it a money grab for longer interest rates and higher interest rates for a longer period of time?

If you do the math, it's almost double interest that you're paying on a mortgage than you would in a 30 year mortgage.

So they're looking at affordability the wrong way.

It's holistic.

We have to talk about wages, meeting what people need.

We need to talk about the cost of health care, the cost of childcare.

It's, it's not one issue.

It's all of these issues.

And as long as corporations are not paying what people deserve, the people who are working and also want Snap benefits.

I mean, there's never going to be the right answer nobody will be able to afford.

And also, does that mean that more like local landlords will just buy up a bunch of properties and then rent them out because it can be an investment?

I mean, this is like a generational wealth.

It's just a bigger problem than a 50 year mortgage.

It's not going to solve anything.

It's going to line the pockets of investors, shareholders and banks.

And we have investors from out of state already doing that exact metro.

Yeah.

Putting yes, driving up the prices.

So the 50 year mortgage is not the solution to this.

The other thing we have to look at, though, whenever you see these kinds of surveys, is we also have a different world right now.

And people in that generation are not out there to create the nuclear family.

You have you have the birthrate dropping.

You have people not getting married as young.

So the demand is different.

A lot of people just like renting.

That doesn't mean they should have their prices be gouged.

let me push back though Patty, because is the reason why like this generation isn't that way.

Because it's so far out of reach because of the, the cost of childcare and health care and building a family.

Like is it so far out of reach for them.

It's not even in their mind set anymore.

I think it's both.

And that's why if you want to talk about polling, that's really what we need to have is see what are people thinking about?

Is it, you know, they're the people who say, I don't want to bring children into how uncertain the world is.

It's not money.

It's just looking at the interna Chris well it's interesting, there's a HUD report that came out recently that says that the current way that affordable housing is being handled right now is actually dissolving the nuclear family and, and leading to people leaving and living single lives.

But you know I want to push back on the 50 year mortgage with you.

I'm not necessarily in favor of it.

I'm not necessarily against it.

I'm not quite sure.

And here's why.

Lower monthly payment with a 50 year mortgage.

More affordability for people you know that haven't gained some wealth in life.

Yes, you are building less equity, but you are still building equity.

Does it make sense for somebody who's maybe 25 or 30 to be able to get into a home?

That is, if they could be approved for that 50 year mortgage at a higher rate, and then somewhere within five years, ten years or something like that, refinance.

Just a question.

I have now someone my age.

Perhaps the 50 year mortgage isn't great because I don't know if I could get that paid off in time.

I am in my second home and I have a 30 year mortgage.

I would not see myself in a 50 year mortgage.

However, my plan for my 30 year mortgage is to eventually refinance and perhaps take on a 15 year mortgage.

So is it a foot in the door mechanism?

Maybe.

But there are also other implications but if it gets somebody in the door where they can't get in the door right now, maybe it's good.

I would love it for my kids to buy a home much younger than I was when I bought my first home.

I was in my 50s.

Okay, so do some math.

Okay.

All right.

And, Adam, you know, trying to clarify the housing market, which is a microcosm of larger market trends and issues I think could be really confusing.

For anyone who's kind of looking at all this data.

So I tried to sort of solidify a few the things that I think and our firm thinks this may kind of mean and what we're watching.

So the slower growth of the flat prices suggests the market may be stabilizing or correction, but not necessarily a rapid appreciation.

So something to watch is kind of will the market suddenly shift to what could be a a market trend that's based more on kind of the prices we've seen historically?

We know high mortgage rates continue to keep buyers sidelined.

So even if home prices are going down until rates go down, you're probably not going to see people scrambling to jump into the market.

The longer term loans with the 50 year, I think it's such new terrain that we don't really know yet what it means.

It could lower monthly payments, but then you'd also have the trade offs, right?

You have slower buildup of equity, you have more interest paid over time.

And then, of course, you have uncertainty.

How will regulators treat someone with a 50 year mortgage versus a 30 year versus a lower mortgage?

You also have changes coming from the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau that could look at eligibility for who's able to get a mortgage, something that could also shift trends.

And then, of course, if the buyer demand remains weak and supply loosens, we may see a shift towards more seller concessions where people are coming to the table offering more incentive for home buyers.

These are trends we may see nationally.

They're also kind of looking more locally.

It is a wild time for this housing market, and I don't anticipate us getting a ton of clarity very quickly, but it should be interesting.

The other thing is Dodd-Frank, which was passed in 2010, would have to be changed.

And so there would be a whole process of approval and talking it through and figuring out structure and all of that.

So that Dodd-Frank was set up in 2010 following the the housing crisis.

