The first day of spring is here.

But with temperatures in the high 80s, it's already starting to feel like the start of summer.

It's been one of those weeks where things feel a little bit off.

Thousands of employees at a major Colorado company walked off the job.

Flights were grounded.

Dia trains came to a halt there as well.

And then beyond Colorado, the rising tensions overseas are adding to that uneasy sense.

Nothing seems quite as it should be, which is why conversation matters.

Our insiders are ready to sort through all of that and then some.

So let's get started with this week's Colorado Inside Out.

hi everyone, I'm Kyle Dyer.

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

We have Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword.

David Kopel, research director with the Independence Institute.

Penfield Tate, Denver attorney and former state representative and state senator at the Colorado Legislature.

And Luigi Del Puerto, editor at the Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics.

Thanks to you all for coming.

It has been a week for Denver International Airport.

Spring break crowds, the longer security lines amidst the partial government shutdown and the power outage that triggered a 90 minute FAA ordered ground stop on Wednesday.

And Dia is under scrutiny from Washington and could lose out on millions of dollars in federal funding following a Denver City Council decision to scale back a Key Lime Air's presence.

That airline plays a role in federal immigration enforcement.

And now that dispute is also spilling into the courts, with the city and some of its leaders facing a lawsuit that, among other things, brings up that Key Lime decision.

Patty, where would you like to start this week?

A lot of turbulence at the airport Wednesday.

You think those officials must have been breathing a sigh of relief when the Excel power failure at the airport, which stopped the trains had the ground hold, was lifted about 11 a.m., and then just an hour or so later, this lawsuit hits You have the Park Hill Park decision and the land swap that was done with the west side and we know there were problems with that land swap because they had to add some acreage at the last second because of the fiber optics that they hadn't known was under the property, and it was done at the last second.

City council complained they didn't know about it.

So you've got the Park Hill Park issue, but more importantly, right now you've got Key Lime, which you've got Ted Cruz in the Senate saying, hey, we're pulling the FAA should pull 65 million in funding because the Denver City Council would not allow Key Lime to take a different space at the airport.

It still has a space, but it doesn't have the dedicated space it wanted.

So you've got the Key Lime issue on top of it.

And in Everett's lawsuit, Everett Martinez's lawsuit, there are specific references to this key Lime issue and warnings he'd given the city attorney's office.

So I think we're going to we have not heard the last of that.

We've not heard the last of delays at Dia, and we haven't heard the last of this lawsuit.

Well, as long as we're we're casting blame.

Let's let's go back to the source.

Denver Mayor Federico Pena, 1983 to 91, in my view, clearly on the finalist list for among the worst mayors of Denver ever, he's more responsible for Dia than anyone else and for the design decision to say, oh, we're going to have these concourses, that the only way you can get to them is on a train.

They could have built a backup power source for the airport.

And of course, that's the reason the trains failed, this week.

So there's a lot of bad design right from the start.

But then there's a lot there's lots of modern bad decisions, too, as, when the Denver City Council was refusing to allow Key Lime to lease additional space, that it wanted Denver City Council member Sarah Parody, And she said, yeah, there's a provision in these in those grants that says we can't treat different carriers differently.

But she was more concerned, she said, about the deportations in Colorado.

And that's fine if that's what she wants to make the point.

But if you want federal money, then you got to comply with the federal nondiscrimination provisions.

respectfully disagree with my colleague.

If Federico Pena will go down in history as one of the greatest mayors Denver's ever had, notwithstanding the fact that he was my former boss.

But I think that's just the way history will recall him.

the crux of Everett Martinez's lawsuit, from what I've read, is that as an attorney, I followed my ethical obligation, which is to give a client advice and tell them what the consequences are of different decisions you make.

Then, as the client, you get to make the decision.

But as the attorney, I then have an ethical obligation.

If I feel that what you're doing is either illegal or wrong, I get to step back and say, it's your call.

You get to do what you want to do, but I'm not going to do it.

And his lawsuit, what it recounts is he told the city, you can't do this.

Make this decision with regard to Key Lime Air, because your decision has to be based on safety and soundness and some other issues, which is why in the post report today, it now further explains that he was told after the fact to initiate an investigation of Key Lime so that not giving them the contract would fall within the parameters of what's permissible under the FAA grant.

