From Stage 2 fire bans across Summit, Grand, and Pitkin counties to Cañon City’s scramble to redirect million in pool taxes, this week’s High Country Advocate covers budget battles, housing shortfalls, and community flashpoints across Colorado’s mountain corridor. Full coverage inside Buena Vista School Board, State Mandates, and Data Center Money: Readers Speak Out Did the Buena Vista School Board skip its own rules to push through a Pride Month proclamation? Who is really behind the AI data centers targeting Colorado communities? And who pays when Denver mandates without funding? This week’s readers and contributors have answers — and they’re…
This will be the last publication until August. The editor has made to many trips to the ER recently and now has upcoming doc appointments. The decision has been made to put HCA on hold until August. Meanwhile, the Editorial Board will spend this time working to make HCA a better newspaper. As always, we accept your advice on what to do. Then we either ignore it or not accept it. Editorial Board editor@highcountryadvocate.com
Colorado votes Tuesday, and the Old Man has a message for every unaffiliated voter: pull a Democratic ballot. Not because he’s changed — he’s voted conservative since Reagan — but because stopping the DSA in the primary matters more than party purity for one day. The France piece traces the Muslim Brotherhood’s documented, staged takeover of French neighborhoods — a classified report Macron locked in a drawer until it leaked. At the Elbe River in April 1945, American and Soviet soldiers met for the first time. Part one of a three-part series. And garlic. Allicin, cedar oil, opossums, and Sirach…
Three community voices and one investigative contributor weigh in on issues drawing fire across the High Country this week. In Buena Vista, the school board’s June 22 Pride Month proclamation has drawn procedural objections from two readers. Brian Edward O’Connell, Commander of Squadron #55, argues Board President Casey Martin bypassed Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure — a proclamation requires three months of vetting before ratification, not thirty days. A second reader makes the same case, adding that the rushed process ultimately disrespected the very community it claimed to honor by denying it due process. From Colorado Springs, Jeany Rush puts AI data centers under the microscope. Her research traces Raeden Company — seeking to site a facility in the Garden of the Gods corridor — back through its backer WVV Capital to a web of corporate partners including Foxconn, Johnson Controls, and Northwestern Mutual. Her central question: who is really driving development decisions in Colorado communities, and are local officials getting straight answers? Vince Phillips documents the cost side of state overreach. Chaffee County’s budget has more than doubled in a decade, driven in part by Denver mandates on wildfire codes, child welfare, body cameras, and energy rules — requirements…
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost falls each year in late June or early July. The fire of Pentecost is five weeks behind the congregation. The long green season stretches ahead until Advent. Both Catholics and Missouri Synod Lutherans mark this Sunday in green — vestments, altar cloths, the sanctuary itself. Green represents growth, both of the Church as it expands and of each member as they become more like Christ. It is the color of a season defined not by a single feast or event, but by the steady, unspectacular work of living the faith out. Catholics call this period…
Stage 2 fire bans across Chaffee, Summit, Grand, and Pitkin counties to Cañon City’s scramble to redirect $2 million in pool taxes, this week’s High Country Advocate covers budget battles, housing shortfalls, and community flashpoints across Colorado’s mountain corridor. Full coverage inside. FIRE DANGER Chaffee, Summit, Grand, and Pitkin Counties Declare Stage 2 Fire Restrictions Ahead of July 4th Chaffee, Summit, Grand, and Pitkin counties all escalated to Stage 2 fire restrictions in the final week of June, banning open fires and fireworks sales ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. Chaffee County has a total fireworks ban, Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin told commissioners the county showed worse conditions than neighboring counties on state fire maps. Summit commissioners approved Resolution 2026-47 unanimously without discussion, while Pitkin cited five regional ignitions in seven days — four of them human-caused. MONEY & BUDGETS Cañon City Exits Pool Project, Forms Committee to Redirect $2 Million in Collected Taxes Cañon City Council formally exited the Fremont County Recreation District pool project in June after the district also voted to abandon it — leaving up to $2 million in collected sales tax without a purpose. Under TABOR, the city must ask voters to redirect…
Colorado’s June 30 primary arrives with four federal lawsuits circling Secretary of State Jena Griswold, $3.5 million in dark money working both party primaries, and New York’s socialist sweep fresh in every campaign manager’s memory. Peter Bernegger’s federal civil rights suit, Bernegger v. Griswold, alleges Griswold’s own deputy presided over a complaint targeting Griswold’s office — and introduced a sworn declaration Bernegger never saw until the ruling issued against him. A court order requires an amended complaint by July 25 or the case is dismissed. The RNC filed a separate suit June 26 alleging Colorado registers voters who have never lived in the United States, citing more than 100 such registrations in Douglas County alone. North Carolina struck down an equivalent statute; Michigan upheld theirs. Colorado TRACER filings show the same donors — Kent Thiry, the Denver Metro Chamber, Colorado Advocates for Rural Electrification — writing checks to both the Democratic and Republican primary intervention committees simultaneously. A quarter million dollars from sports betting companies landed in the Republican operation. One Main Street Colorado, which discloses no donors, funded both sides through layered committees. Three DSA-backed candidates swept New York congressional primaries Tuesday. Colorado’s Julie Gonzales carries the same platform…
Vince Phillips continues his Colorado Elections series with four new installments that drill into the structural weaknesses of the state’s mail-heavy voting model. In #25, Phillips documents that Dominion scanners in Chaffee County produced official ballot images with blank ovals removed — a serious finding, since Colorado law determines voter intent from the image, not the paper ballot. He also notes that over 100 write-in ballots for Chaffee County Clerk went uncounted and his request…
