Featured Archives - KGNU Community Radio: Recent Episodes
Featured Archives - KGNU Community Radio
An independent, noncommercial community radio station licensed in Boulder and Denver and dedicated to serving its listeners.
On today’s Morning Magazine,
the gay rodeo is on town! Then, it’s This Week in Water.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-07-09Philip Armour The post Gay rodeo and its historic roots in Colorado + This Week in Water appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrowPhilip narrationGreta Kerkhoff State declares disaster emergency to fight avian flu in Colorado Governor Jared Polis declared a disaster emergency to fight avian flu in Colorado.
The declaration will free up state resources and, in turn, help agriculture officials and farmers respond to the outbreak.
Infected animals have been discovered at a large commercial egg operation in Weld County, according to CPR News. The virus has shown its capacity to spread to humans – just last week, an employee at a dairy farm in northeast Colorado contracted the flu.
Colorado is currently reporting more cases among dairy cows than any other state.
The local outbreak comes as national concerns around avian flu are on the rise. Federal officials began detecting the presence of avian flu within domestic cattle herds across the nation this spring. Avian flu’s jump from birds to cattle has health officials concerned that the virus could continue to mutate and spread more easily to humans.
Still, federal and state officials maintain that the risk to humans remains low, and that pasteurized milk products and beef are safe to consume.
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New tax for affordable housing in Denver Denver Mayor Mike Johnston unveiled a new sales tax proposal yesterday, with affordable housing in mind.
The new proposed tax would add 0.5% to the existing sales tax rate, which currency falls just under 9%.
According to The Denver Post, the tax would help raise roughly $100 million a year for affordable housing projects.
The tax wouldn’t be the only proposed hike on Denver’s ballot this November – nor would it be the first time the city has created new taxes or fees to fund housing-related efforts. Back in 2020, voters passed a sales tax dedicated to homelessness initiatives that brings in roughly $50 million a year.
If the tax ends up on the ballot, the measure would be the second sales tax hike up for voter approval this fall. The other relates to financing Denver Health, the city’s social safety net hospital.
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Colorado group submits petition to ban hunting of bobcats, mountain lions, lynx In other November election news – a volunteer group has submitted a petition to Colorado’s Secretary of State to ban the hunting of bobcats, mountain lions, and lynx.
The group “Cats Aren’t Trophies” collected enough signatures last week to get their trophy hunting measure on November’s ballot.
The initiative would declare “the intentional killing, wounding, pursuing or entrapping” of any mountain lion, bobcat, or lynx as unlawful.
Supporters of the ban described the hunting of mountain lions and bobcats as “commercial killing,” and inhumane.
Opponents argue that decisions about managing wildlife resources should be left to wildlife experts.
The Secretary of State has 30 days to review the petition to determine whether it contains sufficient valid signatures.
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Colorado Senator Faith Winter violated ethics policy by appearing intoxicated at public meeting, committee findsA five-member committee has decided that Colorado Senator Faith Winter failed to uphold Senate ethics standards when she appeared intoxicated at a Northglenn City Council meeting in early April.
Before entering the April meeting, Winter parked her car in a fire zone as shown on footage obtained by 9News. Body camera footage obtained from a Northglenn police officer shows Winter being advised by the officer not to drive home, to which she agreed.
While Committee members agreed that Winter’s behavior was questionable – in a 4-1 vote – they disagreed on which disciplinary measures to pursue.
The committee did not recommend a reprimand, censure, or expulsion but requested Democratic Senate President Steve Fenberg “prepare and deliver” a letter to Winter admonishing her behavior and encouraging her to continue her treatment for substance abuse.
The investigation into Winter’s behavior has lawmakers criticizing the state Capitol’s culture of substance abuse, which allegedly normalizes alcoholism. That’s according to Colorado Politics.
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More people move in to the east, according to census data People in and around Boulder County are moving east at higher rates than they were a few years ago. That’s according to new population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Erie, and the nearby Carbon Valley region, have grown rapidly in the last four years, while the rest of the region in Boulder County and western Weld County has stayed the same or shrunk.
Government workers in Erie expect the town to grow to 60,000 residents in the next decade.
Meanwhile, Boulder’s population shrank slightly from last year. The Daily Camera reports that aging demographics and high home prices could play a part in that decline.
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Three Boulder athletes will represent Team USA in Paris Athletes from across Colorado have qualified to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Three athletes from Boulder will represent Team USA in the sport of climbing—Brooke Raboutou, Colin Duffy, and Natalia Grossman.
The other 20 or so qualifying Colorado athletes will compete in mountain biking, triathlon, volleyball, track and field, climbing, rowing, swimming, shooting, wheelchair fencing, and more. The Olympics begin in Paris in two weeks, on July 26, and will continue through August 11. The Paralympics will be held August 28 through September 8.
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The post State declares disaster emergency to fight avian flu, New tax for affordable housing in Denver appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, The Boulder fruit and vegetable program works to provide fresh produce to low income residents. You’ll hear from Amelia Hulbert, Boulder County public health’s healthy eating active living team lead about the program since its creation in 2019. Then, the latest on the ten gray wolves released into the Colorado mountains late last year.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-07-08Greta Kerkhoff The post Boulder fruit and vegetable program, Latest on grey wolves released into Colorado appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
The Tattered Cover’s recent change in ownership has sparked debate among Coloradans. The independent bookstore was recently bought by corporate bookseller, Barnes and Noble. KGNU’s Greta Kerkhoff spoke to former longtime employees and the CEO about the future of the store.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-07-03Greta Kerkhoff The post Independent bookseller Tattered Cover bought by Barnes and Noble appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow07_08_2024amheadlinesGreta Kerkhoff Boulder Valley School District funding Boulder Valley Public school officials are concerned about district funding, as enrollment in the district declines.
The yearly decline of around 1.5% combined with Colorado’s new school funding law is expected to decrease the district’s budget significantly.
The new law, known as the New Public School Finance Formula, passed in May and places caps on property taxes, a major revenue for the district.
Although the Formula may provide additional state aid, the District is ultimately expecting to see an overall financial loss due to the district’s high fixed costs.