Now, the park Hill golf course situation is something different.

And everybody knows I'm part of S.O.S.

Denver, so that that's near and dear to my heart.

If this gets unraveled based on allegations that the city did not fully and properly disclose the terms of the deal to the FAA, resulted in the FAA approving the deal based on flawed, fraudulent or incomplete information.

The mayor's office has a major issue because the neighborhoods will go berserk if that's what happened.

The thing about, the council is that they knew about this.

In fact, one of the council members said, yeah, we knew it's a potentially $90 million revenue loss, but we're going to do this anyway.

There's a medicaid fraud investigation that's happening.

There are lawsuits all over the place.

We are already a target for the Trump administration, Ted Cruz coming in and saying, yep, we're going to investigate you, too.

And by the way, the last number I saw was Dia, is allocated or has is set to receive about $1.7 billion in federal grants.

All told, 875 million of that already been allocated.

there's a lot of money on the line and the city council, despite knowing all of these things, said, we're going to do this anyway.

Okay.

We'll see how this all sticks out.

All right.

At the state Capitol, lawmakers have reached the crossover deadline.

That's when bills are expected to have moved out of the chamber where they were first introduced, as am I right, Kevin?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

He's the expert over there.

The focus now is on what the state can afford with our major budget shortfall in terms of our budget.

And the legislators are also looking at redesigning some of the, the laws that are already on the books and making some tweaks and revising them.

So, David, let's start with you.

when sports gambling was legalized in Colorado, the voters said 90% of the money goes to the Colorado Water plan, which is for conservation, drought mitigation particularly important.

It's not nearly enough, but at least it's something.

And now there's this anti sports gambling bill, that's going to significantly reduce the revenue we need for that.

The Senate sponsor, Mat Ball, said that over 60% of high schoolers reported betting on sports in the last year.

Not so.

he's inflicting all this harm on Colorado revenue based on completely bogus facts.

There is a lot of concern, though, that I mean, it is so popular now, the online betting since we started, since voters approved this years ago.

And there is the concern that maybe needs to be reined in.

You say, well, sure.

There's some things in it, like you could say you can't add money to your account more than five times a day.

Yeah, fine with that.

But this is, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

You could make some small, small improvements, without going after a third of the business.

Okay, we'll see what happens, because it did advance this week, so we'll see then.

The legislature's got to probably make up a gap between 1 billion and 1 billion and a half.

The state budget is crafted typically in March and April, based on a series of estimates done by legislative staff over a 1 to 3 year horizon.

But when a federal administration changes and the way they fund cities and states changes, that's not something you can anticipate.

And expect.

So there's going to be some shared pain for everybody.

A lot of people's favorite programs are either going to get eliminated or significantly reduced.

And as a former budget committee member, you have to ask yourself, how skinny can you make a program after you cut so much?

At some point you just got to say, well, for the next year or two, we're not doing this at all.

It doesn't make sense to put $10,000 in a program because you can't get anything done.

That's where the the the legislature is now changes to Medicaid and other federal programs.

After you had already made a decision to do certain things, simply compound the problem.

And that's what we're watching them grapple with.

Now, Let's talk about one program in particular.

The program that provides for health care for, undocumented immigrant pregnant women and children.

It was supposed to enroll about 3000 people, and the estimate was $27 million a year.

Guess how much it's actually costing the state.

The enrollment is around 27,000.

It's costing the state 130 million.

Okay.

Second question.

How many of these estimates had been wrong over the years?

Free school lunch program, big miss, free, kindergarten.

Big miss, and now you're looking at a medicaid program that is, according to reports, beset by fraud, And the question is, who is watching these things?

Who is asleep at the wheel?

Who is accountable?

Where is the oversight?

You have legislators that make all these decisions.

Of course they're reacting.

But now it's a really big problem.

Patty I'll take it back to where David was in 2019 when that sports betting was passed by voters.

It was a sweet deal for the casinos and for those who are going to make money off at the the tax rate was very low considering what they could have had.

And it was great that the money went to the water plan.

It would be nice, especially now if more of that money went to the water plan.

