Hi, everyone.

I'm Kyle Dyer and welcome to Colorado Inside out on this Friday the 13th of December.

Let me introduce you to this week's insider panel.

We have Patti Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword, David Kopel, research directo at the Independence Institute, Tyrone Glover, criminal defense and civi rights attorney here in Denver.

And and Thomas Tafoya, community leader and a former candidate for the mayor of Denver.

Two reports out this week confirm what many have felt Colorado's economic activity i slowing down, but by how much?

15 years ago, Colorado came in at number five in the country for economic growth.

In 2024 we're now at 41st in the nation.

Patti, those numbers are in an annual report from the late school of business at see You.

They say you know, we're still growing, but slow growth is what we're going to be doing now.

Well, slo smart growth doesn't sound bad We do not have the infrastructur for a lot more people right now.

It's a better idea to actually fix what we have and prepare.

I don't think taking a breather is a bad idea.

The other thing is the beading on the chest and woe is us.

It used to be that Colorado was cool on its own, not because we were wooing businesses here.

When you look at 2008 to 2011, I think we had more people moving here, more millennials, especially than any other city in the country.

Colorado was booming and it was they weren't coming here because they were being wooed by economic development enterprises.

They came because they wanted to live in Colorado.

And we need to retur to giving people a good reason.

One good thing that you saw in that report is that we are 49th in house price increasing.

So we're 40.

Thank God.

So people might actually be able to buy some houses.

Okay All right.

Optimistic like that.

David's laughing.

Well, you you could be a speechwriter for not only Governor Polis, but also Governor Newsom in California.

You've taken golden states that have are on the road to self-destruct action by bad government.

The Chamber of Commerce came out with a report this week saying that Colorado has become the sixth most heavily regulated state in America prevented the formation of 9000 new businesses in Colorado and cost 36,000 jobs, not for people who would have emigrated here with corporate welfare, but for the people who already live here.

Part of the problem is the our sclerotic, bloated state government.

Since 2008, the population in Colorado has grown by 20%.

But yet state government spending has grown, has grown by 200%.

The new great news is we're now fourth worst, fourth, worst for auto theft from being first worst.

But we didn' used to be in the worst at all.

So this is a dangerous state to live where we are grossly overtaxed and overregulated relative to the quality of government that comes.

So no wonder our economy's going downhill.

Well, all right, Kiran.

And I don't think that the stories that our economy is going downhill.

I agree with Patty.

It's slowing down a little bit.

And if you look at the actual report not the alarmist news coverage, they say that we're in a good place.

Anyone who's been her or was here before 2008 can tell you that from 2002 to 2023, things have been booming.

Right?

We've there's been cranes in the in the sky.

There's been people moving here by the loads.

It's been in this aggressive growth posture.

And at a certain point, you know, these sorts of things are cyclical.

We need to take a moment, let things slow down a little bit, get caught up, and I think it'll be nice when we're weathering things like that.

Some of the potential deregulation, tariffs, a high potential mass deportations to be in a place wher we're kind of getting caught up, getting our foundation nice and shored up, as opposed to always being in this aggressive growth, which is what we've been in for the last almost two decades.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My thoughts?

Yeah.

The millennial here who met so many new friends who moved here, I never thought I'd live in a city that people came to make it and then couldn't make it and had to go back home to live with their parents.

It's been tough.

I mean, from 2008 I think my rent was 550 bucks.

I was a teacher here in five points.

You fast forward to my friends who are struggling with three jobs to pay $2,000 a month.

It is a challenge.

I'll agree with that.

I looked at those numbers too, and I said, you know, good that the housing market is slowing down on the overall increase.

Permits are up, so who knows, maybe in a few years people will actually be able to buy a house.

I definitely have a lot of friends who want to have a house and they're thinking about family planning.

All of this is being connected to school closures, right?

The plus side, the Build back better initiative and just overall efforts, I think from the state and local governments, there's a lot to be invested in in infrastructure.

We're seeing Excel upgrade a lot.

We're seeing a new transformer stations that are going along with that.

And I would disagree with David.

I think, you know, we passed $5 billion transportation bill just a couple of years ago, up to 60, and that investment is taking place now.

And we're also investing in public transportation.

And our air quality, fo example, is not getting better.