According to the Daily Camera, BVSD spends over $4,000 more per pupil than the state average, with some schools allocating over $22,000 per student.
Educators are worried the new formula could impact children from historically marginalized communities the most, as those schools rely almost fully on district funding.
BVSD officials have said that the funding issues could lead to “tough decisions,” including school closures.
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Boulder staffers present scenarios for future of Area III Planning Reserve Nearly 500 acres of mostly undeveloped land north of Boulder are being considered for housing.
The Area III Planning Reserve is northeast of U.S. 36 between Broadway and Jay Road. Boulder city staffers recently presented several potential scenarios for the pocket of land’s future – including the addition of thousands of housing units that could house up to nearly 15,000 people.
While there are parts of the Reserve that will likely be maintained as rural, the Daily Camera reports that the area’s geography makes it a good candidate for development, transportation, and recreation purposes.
In order to achieve these goals, the city would have to find ways to route city services and utilities there. It’s currently unclear if the city’s water and sewer systems would be capable of serving the Planning Reserve area, and how much developing the area would cost.
If the city does move forward with any of the presented scenarios, development could start around 2030, with a fully-built neighborhood completed by about 2050.
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State assesses new power sources to help make Colorado 100% renewable New state reports from the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission make the case for geothermal and hydrogen power.
The reports say that both geothermal and hydrogen offer significant chances to build on energy provided by wind, solar, and batteries.
State officials aim to get Colorado running on 100% renewable energy by 2040.
Governor Jared Polis is especially interested in geothermal, according to The Denver Post.
The areas in Colorado with the highest reported potential for producing electricity through geothermal include the Upper Arkansas Valley, San Juan Basin, and a spot in the Denver Basin in the eastern part of the state.
When it comes to hydrogen, the governor acknowledged that it is viewed as a controversial fuel by some, since it often comes from fossil fuels. However, The Post reports that the state is looking into “green” hydrogen options produced in Golden.
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CU Boulder chancellor outlines vision for the futureCU Boulder’s new chancellor started on the job early last week.
Justin Schwartz told The Daily Camera his top priorities include sustainability and student success. He added that he has long-term goals to advocate for degrees outside of STEM, and improve student graduation rates.
The previous Chancellor, Philip DiStefano, left late last year after 15 years in the role. He was the university’s longest-serving Chancellor.
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Medical marijuana sale decline Colorado’s medical marijuana sales have hit their lowest levels in at least a decade, down over 60% from April 2021.
Colorado Public Radio says this could be connected to the growth of the recreational cannabis industry, which has made cannabis more accessible and available to adults without the need for a permission slip from the state of Colorado.
More dispensaries in Colorado are operating only the recreational side, as it’s become the most viable option for owners to turn a profit.
According to CPR, current medical patients will likely stay in the medical market because the taxes are much lower than those levied on recreational marijuana.
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Investors buy Boulder’s Walnut Business Center Two out-of-state investors have teamed up to purchase the Walnut Business Center in Boulder for $28 million dollars.
Real estate investors ScanlanKemperBard Companies and Landrock LP plan to reinvigorate the commercial park.
According to the Daily Camera, the pair says they intend to transform the property into a modern space while working with tenants and employees.
Planned improvements include upgrades to roofing, parking lots, and mechanical systems.
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The post Boulder Valley School District funding, State assesses new power sources, Staffers present scenarios for Area III Planning Reserve appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
The newly published 2024 World Drug Report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) acknowledges marijuana legalization in the U.S. and Canada may have helped to shrink the size of illicit markets, while at the same time driving significant drops in the number of people arrested for cannabis offenses.
The Cannabis Report – July 4th, 2024Listen: play_arrow*New United Nations Report Signals Cannabis Legalization Leading To Positive ResultsHannah Leigh (Download Audio)
The post New United Nations Report Signals Cannabis Legalization Leading To Positive Results appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-07-03Philip Armour Proposed changes to Iris Avenue
Boulder city leaders are considering four unique designs to change traffic patterns on Iris Avenue in North Boulder. The busy corridor saw 345 crashes from 2016 to 2023. According to Denver7 News, 22 of the accidents involved pedestrians and bicycles.
One of the designs would reduce the street’s four lanes to only two, one in each direction, with a center turn lane used by traffic in both directions. Some residents told Denver7 they’re worried that too much disruption of the current layout will increase traffic on side streets.
Boulder leaders want to achieve what they call “Vision Zero,” a plan to eliminate traffic-related serious injuries and fatalities along Iris Avenue from Broadway to 28th St. A final design decision is expected by this fall.
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Boulder Chamber opposes plan to close Boulder Municipal Airport The Chamber’s senior director of policy programs said that decommissioning the airport could end up being a costly mistake. Jonathan Singer told BizWest that it could end up costing the city tens of millions of dollars over many years.
The Boulder City Clerk’s office has verified that a pair of separate but complementary petitions to close Boulder Municipal Airport have received enough signatures to appear on the November ballot.
Singer said that the Chamber is specifically opposed to the measure known as Repurpose Our Runways. Should that measure pass, the Chamber would support the second ballot measure, Runways to Neighborhoods, which would require the city to build affordable housing on the site.
The 180-acre Boulder Municipal Airport supports 299 jobs and generates nearly $100 million in total economic impact for the city, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation’s 2020 Colorado Aviation Economic Impact Study.
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RTD Ballot measure
A fall ballot measure will ask voters to help further fund RTD. The measure would allow the agency to keep the tax revenue it collects indefinitely, instead of providing refunds required under Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
RTD’s current exemption from TABOR is set to expire in November. According to the Daily Camera, more than $600 million dollars in tax revenues that RTD has collected would be subject to TABOR requirements in 2025. However, if the ballot measure is passed, taxpayers wouldn’t see any of those millions.
RTD officials have said the funds will help maintain and operate the transit system for voters. If the ballot measure fails, RTD could be forced to cut about 20% of bus and train service within two years.
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Outbreak of Bird flu among dairy cattle
More recorded cases of bird flu in dairy cattle have been found in northern Colorado, making the outbreak the worst in the country.
Colorado has identified 26 herds with cases of avian influenza, 22 of those being discovered within the past month.