So to now take away some of it for specious numbers doesn't make sense.

I mean, if you want to look at the tax rate for that sports gambling, that would be the thing to look at instead of just giving the money to some vague programs.

Speaking of programs, last week we talked about the extra tax on marijuana and alcohol in order to to set up a treatment program in Aurora that was voted down.

So that's off the table.

Now, what is back in play?

It sounds like a good compromise right now is at least they've come up with something on the I issue, which has been a big problem passed in 20 2024.

They were trying to figure out how to fix it.

Now it looks like there might be a fix, so it could be one of the happy outcomes at the legislature where there's a lot of sad things being done.

Yeah, Colorado voters are going to decide two measures this November related to the transgender debate.

signatures that were put on petitions to get on the ballot were validated this week.

So it's a set that they will be on the ballot at the same time.

Jeff, Jeffco Public Schools is facing a title nine discrimination complaint for allowing transgender students to have access to female bathrooms, to locker rooms, to girls sports and overnight trip accommodations.

If the, the district has to, I think, decide by next week if they're going to comply.

So far, Jeffco is saying, no, we're not going to comply with the Department of Education.

And they again, could, you know, lose some funding over this.

the fundamental problem with this in my mind is number one, change in federal administration change in emphasis on what federal programs are.

But number two, This concept of reverse discrimination, this country has never come to grips with the fact that it was founded on the reliance economically on slavery, and many laws like title nine, were intended to remediate the effects of intentional and legal conduct that damaged particular populations.

And so for the Trump administration to now, in my opinion, weaponize title nine and say, oh gee whiz, even though it was something that was enacted to ensure equal funding in sports for women and a host of other things, now they're flipping it around and saying, well, now it's discrimination.

If you treat members of the LGBTQ plus community as something that, from our perspective, is not consistent with their biological gender.

I think that's a stretch in something far afield.

And so does the federal judge, who has initially ruled that Jeff Coe's policy and program complies with law and is fine.

and the federal government is making an incorrect argument.

Luigi, what are you watching this issue.

I think that there's probably at least a dozen really major ballot measures that are going to be on the November ballot, including tax proposals.

It's going to be a pretty lively set of proposals.

And, I think we're going to have some pretty big fights, including these two measures on transgender issues.

One has to do with girls sports.

Yes.

And the other about, operations and gender changing operations and and.

That's right.

And and, you know, the Trump administration have been very clear from the get go that they don't want, surgeries for minors.

And the Trump administration is saying, yeah, I think the word that they use is mutilation of chemical, and surgical mutilation of children.

Now, whether you agree with that or not, the fact of the matter is the Trump administration has said if you are receiving receiving money from the federal government and you have any of these things that we don't want or is anathema to his priorities, whatever, whether you agree with them or not, the funding is going to dry up.

And now Colorado voters will have a say.

That's right.

Yeah.

I'm putting.

One.

We've seen some funding dry up, not for surgical procedures, but just treatment in Children's Hospital.

And Denver Health has been concerned about it.

Just dealing with the transgender youth even outside of surgical issues.

So this will help decide some of it at one level, but only the most severe actual surgery on minors.

The other issue involves sports and women's sports.

And to go into mostly women's sports.

It doesn't go the other way very often.

But to repeat what Penn said, the difference title nine made for women girls to get into sports and the kinds of lives they could have.

Your daughters are very active in sports.

It made such a huge difference and I think in the federal election in 2024, definitely the what the transgender sports issue did play, it brought people out around the country.

Will it bring people out in Colorado?

I think this is much more a live and let live state.

So I'm not sure it's going to make that much difference at the vote.

What do you think?

Let's talk about the the ballot initiative.

Getting on this is probably the greatest grassroots initiative signature gathering campaign in Colorado history.

They needed 124,000 signatures.

They got 169,000.

Only 10% of those were paid.

The rest were collected by over 3200 volunteers.

So it was well organized.

They didn't spend much money, but they have there's there's a lot of grassroots energy in support of this And everything said about title nine is true.

It's been huge for women participating in sports, and that means women's sports need to be women's sports and or girls sports and not coed, because males have the advantage.

They have a physical advantage that you can document starting in early grade school.

