Happy Colorado Sunday, friends.
It’s summer and many of us are thinking about ways to get outdoors and enjoy the open spaces that make Colorado great, whether it’s sprawling out on a blanket in a city park or legging it through some piece of pristine forest. It is one of the real privileges of being in a state where something like 22 million acres are held in the public’s trust.
This week’s cover story, with reporting led by Michael Booth, takes a look at the U.S. Senate reconciliation bill that includes (ever-changing) plans to off-load a certain percentage of that public land with the goal of building housing, and maybe even new cities, adjacent to existing communities. No surprise, the proposal set off a fierce and interesting conversation in Colorado.
Dana Coffield
Editor
The Cover Story
Wait. This land is whose land?
Grand Junction is next to a large swath of desert identified as a possible site for a freedom city. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land,” in 1940, and the debate has rarely paused since.
Who’s the “you” in “your,” exactly?
A Colorado backpacker who would greatly prefer not to see her path crossed by a buzzing four-wheeler or a whining photo drone?
A coal miner or an oil roughneck looking for a decent, family-raising wage from public resources sitting deep beneath a national forest?
A salaried worker looking for affordable housing that’s not a 90–minute commute from jobs in Pitkin or Eagle counties?
A billionaire tech entrepreneur with a convincing argument that fast-tracked nuclear power on rules-light federal land is the solution to America’s energy and climate challenges?
Colorado and any Western state with vocal interest groups — all of them, then — are once again embroiled in heated conversations about what if anything should be done with the vast swaths of federal land dominating the landscape. An energized conservative faction of the GOP, now controlling Congress and the White House, wants to at least seriously consider selling off chunks for anything from housing to oil drilling.
A gaggle of nonprofits and venture capital interests, backed by those billionaires, are workshopping even more radical disposals that would set aside entire city-size parcels of current federal open land for entrepreneurs seeking growth without pesky regulation.
Take a Sunday pause with some thoughtful, opinionated folks from around Colorado and catch up on these fast-moving debates. And remember that the phrase, “It’s just sitting there,” can be shouted from both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, with very different meanings.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Michael Booth | Reporter
The Colorado Lens
Fish populations, and the species that make up those populations, are a challenge for fisheries biologists to gather data on. Surface observations are, well, superficial. So a wide range of techniques are used to accomplish the task, including traps, sonar devices, creel surveys and a wide variety of electrofishing devices used on boats, rafts, small floating barges and wands waved beneath the surface of creeks and streams. This week photojournalist Dean Krakel, who is also a seasonal Colorado Parks and Wildlife creel census technician, counting and interviewing people fishing from boats and the shore at Blue Mesa Reservoir, spent a day working on two fish inventories, one by boat on Blue Mesa near Gunnison and the other wading in tiny Coal Creek near Crested Butte.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife technicians Ben Cuppett, left, and Zach Heil, follow aquatic biologist Giulio Del Piccolo, down Coal Creek near Crested Butte on Wednesday. Del Piccolo was gathering data on fish found in a section of Coal Creek using electrofishing technology. Electrofishing delivers a small, harmless shock that stuns fish allowing them to be netted, weighed and measured. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun) Heil, left, Cuppett and Del Piccolo weigh and measure trout. Del Piccolo was gathering data on fish found in Coal Creek, a tributary of the Slate River. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun) Cuppett, right, and Del Piccolo motor across Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison during a fisheries survey. Fish populations and species varieties in streams and lakes are difficult to gather data on by surface observations so biologists use a wide range of techniques to accomplish the task. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun) Parked on the shore of Blue Mesa Reservoir, Cuppett, left, and Heil weigh and measure fish. The data gathered during the census will be used to better help manage the lake’s fish populations. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun) Cuppett releases a brown trout back into Blue Mesa Reservoir after it was measured and weighed. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)Dana Coffield | Editor
Flavor of the Week
You may find peace at the Creede Hotel. But not quiet.
The Creede Hotel and Restaurant has been a Main Street staple since the late 1800s, when Creede experienced a silver boom. These days, the owner must balance accommodating a swell of summer tourism with maintaining the historic integrity of the creaky old structure. (Parker Yamasaki, The Colorado Sun)Ed Vita, general manager at the Creede Hotel and Restaurant, is standing at the bar dropping spoons on the floor.
“Can you hear that?” he asks, pointing at a customer at the corner of the bar.
“Yep,” the customer responds.
Vita walks to the center of the room and drops another spoon. “How about that?”
“Yes.”
Sound mitigation is the next thing on Vita’s yearslong to-do list to renovate the old hotel.
The Creede Hotel has been around since 1892, a plaque on the outside of the historic building confirms, and its history is as full of booms, busts, upstanding patrons and checkered guests as the town itself. It was considered one of the fancier choices back in the day, when nearly 100 hotels popped up to accommodate trainfuls of eager tourists and silver prospectors traveling the Denver and Rio Grande Railroads.
The resident count in Creede has plummeted to around 250 from its early 19th century peak of around 10,000. But visit on a summer day and it feels anything but deserted.