The rapid spread has officials concerned. While chances of the disease spreading to humans is generally low, experts worry that the longer the virus spreads unchecked through cattle, the greater the chances that it will mutate and become more dangerous to people.
According to the Colorado Sun, state agriculture and health officials are working with dairies to identify cases of the virus and prevent the spread.
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Breckenridge bans single use plastic
This week, Breckenridge started to implement their town ban of single-use plastic items. They’re following the lead of Frisco, another mountain town which similarly banned those items last year.
Breckenridge businesses are expected to stop selling plastic water bottles, plastic cutlery, and plastic containers for things like ice cream. This is the second phase of the ban, so additional plasticware will be cut out later down the road.
The town of Breckenridge will be issuing citations for businesses that don’t comply.
Some service businesses around Breckenridge and other mountain towns have found alternatives to plastic cups, including giving discounts to consumers that bring in reusable containers.
Colorado as a whole banned single-use plastic bags at the beginning of this year – but have yet to enforce such a widespread ban as these mountain towns.
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Federal grant for Colorado’s quantum technology sector
Colorado was awarded roughly $41 million dollars in federal money on Tuesday in order to advance and commercialize quantum technology.
Colorado was one of just 31 applicants selected from 400 in 2023 in the first phase of the federal tech hubs program.
The Post says the funding could make Colorado the “Silicon Valley” of quantum.
This isn’t the first time Colorado has received funding for quantum development. Back May, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced a $20 million dollar grant for CU-Boulder to build a facility called the National Quantum Nanofab.
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Democratic congressional candidate Adam Frisch calls on Biden to drop out of the presidential race
A Colorado Democratic candidate for Congress has called for Biden to drop out of the presidential race.
Democratic Candidate Adam Frisch called President Biden over the phone Tuesday, urging him to drop out of the presidential race. Frisch’s concern over the president’s well-being led him to make the call.
Biden plans to meet with Democratic governors today to solidify support after his debate performance last week.
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The post Changes to Iris Avenue, RTD Ballot measure, Bird flu outbreak appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, independent and beloved bookseller, The Tattered Cover, has been purchased by Barnes Noble.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-07-03Philip Armour The post Barnes Noble purchases Denver’s Tattered Cover bookstore appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, we’ll take a close look at Colorado’s fentanyl problem.
Then, it’s This Week in Water.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-07-02Greta Kerkhoff The post Colorado’s fentanyl problem appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow07_02_24_am_headlinesGreta Kerkhoff Fire restrictions
The Boulder County Sheriff has enacted Stage 1 Fire Restrictions for unincorporated areas of western Boulder County.
The restrictions are effective immediately, and are due to increasing fire danger, brought on by a lack of moisture, and ongoing high temperatures. The fire restrictions will remain in effect until further notice, according to a sheriff’s office press release.
A Stage 1 Fire Restriction is also in effect in Gilpin County, according to Denver 7, and a more rigorous Stage 2 Fire Restriction is in effect in Elbert County.
The City of Boulder already has stricter regulations than the county does. But for western Boulder County, the immediate effect of the Stage 1 Fire Restrictions is a ban on the use of fireworks within the restriction area. First-time violators can be fined up to five hundred dollars, in addition to possible civil penalties. Additional violations can result in higher fines.
The Stage 1 Fire Restrictions issued by the Boulder County Sheriff prohibit selling, using, and possessing all fireworks. There’s also a prohibition on open fires, including campfires, barbecues, and grills.
The restriction in unincorporated Boulder County includes the area west of Highway 93, from the southern boundary of Boulder County to its intersection with Highway 119.
Also included is the area west of Broadway Avenue in the City of Boulder, from its intersection with Highway 119 to its intersection with Highway 36.
The restriction also encompasses the area west of 36, from its intersection with Broadway Avenue to its intersection with the northern boundary of Boulder County;
Also within the restricted area is the western boundary of the Rabbit Mountain Open Space to Highway 36 is; as well as all of Rabbit Mountain Open Space.
For a complete list of fire restrictions, visit the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office website.
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Undeveloped land evaluated for housingCity officials in Boulder are looking at a nearly five hundred-acre parcel of land as a possible site for a new housing development.
Boulder Reporting Lab says that the city’s evaluation of the Area III Planning Reserve is in its early stages. It involves weighing the cost and feasibility of making the area north of Boulder livable by connecting it to water and sewer lines, among other city services.
The Area III Planning Reserve consists of mostly undeveloped city and private land. According to preliminary estimates presented to the City Council last week, the land could accommodate as many as 6,700 housing units.
Boulder Reporting Lab further says that even if the city goes ahead with developing the land, construction would probably not begin before 2030.
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Colorado COVID cases risingThe number of COVID-19 cases in Colorado is on the rise, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment.
There were 1,115 cases of COVID-19 in Colorado as of June 22nd. That’s up eighteen percent from the week before that, and up 127 percent from April 20th.
At the same time, there have been fewer COVID deaths reported statewide. Nineteen people died from COVID and its variants in May, down from fifty-six deaths in May of 2023.
The Centers for Disease Control is recommending that everyone over the age of six months get an updated, 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine, whether they’ve previously been vaccinated or not. They say that’s the best way to protect yourself against getting COVID.
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COVID funding ends, impacting education
COVID-era federal funding that brought nearly two billion dollars into Colorado public schools is coming to an end, leading to budget shortfalls in some districts.
The 1.8 billion dollars in federal pandemic funding was used to expand educational services like the transition to remote learning.
This relief aid also funded more tutoring, after-school and summer programs, increased mental health assistance, and improving and tracking air quality.
The money came through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, or ESSER for short. The last ESSER payment was three years ago, and was the largest, totaling nearly 1.2 billion dollars, according to the Denver Post and state education officials.
School districts have until September 30th to spend what’s left of this money.
The Post says after that deadline, programs paid for using ESSER funds will come to an end, unless new funding can be found.
At the same time these funds will no longer be available, enrollment in Colorado public schools is down across the state. That decline, and its economic impact, has led some districts, including Denver and Jefferson County, to close schools. The districts will be reevaluating which programs and services they can offer.
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Second-hottest June
This past June was the second-hottest ever in the Denver area, and we’re on track for an even hotter July.