It accelerates after puberty.

and males should play in a male league where they would not have an unfair advantage over the females.

Okay.

The Jeffco, matter.

I think that the investigation by the US Department of Education said that 60 or 61, positions on girls sports teams are occupied by students born biologically male.

Okay.

And then those numbers are refuted also.

I mean, Jeffco claims they don't track it, so they don't know how the US department came up with these numbers.

And in fact, you're right, UPenn, Jeffco, not only, in addition to that, Jeffco also said, nope, you're absolutely wrong.

Meaning the feds are absolutely wrong.

Okay.

All right.

Right now in Colorado, both parties are in the middle of picking candidates through for the primaries in June, through caucuses and assemblies.

But it hasn't really been entirely smooth.

Democrats had some huge tech issues with a new voting app at their caucuses, and Republicans are dealing with a looming leadership change as their party chair is stepping down in four weeks from now.

Luigi, what does this tell you about where our parties are headed?

It also seems so unsettled.

you know, at the Denver County Democratic Party caucus, they had, they actually chose an app that's really not an elections app.

And so it crashed.

It could not accommodate, you know, the deluge of votes.

And so it crashed and they had all sorts of problems.

And then the Republican Party, what what do I say?

And I mean, this party has been having problems for kind of ever.

And, you know, I used to be Dave Williams, and now we have Britney Horne, who received a no confidence vote, you know, a couple of days ago and, realized that, she could not unite the party.

And I think it's really, you know, up to the, Republican candidates to figure out the way to break out of that mess.

And, the primaries, are happening in June.

I think it's clear that to a certain extent, the race for governor and the other statewide races are likely going to be decided in the Democratic primary this June.

Okay.

It's interesting that there going to be some congressional areas that you wouldn't have normally thought would be in play, and they look like they're going to be a lot more interesting this election season.

It'll come after the primary.

But in Denver, if you are trying to make people understand that we have the gold standard for elections and election deniers are wrong, it would really have helped if the if the Assembly went better, it was, what, ten hours for some for people to vote?

In some cases I think that was the most significant thing to come out, that they need to work on the software, they need to work on the issue.

There were talks about Diana DeGette getting trounced, by one of her competitors, Wanda James wasn't there.

And I think a lot of that just reflects you can if you are young, enthusiastic and have a good grasp.

Grassroots team, you can get out and really do well at those places.

But that doesn't mean you'll do well in the primary.

Yeah, no it won't.

The challenger to do get, is 26 years old, 24, 28.

Yeah.

First time.

So Diana's been in office as long as she's been born.

Okay.

All right.

Well, Look at the challengers website.

It's not enough to talk about protecting choice.

We need to guarantee it.

And that's sort of her whole shtick is, oh, all these old people, they just sit around and take corporate PAC money and they never accomplish anything.

But it's obviously false in regards to Diana to get in the 1990s, when her opponent was, awfully little Diana to get as a Colorado state representative, and by the way, the successor to my dad's seat in the state legislature.

With his endorsement, she authored the state's bubble bill to create a protective zone around abortion clinics so that, anti-abortion people couldn't go up and get in the face of patients going into the abortion clinic.

More recently, she has, in the US House led successfully efforts to repeal the, the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding from abortion, from House appropriations bills.

Diana DeGette has been the one has helped lead the House to pass the Women's Health Protection Act.

So you got a bunch of TV advertising and web web videos and, oh, I'm so young and energetic, I'm going to get something done versus someone who actually does get something done.

You know, the this political season is interesting.

And I agree with Louisa.

The the Republican and Democratic Party have two things in common.

Number one, neither of them gets technology, ever has understood technology and can't ever implement it correctly.

It just doesn't work.

And this is from a former Democratic state party officer.

It just never works.

Number two, and I think this is the more important piece.

There may be a subtle realignment occurring in both parties.

The Republican Party realignment gets talked about more.

It's this whole split between MAGA and, you know, what I would call the traditional Republican base.

But in the Democratic Party, what is happening in and I think it is illustrated in this congressional race, what they intend to get.

You have what I call sort of the far left progressive that is young and enthusiastic and for being young and enthusiastic, often very intolerant of dissenting or other points of view, pushing to the forefront to take over the party versus people who I would call more established, more moderate, who have actually have a track record of accomplishing certain things.