Three federal firefighters died Saturday in a Mesa County burnover on the Snyder Fire — single-digit humidity, 45-mph gusts, and fuel moisture below eight percent grounded air support and cut off their escape. The Snyder Fire now covers 28,000 acres at zero percent containment. On Capitol Hill, House leadership pulled H.R. 9237, the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, from the floor June 25. The DAV and VFW rejected cuts to tinnitus and sleep apnea ratings used to fund the Major Richard Star Act — a benefit owed to 54,000 combat-injured veterans. No reschedule date is set. In federal court, the Second Amendment took a split. The Fifth Circuit ruled June 18 that suppressors are constitutionally protected arms. The Ninth Circuit ruled the opposite fifteen days earlier. The same criminal statute, two irreconcilable answers — now a formal circuit split for the Supreme Court to resolve. Gold fell to $4,081 per ounce, down $1,516 from its January high, after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held rates and raised inflation projections. Markets now price an 80-percent chance of a December hike. The DOJ’s California election fraud push produced zero charges and eleven consecutive court losses in its voter roll campaign — the…
The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding is eleven days old and already broken. Iran struck the cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely in the Strait of Hormuz June 28, U.S. Central Command responded, and a second Iranian drone hit the M/T Kiku hours later. The technical talks that were supposed to begin after the June 17 signing have not started. The 60-day clock on Iran’s nuclear status, enrichment stockpiles, and sanctions relief is running with nothing resolved. In Venezuela, twin earthquakes on June 24 killed at least 1,450 people and left nearly 69,000 unaccounted for. U.S. Marines delivered disaster supplies at La Guaira Port on June 27 as international rescue teams worked past the 72-hour survival window. Venezuela’s government blocked more than 200 websites in the immediate aftermath, drawing a United Nations rebuke. Ukraine struck the Russian missile plant that builds Iskander-M launchers and set two oil refineries ablaze over the weekend. Occupied Crimea declared a fuel emergency, suspending civilian gasoline sales. In Britain, Trump posted Keir Starmer’s resignation before Starmer announced it. Andy Burnham is the only declared successor; if no rival reaches 81 MP endorsements by July 16, he becomes prime minister by July 17. The Trump administration expanded Cuba…
High Country Advocate — Votes Have Consequences Series, launching August 2 Colorado didn’t change overnight. It changed one vote at a time, in a building most people never visit, recorded in documents most people never read. The High Country Advocate read them. 2018: Divided Government — The Last Year of the Check In 2018, Republicans held the Colorado Senate and Democrats held the House. Neither party could run the table. The result was a session that produced 39 bills the High Country Advocate classifies as Bad — legislation that expanded government, raised costs, imposed mandates, or restricted individual rights. Even in a divided legislature, the record is not clean. Every Colorado resident who registers a motorboat or sailboat was handed a new mandatory fee — adjusted upward by the Consumer Price Index annually, with no reduction allowed. The Department of Education had its spending fund converted to a permanent self-appropriation, removing annual legislative oversight entirely. The state opened a mandatory data pipeline from government EMS databases to private health information networks — meaning every Coloradan who has ever called an ambulance now has their patient records feeding into third-party systems without their consent. Landlords were handed new mandatory documentation requirements.…
The resignation letter follows. Good evening, I am going to start out as is our culture in our district with some positives. Over the past 3 years we have had around 50% of our high school graduates, graduate with a 3.5 or better GPA. I would say that shows that our school system is doing a good job getting our kids educated. Is there room for improvement, of course, and in one of the masters classes that our Superintendent held last summer, it was pointed out by schools across our S-CAP sphere, that one of the features that stands out for our school is that improving is part of our school culture. Our superintendent was the runner up for the Superintendent of the year last year, and is known across the state as one of the most innovative in the state, with accolades such as being on the development team that actually created and set up the S-CAP accountability framework, and more recently developed the Strategy team with other leaders in our school to address teacher issues directly. And then there is our teaching staff, who for the most part are fully dedicated amazing professionals, who truly care deeply for…
By Vince Phillips For the foreseeable future, the First & D site in Salida is a parking lot. On May 7, 2026, Artspace officially withdrew from the project to build 19 live/work rental units plus community space. The organization cited a funding gap exceeding $2.5 million, rising construction costs, difficult tax credit markets, and a decision to focus on stabilizing their existing national portfolio. After years of planning, eminent domain, pre-development grants, demolition, and legal expenses, zero affordable units have been built. The site, which opened as a temporary public parking lot on Memorial Day 2025 with roughly 40 spaces, will remain parking “until vertical construction on housing begins.” That could be years away. The Deed Restriction Reality Mayor Justin Critelli noted that because the property was acquired through eminent domain, any future development must honor a court-ordered deed restriction for affordable housing. These restrictions run with the land and typically lock in income-based rent limits (often 60-120% AMI) for decades. While legally required, the economics remain challenging. The units were planned as rentals, not for-sale homes. Deed restrictions on rentals require ongoing rent caps and oversight, making it difficult in Salida’s high-cost market to generate enough revenue to cover…
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