The National Weather Service is reporting that the average temperature for June was 73.8 degrees. That’s more than five-and-a-half degrees higher than the average.
While 73.8 degrees may not sound that hot, the average factors in overnight lows, which averaged 57.5 degrees in June, according to Fox-31.
The highest average June on record in Denver was 75 degrees, back in 2012.
July is usually the hottest month of the year, with an average of 75.1 degrees.
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The post Fire restrictions, Undeveloped land evaluated for housing, Colorado COVID cases rising appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, a handful of new laws go into effect in Colorado today, including the prohibition of carrying firearms in government buildings, child care centers, and public schools. Another law regulates the usage of deep fake videos and other AI-generated political content. An ongoing lawsuit seeking to overturn Boulder’s camping ban may be derailed by a Supreme Court ruling on a similar case.
Listen:
- play_arrowRacial Equity billPhilip Armour The post Police violence in Aurora, New Colorado law impacts guns in public places, Lawsuit seeking to overturn Boulder’s camping ban likely derailed by Supreme Court ruling appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
A new bill signed into law last month will establish a commission for specific historical research on racial equity in Colorado. KGNU’s Jackie Sedley spoke with Colorado Sun equity reporter, Tatiana Flowers, about her reporting on the study and its fundraising.
Listen:
- play_arrowRacial Equity billGreta Kerkhoff The post Fundraisers achieve goal for historical research on racial equity in Colorado appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Coming up on today’s program:
- The Boulder Public Library insists on being a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, offering community events and books centering queer stories. This morning, you’ll hear about the library’s relationship with queer youth.
- Then, some quick guidance on water safety as temperatures continue to trend upwards.
Listen:
- play_arrowWorlds largest swim lesson finalPhilip Armour The post Boulder Public Library is a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrowPamPhilip Armour Club Q shooter hate crimes guilty pleas The man who committed a mass shooting at Club Q—a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub—pleaded guilty to 74 federal hate crime and weapons charges on Tuesday.
24-year-old Anderson Aldrich killed five people and wounded 22 others at Club Q back in 2022. In addition to pleading guilty, he received an additional 55 life sentences plus 190 years in prison.
Aldrich was already serving five life sentences plus 2,208 years in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of first-degree murder and related charges in state court last year.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney accepted Aldrich’s plea deal with federal prosecutors, avoiding a lengthy court process, and allowed the mass killer to avoid the death penalty.
The judge made Aldrich admit for the first time that the shooting was bias-motivated, targeting victims due to their sexual identity or gender identity.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Aldrich declined the judge’s invitation to address the Club Q victims and families present in the Denver courtroom.
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Colorado Supreme Court hears arguments in anti-discrimination caseThe Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit against a Christian baker who refused to make a pink cake with blue icing to celebrate a gender transition. KGNU’s Pam Johnson has the story.
The Court considered a variety of hypothetical cake-design scenarios while discussing two cases involving Lakewood baker Jack Phillips. The first case was back in 2012, when Phillips refused to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. He partially prevailed before the U.S. Supreme Court in that case in 2018.
The more recent case originated when Phillips initially agreed to make a cake for attorney Autumn Scardina, but then refused when he found out it was going to be used to celebrate her gender transition.
The Colorado Court of Appeals sided with Scardina, ruling that the cake—which was not to have any writing on it—does not qualify as speech protected by the First Amendment.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court asked attorneys for both sides to describe what kind of cake without any writing on it a baker could refuse to make.
The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act prohibits refusing to provide services based on protected characteristics such as race, religion, or sexual orientation.
There are currently three cases in Colorado pitting LGBTQ+ [plus] civil rights against First Amendment rights.
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Colorado in-person primaries voting begins Colorado voting centers are now open across the state for those who want to vote early in-person for next week’s primary election.
Election day is June 25th and voters have up until 7 p.m. on Election Day to register to vote at a polling center.
Voters can find the location closest to them by going to the Secretary of State’s website.
According to Colorado Newsline, Registered Democrats may vote in the Democratic primary, and registered Republicans may vote in the Republican primary. Unaffiliated voters may vote in either, but not both.
Voters will also find congressional district races, the state Board of Education, the statehouse, and other local races on their ballots.
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Denver Basic Income Project report A first-year pilot program provided 807 homeless adults with no-strings-attached cash, and saved taxpayers hundreds of thousands in the process. KGNU’s Philip Armour has more.
That’s according to a new report by Denver University’s Center for Housing and Homelessness Research, which found that the program participants stayed in homeless shelters less frequently. They also required fewer ambulance rides, emergency room visits and hospital stays, and spent fewer nights in jail or drug and alcohol treatment centers. As a result, taxpayers saved nearly $600,000 according to The Denver Post.
The program is also connected to an increase in employment. Roughly 23% of participants had jobs at the start of the program, and that number grew to 27% after one year.
The Post reports that the project paid out $9.4 million over the past 14 months
The Denver Basic Income Project split enrollees into three groups. One received $1,000 a month for a year, the second received a $6,500 lump sum at start and then $500 a month over 11 months, and the third received $50 a month for a year.
Researchers found a significant increase in housing security for all three groups after 10 months of payments.
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Wapiti Trail rerouted for eagle protection The new Wapiti Trail route at Heil Valley Ranch opened on Tuesday.
During the extended park closure due to the Cal-Wood fire, Golden eagles built a nest in the area. The new route was built to protect them.
Now, all of Heil Valley Ranch is restricted to on-trail use only because of the new critical wildlife habitat, and burn areas.
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Eldorado Springs sues Boulder County
A bottled water company has filed suit against Boulder County for allegedly standing in the way of its newly-renovated resort facilities.
Eldorado Artesian Springs spent the last several years upgrading their popular spring-fed swimming pool, originally opened in 1906, and remodeling the site’s historic ballroom.The lawsuit accuses county officials of withholding occupancy permits for the facilities, and imposing requirements that weren’t agreed upon, among other allegations.
The company is also seeking a temporary restraining order to block the county from continuing to prevent the opening of facilities.
That’s according to the Daily Camera.