And so nothing is going to change anytime soon.

I think it'll slowly shift.

If you're out there looking for a home, I don't know.

I can't say now's the greatest time to buy, but we don't know what the Fed's going to do.

Yeah.

With credit.

I would love to see rates come down.

I would love to refinance.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's go down the table now and talk about some of the highs and the lows we saw of this week.

We will start on the low note so we can end on a high please Patty start us off.

Well the continuing consolidation with the billionaires boys club of the media which is getting so nerve wracking when you lose so many local publications and now you're losing bigger media outlets.

We have the two senators from Colorado who unfortunately are arguing against allowing the Nexstar acquisition of channel nine technically and Channel Nine's owner Tegna, which would put Fox in charge of channel nine here in Denver.

It's just we don't need fewer independent media outlets or even just slightly independent media outlets.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission They have denied listening to the petition from Gunnison County Stock Growers.

So it looks like wolves are going to be on the ground somewhere in that area in December.

What a shame that they didn't even consider the petition.

And I listened to the commission and as to why they were not going to, they said it didn't fit with their policy of how they listened to, petitions.

And, that's really unfortunate because it's not responsive to the needs of the people in that valley.

The I just did an article for the fence post that got picked up for the by the Aspen Times, and the ranchers in Gunnison County do not feel that CCW is prepared for this introduction of wolves and per state statute.

CPD is supposed to provide the means to prevent and mitigate conflict.

Gunnison County ranchers do not feel like they're there.

Okay.

All right.

This week we really got our first glimpse into what I thinks could be one of the biggest fights this session.

Which is the governor presented to the JBC.

And much of his budget focuses on Medicaid reductions.

And there's a couple ways that that could play out.

The budget as it's made up, is really two large buckets of education and Medicaid.

The governor's plans to kind of take for Medicaid with some pretty serious reductions to the long term health care of this state.

So, the JBC wasn't thrilled.

I would say, to put it nicely, about the governor's budget.

So you can expect it to be a fight.

Okay.

All right.

I mean, you know, I serve on as a trustee on one of the universities here in our state and was disappointing is to see we just saw Columbia University sign another agreement with the Trump administration.

So the overreach and the intimidation tactics by this administration, I feel like it was I feel like every episode have a theme.

That's my theme this week, to make these universities and media outlets fill some kind of, agreement with them on what they're allowed to say and not to say it's anti-American.

Okay.

All right, now let's talk about something good.

Patty, I have several, but I'll just go with this one.

I had the privilege Wednesday night to speak to the Inc, the neighborhood group that's overreaching.

Neighborhood group for all of Denver, their 50th anniversary.

First of all, it's great that they've been going 50 years.

Wellington Webb spoke there.

He gave a wonderful speech.

I didn't, but it was really wonderful to see how Denver, which is a city of neighborhoods, how they all pull together and so many watch this show.

So thank you.

I was honored to do it.

Excellent.

Very good.

Chris.

Well, other than being, dubbed Little Miss Mary Sunshine of the Western Patty.

Thank you.

Patty.

We need a sash.

The aurora borealis has been amazing.

And not only seeing it yourself, but seeing all the many pictures on social media and people just rejoicing over this phenomenon.

And there also have been amazing sunrises and sunsets lately.

So just that, kind of that amazing side of creation has been really fun to watch.

Yeah, luckily my neighbors across the street took pictures both at night of the pink of my house, and then this morning at my house.

So I've got great pictures of my house with all that's background out of.

So I'm going to start with a negative statistic and then make it positive.

Okay.

So 75 to 80% of suicides are men.

November is men's mental health month.

And so I think it's just such a critical time for men who, as we all know, are usually not too keen to share their feelings, unfortunately, or talk about how they're doing.

Just a reminder to check up on your friends or your loved ones and just see how they're doing.

Thank you for mentioning that.

Thanks.

You know, I'm one of those annoying holiday people, and I started listening to holiday music, so I'm welcoming the season.

Well, cozy started this week as well.

It's full on.

All right.

And my high this week are our sports teams, right.

So the Avs and the nuggets are having super starts their seasons.

And then the Broncos are eight and two going into this weekend's big game against the Chiefs.

And then also our newest team Denver Summit FC, has surpassed 8500 season ticket holders ahead of the inaugural season, which kicks off in March.

So no matter what is going on anywhere right now, at least we have our teams to root for and to believe in.

Thank goodness for that.

Thank goodness for sports.

Thank you, insiders for joining us this week.

We so appreciate it.

Thank you for watching or listening along to our podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

I'll see you next week here on PBS 12.

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