So perhaps some of these regulations can take effect while we're growing a little less.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments regarding a proposed railway expansion that would allow containers carrying billions of gallons of crude oil to come into Colorado.

From Utah on their way to the Gulf.

The Uinta Basin Railway wa first approved three years ago with an Eagle County, teamed u with some environmental groups and sued, saying that the project and the approval process violates a law that requires federal agencies to look into environmental impacts.

Well, last year, an appeals court said, let's pause and now, David, this is before the Supreme Court.

Right.

And the this is not a state issue but a federal government issue, the same kind of thing of sclerotic overregulation.

The losers in this so far over this three year delay are the Indian tribes on their reservations in Utah, where they got pushed out of Colorado and other places, Utah, into a barren wasteland, which later turned out to have a whole bunch of fossil fuel reserves.

The issue is to build from their reservations an 88 mile spur to connect to the National Rail network so they can sell their oil into the national market.

But yet the regressive, who have a extreme religious fundamentalist opposition to the use of fossil fuel in any form, sued to prevent it.

And they said, and the D.C.

Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the federal law says not only are you supposed to tak into account and carefully study what's the effect of this 88 mile rail spur?

You know, is it going to be safe and all that?

but you're also supposed to account for things that the Surface Transportation Board has no power over.

Like with with more oil coming into the system, maybe more oil refineries will be built in Texas and Louisiana.

This looks like this will be a unanimous loss in the Supreme Court, Okay.

No decision probably till this spring or summer.

Tyrone?

Yes.

But I think what we need to concern ourselves with is just given the President from this court of making these big, swinging, encompassing type decisions, they could potentially gut the ability for some of these organizations, for these these regulators to reall consider the downstream impacts of some of these environmental projects.

And in an administration we know that is going to prioritize cutting federal budgets, and we know it's probably not going to come from Social Security or Medicaid or the military.

We're going to see it coming fro some of these large regulations and really sort of gutting the protections and the ability for the EPA to regulate the environment.

And so, you know, the concerns are valid that we are potentially goin to have, you know, billions of tons of oil going through Glenwood Canyon up and over Vail Pass, you know, every single day.

And with a big swing in deregulation, there are very valid concerns that we may be in a situation similar to what we saw with past financial collapses, job losses and potential environmental disasters.

If we just let the pendulum swing completely to the other sid as it relates to deregulation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's interesting that earlier David talked about corporate welfare.

I think many of these companies are Canadian companies, international energy companie that stand the most of benefit where the risk is borne by the local communities pollution.

And in particular, this case has to do with protecting the Colorado River.

recently.

We passed another regulation for railroad safety.

This is really important.

We don't have an Office of Rail Safety.

It is a safe form of transportation.

But when you're bringing hot, sticky crude oil, the implications for sensitive wildlife areas certainly of the Colorado River, but where I think the stories of a missing are the quadrupling of the amount of trains that will come through Denver every single day.

And when you work and live in the communities I grew up in, in north Denver, I'm right next to an intermodal interchange.

The main line and how our land use cod has allowed this booming growth to put peopl right on the edge of rail lines all through Denver.

This is an increasing risk.

It just is.

And from the work I've done on the safety committee we just released a report that's headed to the legislature and to the governor.

We don't have a great response system.

We're not prepared for these kinds of things that are happening When the worst derailments happen.

And so we have to find a way to do that.

I of course, I'm concerned about what the implications are to NEPA.

And I also hear and have had conversations with the tribal nation in Utah, in these other places, and they are exporting some now.

They want to export more.

I would disagre that it was a barren wasteland.

I think people lived there for thousands of years and found it to be a nice home.

And NEPA is the National Environmental Policy Act.

That's the law from 1970.

All right, Patti.

Well, speaking of effects, i Colorado, we have our Colorado Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, who did recuse himself last week.

So he did not hear this.

That's because he had ties to fill and choose.

And when you're talking about who stands to benefit from this rail yard railway going through, Phil Anschutz, who has trains among many other possessions, including the Broadmoor and the Denver Gazette and the Colorado Springs Gazette.

So it's a it's a fascinating issue because there's so much more involved than the actual smaller part of the legal arguments that David talked about.

But we remember when this proposal came up, it was when we were having some very, very bad train accidents around the country.

So for people to be concerned about NEPA, but also about their own backyard isn't a surprise.