Eldorado Artesian Springs owns the road through town that accesses Eldorado Canyon State Park. The company and county commissioners agreed on roadway and parking improvements that would be funded jointly by Boulder County, the state of Colorado, and Eldorado Artesian Springs Inc. That work has not been completed.
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The post Eldorado Springs sues Boulder County, Denver Basic Income Project report, Club Q shooter hate crimes guilty pleas appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, We hear from janitors who are fighting for fair working Conditions in Denver. Then, it’s Cannabis Report with Hannah Leigh Meyers and Leland Rucker. After that, it’s Radio Nibbles – our weekly segment with John Lehndorff.
Listen:
- play_arrowDenver janitors fight for fair working conditionsGreta Kerkhoff The post Denver janitors fight for fair working conditions appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
NAACP Boulder County hosted a banned books panel discussion this past Monday, June 17th. The panel was moderated by Michele Simpson – host of Black Talk once a month on Thursdays, right here on KGNU. Dr. Reiland Rabaka, the Founder and Director for African and African American Studies at CU Boulder, was the keynote speaker at the event.
“Between 1619 and 1865, It was illegal for African Americans to be educated,” said Dr. Rabaka. “It was illegal. That means that they banned education for African Americans…And it was Frederick Douglass who said, knowledge is power…and then it was Marcus Garvey who said, “If you don’t know your past, you’ll never know your future.’ But how are you going to know your past if they’re sitting up here banning your books?…It’s almost as if we don’t live in the United States of America where education is a fundamental human right.”
According to Dr. Rabaka, books about race and racism that feature characters of color make up 30% of the titles being banned. Additionally, he states that more than 30 states believe we should not read about experiences like race, sexuality, slavery, and police brutality that they deem otherwise inappropriate. More than 30 states have banned books by Black authors, including The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, and Beloved by Toni Morrison, among many others.
You can hear the full panel tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 19th on KGNU. You can also listen below.
Listen:
- play_arrowBanned Books_JuneteenthJackie Sedley The NAACP of Boulder County is hosting a series of 2024 Juneteenth community events starting Friday, June 14th through Saturday, June 22nd. See the flyer below for details.
The post “Juneteenth is not the Black 4th of July. It is our freedom day:” Reflections from NAACP’s banned books panel appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Depending on where you grew up, your middle or high school history teachers may have taught you about “40 Acres and a Mule.” A very brief explainer in case they didn’t – 40 Acres and a Mule refers to a wartime order by Union General William T. Sherman 1865 – following President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which ordered the independence of formerly enslaved Black people in the U.S.
It was a part of Special Field Orders No. 15, and promised freed Black people at most 40 acres of land, and mules to temporarily help tend to that land. However, it’s been widely accepted that most of that land never made it to those individuals, that it was restored to its pre-war white owners after Lincoln’s assassination and never got handed over to those who were freed.
That was the case for many, but not for all. A new deep dive into genealogical and archival records shows that some freed slaves did receive land grants. Who owns those lands now? And do the ancestors of those who received land know there were actual pieces of paper given out that said it belonged to their family members?
40 Acres and a Lie is a joint project between Mother Jones, the Center for Public Integrity and Reveal. It’s been compiled into a print report for Mother Jones, as well as a three-part series from Reveal which will air tonight on KGNU at 4 p.m.
Alexia Fernández Campbell is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., most recently at the Center for Public Integrity. She kickstarted the project and, after two-and-a-half years, is relieved that it’s finished and eager for people to listen and learn. I spoke with her last week, the day that Mother Jones launched the report. We talked about the research behind the report, their use of AI to track down the people affected, and what it could mean for Black Americans seeking reparations.
You can find Part 1 of the Reveal audio series here, and the Mother Jones visual report here.
The first episode of the three-part Reveal series also plays tonight at 4 p.m. on KGNU.
Listen:
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: This is the Morning Magazine. I’m Jackie Sedley. Depending on where you grew up, your middle or high school history teachers may have taught you about 40 acres and a Mule. I’ll give you a very brief explainer in case they didn’t: 40 Acres and a Mule refers to a wartime order by Union General William T. Sherman in 1865, following President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which ordered the independence of formerly enslaved black people in the United States. It was part of Special Field Orders No. 15, and promised freed black people at most 40 acres of land and mules to temporarily help tend to that land.
However, it’s been widely accepted that most of that land never made it to those individuals, that it was restored to its pre-war white owners after Lincoln’s assassination, and never got handed over to those who were freed.
That was the case for many, but not for all. A new deep dive into genealogical and archival records shows that some freed slaves did receive land grants.
So, who owns those lands now? And do the ancestors of those who received land know there were actual pieces of paper given out saying it belonged to their family members?
40 Acres and a Lie is a joint project between Mother Jones, the Center for Public Integrity, and Reveal. It’s been compiled into a print report for Mother Jones, as well as a three part series from Reveal, which will air tonight on KGNU at 4 p.m.
Alexia Fernández Campbell is an investigative reporter in Washington, D. C., most recently at the Center for Public Integrity. She kick started the project and, after two-and-a-half years, is relieved that it’s finished and eager for people to listen and learn. I spoke with her last week, the day that Mother Jones launched the report. We talked about the research behind the report, their use of AI to track down the people affected, and what it could mean for Black Americans seeking reparations.
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Jackie Sedley: Let’s just get right into it. So 40 Acres and a Lie, this new joint project between Mother Jones, the Center for Public Integrity and Reveal. Let’s start a bit from the beginning. I know that you’ve been working on this project for about two and a half years now. Where did that start? Where did the idea start and how did, how did it come to fruition for you?
Alexia Fernández Campbell: Yeah, it’s, it’s kind of wild because I don’t, this is not like a subject that I am familiar with. I normally cover like labor issues, but I was working with my colleagues who were on a different project altogether. It was related to Black land loss, and I was tasked with finding certain records that could help us locate different black settlements in the U. S. Anyways, after speaking with someone who said, you know what, there are some land records in the Freedmen’s Bureau. Documents at the National Archives. You should check that place out. And I’ve like never heard of the Freedman’s Bureau before, which is embarrassing. But I was soon, like in their digital archives, just like looking through stuff. And I find these images that look just, there’s black and white images of some papers that look like torn and crumpled, kind of like what you’d imagine like a treasure map would look like except just writing and not a map. It was like very interesting. So I look closely and it said 40 acres has been issued to Bergus Wilson on Sappalo Island, Georgia.