But I also want to talk about another political issue, and that's what's happening within Carr.

And I would simply offer this, the Trump administration is trying to dismantle in Carr and, you know, people may not believe in climate change.

You may think it's a voodoo science.

But all I know is this in the over 50 years I've lived in Colorado, it snows less than it ever did.

It's 80 degrees in March.

For real?

It doesn't rain as much as it used to.

And it's windier than it is now.

Than it ever was.

in Carr is the sort of institution we need.

I actually consider it part of a national security.

You've got to know what's going on with the weather and the environment around you to protect and prepare people.

And I think what's happening there, I'm glad these universities are suing.

But what I think what's happening to encourage the travesty.

Okay.

Let's go around the table now and talk about some of the highs and the lows we've witnessed this week.

We'll start on a low point.

Patty you said you had a lot to choose from.

Pick one.

the New York Times report and Cesar Chavez that came out people around the country to very fast to action, including Mayor Johnston, who rightfully said, we're going to change the name of Cesar Chavez.

Chavez Day, which had been replaced Columbus Day.

It's the last Monday in March.

It will still be a city holiday because they can't get rid of it without some legislation, but it is no longer dedicated to him much more.

The farmworkers union, Stanford professor Paul Erlich, passed away at age 93.

One of the most destructive human beings of the 20th century, he his six 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb, said that basically, humans are destructive and the fewer of them the better.

He said it was a certainty that 65 million Americans would die of famine.

He said it was a certainty that things are going to be so bad with too many people and not enough food that England will not exist in the year 2000, in the United States, in the Western world, his malignant junk science led many people to have no children or fewer children.

And in India, it led to Mao's One Child campaign, which included mass murder in the form of coercive abortions on tens of millions of people.

And he never admitted he was wrong.

Okay.

And I just got to say Iran, every day there's just another disgrace, there's another disappointment.

You know, you've got one high administration official quitting because he expressed his disagreement and it's publicly said we got no reason to be in war with Iran.

You have a president upset because the allies aren't rushing in to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and they basically told him what other presidents have learned.

You break it, you own it, and now he owns it.

Yeah, the snow packs are nowhere near where they're supposed to be.

The ice melt is peaking in some parts of the state, even as we speak.

And I don't really care about rafting, but I don't care about fly fishing.

And in the summertime, it's going to be a problem.

If the runoff is not going to be as well as it should be.

Okay.

Let's talk about something good please.

Patty 50th anniversary of the Denver March POW wow.

This weekend at the Denver Coliseum.

It's a great event.

It is.

Yes.

To elaborate on something Patty said earlier, the governor the legislature coming together to fix the terrible I lord there was enacted a few years ago and replace it with something sensible, which is if you're a consumer and I is making decisions about, you know, whether you do something or not, that has to be disclosed to the consumer.

Okay.

The Rachel B know, visiting professor program, Nikole Hannah-Jones was phenomenal this week.

Okay.

All right.

We are halfway through that.

The halfway point at the state legislature.

You can't see me.

I'm dancing in my head right now.

I can see I can tell you're tied to your ties.

Very happy today.

Yes.

All right, well, my high, of course, is that the NCAA basketball tournament is underway.

Growing up in a basketball family and raising some pretty devoted basketball fans, this is our happy time.

And I'm rooting for CSU and c, U.S.

women's teams who made it to the big dance.

But I also have to do a shout out to some other standout athletes we have in Colorado.

Congrats to Malik Jones and Brett Bolton, two Coloradans on the sled hockey team who took home gold in the Milan Cortina Paralympic Winter games.

That's five straight Paralympic gold for our Paralympic team.

Also shout out to Colorado's Noah Elliott, who earned both silver and gold in para snowboarding.

Our state had 14 Paralympians this year, so that's pretty amazing.

Enjoy all the sports this week and everybody, including the PIOs.

David, I'd surprise you to mention them in the Frozen Face Off final.

Thanks to our insiders for this week.

Thanks for Patty for being the Bobbsey twin with me or matching this week.

And for all of you watching at home or listening to our podcast, we appreciate you as well.

I'm Kyle Dyer, I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

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