Whether or not the Supreme Court justices will take that into account is that's pretty unlikely.

This week the city of Denver announced an idea to get rid of all parking minimums for new construction projects in the future, with the idea being that if we get rid of parking requirements, for one thing, we'll make housing cheaper to build.

Now, this is all in the very early stages in discussion, but what is happening in our existing parking lots, they are hotspots for crime.

Now, I'll start with you, Tyrone.

I'll address the crime piece.

Now.

I think it came out that a number of these vehicles that are being stolen.

Were.

Being ultimately offloaded and sold by the cartels to sort of enrich them.

Sort of the good news about this type of crime is it is economically driven.

This is an underground sort of shadow economy and market.

And there are ways, I think, to put real dents in these types of car theft crimes because they're economically driven.

And for there to be a good shadow economy there has to be a good market.

And when there's not readily available, easy to steal vehicle where the people stealing them are not getting caught or are getting caught, then they find somewhere else With the advent of the Internet.

And, you know, I think these criminal organizations being able to identify cities like Denver that have seen a lot of growt recently that are maybe not too hip on how to prevent auto theft, then they come here, they set up their operations, but as soon as it's no longer economically viable, they'll probably find a different city to really sort of operate out of.

I mean, if you look at cities like Houston or LAN or even places in California that have effectively regulated car lab, that you see huge decreases, 40, 50%.

You know, this really is a crime of opportunity.

And I think now that we are aware of it, it's going to come to pass.

Okay.

Well, I hope when they install these light that they point down, you know, I hope that they're energy efficient.

I mean, I think those are both important.

Nobody wants their stuff stolen.

Having been a person who's had a car, stolen a bike, stole motorcycle, stolen, like, yeah, nobody wants their stuff stolen.

Do you think better lights in parking lots will help?

Well, I drive like a Honda that people just hit with, like a screwdriver.

So, you know, that was like a 1990.

I think that was like a defect in the thing.

I mean, so a lot of that's education, right?

You know, as we're doing with parking minimums, these parking lots are going to probably be more expensive because they're goin to be more required for people.

But not everybody has to take transit or take transportation that way and could use transit instead, I suppose, if it's funded.

What I find really interesting about this is like I have heard for year and including running for mayor that like, yeah this is a cost to development.

I think I've heard numbers like $100,000 a parking spot if it's underground and a lot of that is connected to to some regulation.

Right now.

They're having this conversation at the state around de-watering permits they're called.

But basically you put a parking garage underground or you put an elevator shaft underground and they have to pump the groundwater out to protect the foundation.

Sometimes that groundwor for groundwater is polluted like so like the all the village sites or up in Commerce City, you may have uranium or pea farms or other like dr cleaner chemicals that we have to actually make sure that we treat before they go out.

And there's a cost.

If we just left it in the ground, it wouldn't be that way.

So, you know, whether or not the $100,000 a spot savings gets passed o to people with rent, unlikely.

It seems like to me.

Developers say we shouldn't have to build these.

It's going to lead to cheaper rents.

But when have we seen anyone in the last 20 years lower the rent?

That seems ridiculous to me and I still think they'll probably build some parking spots because we need that.

For people with accessibility and disabilities, people are still going to want that in their apartments.

But overall I will see if this has the muster to pass, I'm just not sure.

Denver tried a few years ago just around transit lines and they they couldn't get it done, so I'm just not sure.

Okay.

All right.

Well, deciding that developers don't need to put in parking lots, I guess, is one way to get rid of the crime in parking lots.

You just want to have them.

But to go to the issue of no parking minimum, if you were in an older part of Denver and those are the areas where you're seeing new buildings going u next to small build, small homes that may not have driveways, may not have alleys, may not have garages.

I certainly live on one of those blocks.

You're all of a sudden if you suddenly have a 2040 unit apartment building built on your block with no parking at all, no one's going to be able to get to their homes.

And that is one of the things we have to take into account.

We're luck when we can park on the street.

It is a right.

I understand that, but it's really something the city has to take into account, which is how do you get people to their homes, People sure, you want them to walk.

You want them to take mass transit, you want them to ride bikes.

But we live in Colorado for a reason.

And one of them is we want to be abl to go into the great outdoors.

And that's pretty hard to do if you don't have a car.

Yeah, it.

Is.

All right, David, your thoughts on this.