And there were like there were dozens of these land titles and it was like in a digital folder that was labeled “miscellaneous.” So these have been buried for there for more than 100 years. I thought it could be the 40 Acres and a Mule program because all, most of the land titles were for 40 acres. There were some that were for 30 and some even for 15 and less, but then I started Googling because it said under these orders of Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15, which is the official name of the 40 Acres program.
And I’m like, “What? People got land titles?” Because everything that I had understood about 40 Acres and a Mule, which I didn’t really know much about, was that it was a promise that was made to freed people as kind of like reparations in some cases, some people view it that way, but just as to have land after slavery.
And that it was a promise that was broken, it was never kept, so I’m like, people got land titles, and I couldn’t find anyone else who had written about this or at least not named so many people, so we kept looking, we kept finding more and more names.
Sedley: Wow. So you kept finding these names. What was the next step? The investigative reporting of this all must have been really exciting, but also overwhelming if nobody else had touched on it. You don’t really have a roadmap for it.
Campbell: Yeah, so I just want to be clear. There have been historians who have before they were made digital, physically, but it was hard.
Like you had to physically go to Washington, D. C. to the National Archives, and, and know what you were looking for, because they’re not just going to let you roam around the Freedmen’s Bureau records you had to know what, it’s like 1. 8 million documents, you had to know what to look for.
Some people had seen some of the names, but we’d never, I’ve never seen these land titles published, and, and so the first step was I pitched this idea to my editors. “What if we do genealogical research, and try to find living descendants. Wouldn’t that be such a cool story to tell?” And my editors are like, “What, you think you can do genealogical research?” Like, they’re very skeptical. Everyone’s super excited. Everyone’s champed in this idea, but they’re very skeptical that we’d be able to find any living descendants. And so I talked to a genealogist at the Smithsonian and she gave me ideas.
She’s like, “I think you can do it. You’re definitely not going to find everyone’s descendants, but you’ll find some.” And so it was painful, that process, having to learn how to do that. But we did, we found like 41 living descendants and six of them agreed to do interviews and, and that’s kind of where the story went.
Sedley: And so tell me more about that story. So you linked up with these descendants you spoke with?
Campbell: Mm-Hmm.
Sedley: How many did you say?
Campbell: Six of them.
Sedley: Six.
Campbell: Um, yeah. So it’s interesting because I focused on Georgia, people who got land in Georgia, and my colleague April Simpson focused on people who got land in South Carolina, and the descendants that she spoke to are still there in that area where they got their 40 acres and then lost it, And they’re still there. And then the people I found had, had left, like some, one family migrated because of Jim Crow. Not only did they not get their 40 acres, they’re like, “We’re leaving Georgia altogether,” you know, which was a common thing at the time, especially during Jim Crow. And then another descendant was in North Carolina. So it’s, it was, it really showed us how much the story is a national story because even though 40 acres is very limited to South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, where the, where that land was set aside, it impacts so many people alive today. And that’s what we wanted to show that this is not a history lesson.
The point was to show how the betrayal of the federal government who gave the land back to their enslavers after some of – we found one freed man who had been living on his land for a year-and-a-half before, and then it was given back. So some of them stayed there from six months to a year and a half before they were eventually kicked off for good. So we found a lot of descendants all over the country like in Michigan Ohio, California, New York just like everywhere, so to me, it showed something that I knew that this was a story that was more than just about the south.
Sedley: And when you approached these descendants and you spoke to them, were they surprised that you were asking them about this from an investigative perspective? Did they have an impression or an understanding that this was something that people knew about? Did they kind of just accept it as a part of their history or were they also really eager to talk about it?
Campbell: Yeah, so I was worried at first that people might not wanna talk, and I’m sure maybe some people who didn’t respond, maybe they didn’t wanna talk about it.
But the people who did respond were really excited to talk about it and learn more. They were people who wanted to learn, you know, because this is a painful history for so many people. So I was like, surely some people are not gonna wanna dig that up. But some people did and they wanted to talk about it. It was a variety of people. Like one woman knew that her great grandfather had gotten 40 acres because a professor had been doing a study on Reconstruction and found his name in those Freedom Bureau records, but she had never seen his land title.
So I showed the land title and it’s weird because so many people seem surprised about that connection. “Oh, my God, my, I can’t believe my ancestor got 40 acres.” So they’re surprised on one hand, but then they’re also like not surprised about what happened. It was just kind of like, “Yeah, of course the federal government would do that. We’re so used to being, like, screwed over.” That was a very common sentiment. It wasn’t outrage. It was just like, “Yeah, of course this would happen.”
You know, and then when we talk about reparations, a very cynical view about whether anyone would ever provide them with any sort of compensation for this land that was taken away.
Sedley: So just to clarify, the folks that you spoke with knew the history of the land?
Campbell: Some did. Some had no clue.
Sedley: Wow. And that makes you wonder, right, how many stories like this have faded into the background because the people that it affects the most directly have not been made aware over time or it got lost in translation and then there’s reporters like you who uncover it. Did you feel tasked with this when you discovered these documents? Was, was there any thought in your mind of, “Wow, I’m about to tell people about a part of their history that they’ve never been made aware of?”
Campbell: I realized that this was probably going to be news to a lot of people that we spoke to just because, I started reading everything I could about this program and there’s not a lot written about it.
There were a few people, historians who are very, very, narrow expertise on this program and a lot of them are dead. There’s 2 historians alive today that we interviewed who even know that land titles were handed out and had seen some of the names, but no one that we interviewed had ever put together all these names.
So, yeah, it definitely, I knew it was going to be news to people but what I didn’t know was if this was gonna be painful news, because it’s not, “Hey, guess what? Your ancestor won the lottery!” It’s like, “Yeah, look, your ancestor is part of 40 Acres and a Mule.” And obviously we know it didn’t end up working out in any way. So, I didn’t know how they were going to take it. And I was surprised that the people we did speak to wanted, really wanted to know everything. They wanted to know everything we found. And for me, it was just very rewarding to be able to share that history because I was doing genealogical work and I was looking for documents, trying to build that story, the narrative of what happened over generations and they loved hearing about it. But yeah, I didn’t know how everyone was gonna take it.