Sitting beneath the Continental Divide Trail, the Colorado Trail and the headwaters of the Rio Grande, Creede has become a tourist haven once again. And though the historic hotel only has four guest rooms upstairs, the downstairs dining room and attached patio seating easily host the hundreds of extra folks who come through Creede in the summer, especially since renovating their kitchen three years ago.
“Call it the Starship Enterprise,” Vita said, gesturing around at the clamorous stainless steel countertops. “Or call it the million-dollar kitchen, that’s what it is.”
After the kitchen, the rehab moved onto refreshing the bar. What was once a 10-foot-long countertop at the very back of a dark, woody lobby is now home to a massive, glossy L-shaped bartop, with bottles lining two of the four walls. The only thing left in the bar upgrade is to install some sound dampening panels.
“We don’t want it to sound like the bar at Sturgis,” Vita said, gripping his handful of spoons. “We want it to be an old town bar.”
It might have been done by now, if only the second-story balcony hadn’t needed an emergency upgrade over winter, after two trucks — on two separate occasions — ran into the wooden columns holding the whole thing up. Vita watched it happen both times. The second time it happened the balcony wobbled, and Vita knew it would have to come down and go back up before summer.
When I visit on a Sunday in early June, the outdoor seating is full of folks enjoying an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet. A guitarist plays on a stage outside. A local musician who goes by JT Bass sits at the bar, prodding Vita to let him play a set.
Vita won’t give in. “You’re too loud,” he says.
Parker Yamasaki | Reporter
SunLit: Sneak Peek
“Prairie Oasis” bends an ear to local creatures’ lives and conversations
“Which way is south? I’ll follow the rainbow. Here I come, my flock! You thought I was lost. Never! Only 3,672,417 wingflaps to go.”
— From “Prairie Oasis” in the anthology “The Alma Journal”
EXCERPT: During Anita Mumm’s week in a writing residency on the Eastern Plains, she took long walks and focused on the nonhuman life around her. The result was her entry in the Colorado Book Award anthology finalist “The Alma Journal.” With keen imagination and humor, she shares the thoughts and conversations among seven lives she encountered on her strolls. A variety of other artists and writers also contributed their thoughts and observations of the rural landscape.
READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Mumm describes her connection to the Eastern Plains growing up in western Kansas, as well the advantages of having a lot of quiet time during the residency to reflect on an underappreciated region. Here’s a slice of her conversation:
SunLit: What do you want readers to take from your piece?
Mumm: While my stories are lighthearted, I hope readers will sense an underlying theme of humans and other species coexisting as part of the same biodiverse community.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH ANITA MUMM
LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST WITH THE WRITER
Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
Walker Monfort got a big promotion in the Rockies front office last week. Cartoonist Drew Litton imagines what’s in store next for Colorado’s MLB team. (Drew Litton, Special to The Colorado Sun)? Jennifer Brown did a records request and learned the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has demanded detailed information about Colorado’s spending on programs that provide medical care and insurance coverage to undocumented immigrants.
? Along the same vein, when a state Labor Department boss sued after Gov. Jared Polis ordered him to provide the feds personal data about people providing care to unaccompanied minors in Colorado, Jennifer Brown was curious about how many immigrant or refugee kids are in this form of foster care and who is looking after them.
? And for the record, a judge Thursday said the governor cannot compel the Labor Department to comply with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement subpoena seeking that data about 35 Coloradans. Taylor Dolven was there for three days of courtroom testimony focused on whether complying with the request violates state law intended to protect immigrants’ privacy.
? The Colorado Springs man accused of throwing fire bombs earlier this month at people demonstrating on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder for the release of hostages held by Hamas faces 12 federal hate crime charges, Olivia Prentzel reports. On Friday, he pleaded not guilty to them all, though investigators say he told them he intended to kill the 20 people participating in the weekly demonstration.
? Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last week announced the roadless rule protecting about 30% of U.S. forest lands would be rescinded. Michael Booth learned later in the week that she had assured Gov. Jared Polis the rollback would not apply in Colorado and Idaho, which developed their own roadless rules.
? Good news! The startup scene in Colorado is back and, as Tamara Chuang reports, getting more vibrant than ever.
? Could AI make the judging of sports competitions more fair? Olympian and entrepreneur Jeremy Bloom thinks so. Jason Blevins has the details on a system pioneered for the X Games that Bloom hopes to export to other sports and has big plans for how it can be spun up to improve commentary during events.
? A deal to move control of a very valuable Colorado River right from Xcel Energy to the Colorado River Water Conservation District seemed all but done. But Front Range water utilities are trying to stop the Shoshone deal, telling Shannon Mullane that it’s a threat to their ability to keep the taps open for millions of their customers.
? Elbert County is standing firm in its opposition to Xcel Energy’s plan to run a leg of its 550-mile Power Pathway transmission loop through the center of the rural county. Mark Jaffe checked in with people who are already being sued for eminent domain along the route.
? If you head down to the 2025 Pride parade in Denver today, please know that participation is an “act of resistance” in the face of rising threats against LGBTQ people, the event’s sponsors at The Center on Colfax told Olivia Prentzel.
Dana Coffield | Editor
Thanks for spending a bit of the morning with us, friends. Here’s hoping what remains of the first official full weekend of summer is great and that you all remain safe and un-singed over the July 4 holiday. We’ll see you back here next week!
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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