Patty has exactly the issue on the getting rid of the parking minimums.

There is on the one hand this utopian unrealistic idea that we're all going to live by transit hubs, you know and and nobody will need cars.

Well, that that works for some people who live in Manhattan or Hong Kong.

Maybe it's okay in Tokyo, but that's not how Americans in general not to mention coloreds, live.

I lived in Brooklyn and everybody had a car in Brooklyn which is a pretty dense place.

And when you take away the requirement that a responsible developer provide at least one parking space per unit, then you're basicall letting the developer free ride by jamming more of his new residents parking onto the streets wher there is not going to be room.

And it makes it harder for everybody else in the neighborhood.

Okay.

All right.

We are approaching one year from when ten gra wolves from Oregon were released into Summit in Green counties and a plan to reestablish the gray wolf population in Colorado.

There's been a lot of criticism of the program over the year and of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the agency in charge of the wolves and all the other animals in our state and in.

We're now hearing Governor Poli has also received some criticism for saying that the ranchers in Colorado are the ones to blame fo the high costs of this program.

It's just that the blaming and the the talk over this program is just accelerating.

Yeah, mean, it's had a bumpy rollout, there's no doubt to that question, both in the impacts to ranchers, but also the lost wolves that have lost their lives.

I mean, that's a natural part of life, I suppose.

But, you know, at the end of the day, as an indigenous person, I like this.

And the people I work with who helped support it, it' going to have bumps in the road.

Restoring, you know, apex predators is good for the overall ecosystem.

In particular, when you talk about the chronic wasting disease that is really dominating in the ungulate population all across the state of Colorado.

You know also a good opportunity to talk.

And I wear this pin with my bison on it here for the Colorado Parks Foundation at Mountain Parks Foundation.

But, you know, they own a herd and there are many herds that are owned and people have them as livestock.

But they're also now instances coming from Utah where we have wild biso who are entering into our state.

And so DPW is now talking abou how do we set up a designation to help protect them because they could just be hunted, they don't have livestock protections.

And so they're kind of in no man's land.

And for me, you know, coming from, you know, 150 years ago when we had schools stacked so high of the biso and we decimated the population to see them come back, and what that could mean for the ecosystem I think is really important.

And there's a bill coming i the next session to reclassify.

I well.

Bison Yes, exactly.

Okay.

All right, honey.

I think we will see a pause put on bringing in 15 more wolves right away to get the conversation a little more civil.

Certainly Jared Polis did not have to go after the ranchers as hard as he did.

These ranchers feel ver strongly about what's going on.

It's their livelihood.

But there's we also voted to bring back the wolves.

What, three out of the ten have been killed so far.

So I think we just need to have a little more conversation about it.

We don't have to bring in 15 wolves right away to comply with the law with what voters approved.

We just need a little time.

The plan is next month, January, Right?

Right.

And coming from Canada, which is interesting, where they want to cull the wolves because of what's happening to the caribou herds.

So you really se their huge issues at hand, but we just haven't done a good job of discussing it.

Well, besides discussing there's also the implementation and the policy administration chose to on this first round of wolf imports to get them from an Oregon pack that was already well known for a while for livestock predation.

That was a conscious choice.

Of course it was concealed from the public and now we're suffering the consequences.

We've had, I believe, 25 animals killed by wolves, you know, livestock killed by wolves.

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Staff has been sometimes hostile to compensatin the ranchers for their losses.

And that was the big promise.

So this is not an administration where you can have much competence in their management.

I agree with them that the wild bison would be swell.

This is not the administration that has the skill to to do that.

You know, bison were wiped out on the front range, actually, well before the gold rush began.

They were being wiped out by the 1840s, 1950s by Overhunting, by the Utah, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche.

So Colorado has a long record of irresponsible wildlife management.

Tyrone I would pus back and say it wasn't as though this administration had all of these various packs to pick from and just said, You know what, we're going to go with this Oregon one.

It was a real struggle to sort of figure out how to get this implemented on the timeline that the voters expected.

And it's been bumpy.

And yes, there has been a lot of back and forth and a lot of blame.

But, you know this was passed by the voters.

We owe it to the community.

We owe it to the voters to implement this, to make sure that the ranchers are compensated.

But this isn't some, you know, rogue lawmaker or a rogue corporation trying to get this done.