Sedley: I was going to ask what some of the most time intensive parts were, but it sounds like the fact checking?
Campbell: It was just like relentless, we’d be getting emails with a bombarding with questions of, like, where’d you get this? Where’d you get this? And the time intensive part was the genealogical research which I didn’t realize. Obviously all documents at that era are handwritten, most of them, and I actually learned how to read and write in cursive, but this is not the kind of cursive that was from, like, 1865. That is a totally different thing. It’s impossible to read. I had to train myself to read it. Luckily, the Smithsonian has volunteers who are transcribing these records like as we speak.
They don’t have them all transcribed, but that to me was the most time intensive because trying to find documents of people who were enslaved is, you know, it seems obvious when I say it now, it’s like, really difficult. The federal government didn’t have any records. There were no birth certificates. So there’s no official spelling for their names. So I find their names misspelled or just spelled differently in different records. And then they didn’t know their birthdays, didn’t know how to read and write. So, they kind of guess what year they were born. And so on different records, it shows like a, you know, eight year difference on like when they were born and like the birth month is different. I just wanted to make sure I had the right person. So I had to kind of just focus on a few freed men because there were some where I was like, I can’t be 100 percent certain that this is the same person. So, to me, that was the most time intensive part. That’s why it took us two-and-a-half years to do this.
Sedley: And that is something that comes up a lot in newsrooms across the country, across the world, especially in this era of fake news, of a lot of seeds sown, of distrust with the media. I would imagine that with a project like this, the fact checking is so crucial, because if you make one slip up, one error, the entire thing can be called a myth, right?
Campbell: Absolutely. And, you know, Nikole Hannah-Jones and her 1619 project for the New York Times was an inspiration for us to pursue this story. And I know how much work she must have put into that and there was just one slight clarification she had to make and that people tried to use that as a reason to discredit her whole, all her work. So we were very much aware of we cannot have any errors in this story that people can latch on to and try to discredit everything we’ve done. So, we were definitely been like laser-focused on making sure there’s no one could ever say that any part of this is incorrect.
Sedley: What do you hope people take away from this project? Obviously, releasing it during Juneteenth is, from the people I’ve spoken to, often a complicated time of celebration and also a reckoning with where we’re at and how far we do still have to go with regard to racial equality and injustice in this country. So what do you hope people take away from it at this time?
Campbell: Yeah, well, there are two things. First, we published the list of names. We found 1,250 people who got land titles. So number one, we want it to be a service where people can go through, look at those names. We already, an editor at Mother Jones already said he found his uncle’s great grandfather on that list, which I never would have imagined because I don’t even know my great-grandparents names.
But I know lots of people do, so we want it to be a service where people who want to know if they have a connection to that history, and they could be anywhere in the country because we know lots of descendants migrated all over the country. We want them to be able to see if there’s that connection, if they want to.
And then for people who, who, you know, may not have ancestors who are directly related to this program. We want people to kind of take away and see how history is not just like something from the past, but that it impacts people. You know, who are alive today, this was generational wealth that was not passed on.
We went to one community where people got land titles and then lost that land that is now really very wealthy and gated community near Savannah, near the beach. It’s absolutely stunning. 40 acres of land, just the land without the homes, is worth like 2 million. So this is generational wealth that was not passed on.
And we wanted people to see how that impacts people today. And we did the best we could, but I think, you know, hopefully people will see that.
Sedley: Was there any goal with this project for reclamation of that land for people? Is that something that’s even possible?
Campbell: Yeah, we definitely think that it can forward the conversation around reparations for slavery. We know there are a lot of local governments doing very targeted reparations programs, but nothing at the federal level has happened yet, so we feel like this could forward that conversation around reparations from the federal government, because it was the federal government who revoked the program.
So if anyone’s to blame here, it’s the federal government and not really anyone else for how, how this played out. So we did speak to experts, legal experts, and even legal historian and the problem with those land titles is that they were possessory land titles. They didn’t convey ownership. They were issued by the military general, and it was basically saying you have the right to possess this land that we confiscated from Confederates. You have the right to possess it. Work it, own it, no one can interfere or go on your land if you don’t want them to, until Congress and the President basically confer ownership.
The status of ownership had to come from Congress and the President. That was a problem. So, it never actually conveyed full ownership and, you know, the Freedmen’s Bureau kept telling freed men, “Yeah, yeah, this is going to be your land.” They thought Congress was going to do it, but the problem was that Lincoln was assassinated and his vice president Andrew Johnson was a sympathizer with the Confederates and white supremacists, and he definitely caved in to their pleas to get their land back.
And so, technically, they don’t have a claim to that land, but people we spoke to said, there could be a more moral claim here to that land that people should be compensated because it wasn’t just a promise. It was a program. It wasn’t something just spoken people received land. They were literally told by the government that it was theirs and they deserved it and they’re going to be able to keep it. So, even if the title didn’t say that, people said that to them, and I think that’s more of, what the reality is, whether anyone could claim any compensation for this.
Sedley: Do you have a favorite memory that comes to mind reflecting on this project? Whether it’s a moment that was heartwarming, enlightening, shocking?
Campbell: Yeah, actually I just got an email from a staff member at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives and she’s been overseeing efforts to Put the Freedmen’s Bureau records online, and she’s the one in charge of them getting transcribed, and she’s the one who encouraged me to pursue this project, because before she was a genealogist at the National Museum of African American History, and she just emailed me, and it was the sweetest email, and I’m like, oh, this is why we did this.
She’s like, “I’ve been trying, putting these records online. This is, this is why everything I envisioned that people would do with these, these records, I spent my whole career trying to make these records accessible and seeing what you guys did. It just blew my mind. Thank you so much. We want these stories to be told.” And I’m like, I’m even getting teary eyed right now just thinking of it. And I was like, yes, this is just a reminder of this does matter to so many people, even if. Maybe someone doesn’t have a direct connection, but to so many Americans, especially Black Americans, being able to mine these records has been pretty, pretty amazing. And I would say that’s probably my favorite response. To the, to the series.