This is what the people of our state want to see happen.

And, you know, if there needs to be a delay to calm things down, that maybe should happen, but it should happen towards the end of this ultimately getting done, it being sustainable.

And for people who are losing out on their livelihood because of this introduction, that they're fairly compensated in short order.

And the people who would be affected by this next group of wolves have been notified t Is it Garfield Pitkin and Eagle Counties are where these next 15 wolves could be released.

So, okay, let's talk about some of th highs and the lows of this week.

We're going to start with the low point so we can end on a high note.

And I'm going to start with Patti.

I want to say goodby to Douglas County Commissioner Laura Thomas, who was kind of be in preparation for Commissioner Van Winkl coming in from the legislature.

They started carting her stuff out of her office early.

I know she watches the show.

She has been a conscientious commissioner.

And the way there, her goodbye has not been gentle.

Okay, David.

Senator Sonia Jack has Lewis, who was now on the court in her second round of massively abusing her aides by making them, for example, bartended her private parties or or maintain her garden.

And to the credit of both the outgoing and incoming Democratic Senate leadership, she's not going to have any taxpayer paid aides and B, she's not going to be on any committees.

Okay.

Expansion of some of the convictions that would disqualify someon from being in law enforcement, being a police officer, a bunch of misdemeanors that frankly, should have been on that list were recently added.

And I think that this comes on the end of a $350 million that voters approved.

I think this is a victory for law enforcement, accountability and integrity.

You know, going into it is hopefully a an era of more public confidenc in our law enforcement officers.

Okay.

All right.

My my little this week goes to Mayor Mike Johnston and his administration, who seems to be failing to implement environmental policies.

And that's part of why I ultimately ended up supporting him.

Waste no more the vote ballot issue that I helped write not being implemented.

We got paid to our trash, but now they're cutting back on our services.

That makes no sense.

We made progress on energize Denver.

He's acquiescing and does not bode well for our upcoming franchise agreement with Xcel Energy.

Okay.

All right.

Let's talk about something positive.

Putting $56.4 million worth of positive.

We had our 15th Colorado give charity fundraiser on the 10th, and it really worked out for thousands of charities.

Okay.

The man who really is the man of the year is Harvey A.M.E., the president of Argentina, who took office December 10th, 2023, with a country that was in crisis and has turned it around in a way that is inspiring people all over the world.

You had inflatio in that country running at 25% per month.

It's now down to 3% per month.

Employment's up.

The poverty rate has falle for the first time in 123 years.

The country is not running a budget deficit and there has been slashed regulations, eliminated lots of government departments get it, which in that case were a bunch of no show parasites in the first place.

And he's also doing great on expanding civil liberties, such as for the first time, Argentineans no having a right to a jury trial.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

I want to shou out one of Denver's most I think maybe nationally known muralists and artist Thomas Detour.

Evans.

You know, he's traditionally a muralist, but as my understanding, in January of next year, he's having a sculpture that's going to be in Concourse B at DIA.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

There's a great article out about him and always been a big fan of his work.

He is.

It's going to be all the different suitcases and suitcases like overhead.

Yeah, I can't really.

Call a different medium that he normally works in, but he's looking like it's going to be phenomenal.

And it's Concourse B. Concourse B.

Good.

Okay.

Good to know.

All right.

You know I want to shout out the outgoing Biden administration, in particular the tribal White House summits that they've had.

And Deb Haaland, who's been an inspiration to me and I think many others, the leadership that I've seen from tribal leaders in ecological restoration projects, taking advantage of the build back better to improve the infrastructure in tribal lands, which is clearly not been funded, and it has been exceptional.

And so I'm just really grateful for the friends that we've made through this administration.

And I hope for that These these leaders in these tribal nations continue to go on to do even bigger and better publi works projects for their people.

good.

I'm glad you brought that up.

All right.

To kind of go along with Patty Colorado Gives da this week is just so wonderful to see the generosit of the people here in Colorado.

And specifically, I will speak for a PBS.

Well thank you very, very, very much.

For those of you who donated, we exceeded our goals this year, which is amazing.

So we appreciate for all the work that we do that you support us And like what we do and want to get behind us.

So thank you very muc and thank you to the team here, not only on this table but everyone behind the scenes that is working for you each week.

I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

I hope you have a great weekend.

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