Sedley: Those are all of my questions. Is there anything else that you’d like to add that we didn’t touch on?
Campbell: I just wanna add that one of my colleagues, one of the ways we found these records was he used AI and it’s kind of like facial recognition where I found some of the titles and names, and then basically he, he trained an AI model to look at this land title and search these 1.8 million records and see if you can find other ones. And so he found like 100 more land titles. And then the log with people’s names, he trained the AI to try to find more logs that look like this. And I just thought that was so cool. And he created this tool that you can search the Freedmen’s Bureau records, the parts that are transcribed, and you can do this kind of image recognition. So for anyone who’s just curious about what this looks like I would go to motherjones.com and see, especially if you have ancestors you think might be in there because they were enslaved. You might find something you didn’t know was in there.
Sedley: That’s fascinating to me because AI, and especially facial recognition, is often pointed out, especially in marginalized communities, as a tool that’s used by the government to marginalize you and oppress you, and so for this project to use a system like that kind of feels like an F-you or a reclamation of those systems, right?
Campbell: I know, it’s wild because yeah, there’s been so many like doomsday scenarios and, obviously, like you said, in case of facial recognition has been used in in ways that marginalize people. So I think it’s pretty fascinating.
The post AI tech could help some Black Americans fight for reparations, thanks to “40 Acres and a Lie” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, a new investigative series dives into the federal governments’ betrayal of formerly enslaved Black people in America. You’ll hear from one of the series’ lead reporters on what went into the project, including AI technology, and what it could mean for Black Americans seeking reparations. Will Climate Change Factor in the November Elections? Maybe If We Laugh About It….. that, and more on This Week in Water.
Listen:
- play_arrowmorningmagazine06_18_2024Greta Kerkhoff The post 40 Acres and a Lie revisits broken promises, Climate change in upcoming November Elections appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow06_18_24_am_headlinesGreta Kerkhoff Rocky Mountain Airport truck crashA truck that crashed through a fence at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield caused a lot of damage, but the incident did not appear to be malicious, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The driver of the Ford F-150 was the only person in the pickup truck yesterday when it crashed through the fence and hit two unoccupied airplanes. While the exact cause of the incident is under investigation, 9News said the driver was apparently experiencing medical issues at the time. The driver was taken to a hospital.
A spokesperson with the Sheriff’s office said the truck did extensive damage to several planes, and debris is scattered throughout the site of the crash.
The crash is being investigated by Colorado State Patrol. Because it is considered a car crash, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are not involved.
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Valmont Power Station ash meetings Two public meetings are scheduled for today, about coal ash remediation at Boulder’s Valmont Power Station.
The first of the two meetings is at eight o’clock this morning for business owners, while the second is from six to eight this evening, for people living near the power station at Valmont and 63rd Streets.
Both of the meetings will be in person, at the Boulder County Recycling Center at 1901 63rd Street
These meetings are meant to provide information about plans to clean up the landfills on the property that are full of coal ash. Coal was burned at the facility for more than ninety years, before coal operations ended in 2017. Elements in coal ash, like lithium and selenium, can filter into the environment.
The plant is currently operated by Xcel Energy, which is expected to clean up the landfills. The Camera says Xcel’s own testing has found higher-than-acceptable contaminant levels.
Neither of today’s meetings include a virtual option. But the Camera says Boulder County Public Health will upload video to its website, in the near future.
More information about the coal ash remediation project is available on the bouldercounty.gov website.
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Club Q shooter sentencingThe person already serving life in prison for the 2022 Club Q murders in Colorado Springs is expected to enter a guilty plea in Federal court in Denver today.
Anderson Aldrich pleaded guilty to fifty-one state level charges a year ago, for killing five people and wounding many more at the LGBTQ+ nightclub. Seventy-four federal charges were filed against Aldrich earlier this year, including multiple hate crimes and firearms charges.
The Denver Gazette is reporting that Aldrich accepted a plea deal on the federal charges that keep Aldrich from getting the death penalty. The Gazette says Aldrich most recently has been incarcerated at the Wyoming State Penitentiary.
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Boulder County health care merger Two health care organizations in Boulder County have announced a merger, which could impact low-income people in the area.
Mental Health Partners and Clinica Family Health announced the merger last week. Boulder Reporting Lab says the merger is meant to create an “integrated healthcare model” that will better serve the people who have relied on the two organizations.
Mental Health Partners is the largest mental health care provider in Boulder County. They have more than ten thousand clients, and are one of the county’s few emergency mental health options outside of hospital emergency rooms.
Clinica Family Health offers affordable medical and dental care.
According to a press release, the newly formed agency will be called Clinica Family Health and Wellness and is expected to be up-and-running starting in September. It will provide physical, mental, and oral health care at locations in Boulder, Broomfield, Gilpin and Adams counties.
Boulder Reporting Lab says the merger comes on the heels of the pandemic-era continuous coverage for Medicaid, which ended mid-last year. Thousands of people in Boulder County lost their Medicaid coverage as a result.
Both Mental Health Partners and Clinica mainly serve people on Medicaid, and those without insurance.
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Denver sales tax proposalsThe Denver City Council has given initial approval to a bill that would let voters decide whether to raise the sales tax in the city.
City Council approved the increase in a 9-1 vote yesterday, and will take a final vote on it next week. If it passes then, the proposed tax hike would go before voters in November.
The proposed .34% increase would bring Denver’s total sales tax to 9.14%, one of the highest in Colorado.
Revenues would provide up to $70 million for Denver Health, a network of healthcare providers throughout the city.
According to Fox31, Denver Health estimated there were $140 million in unpaid medical bills in 2023 and said it can’t maintain its current cost of care without additional funding.
The City Council also approved a $5 million contract for homeless shelters, on an 8-2 vote. The Denver Gazette says the contract for Housing Connector will provide financial assistance and rental subsidies to unhoused people.
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Louisville bear sightingThe sighting of a bear in Louisville has police there reminding the public that they should use extreme caution, if they encounter one of the animals.
The bear was seen near the Coal Creek golf course on Sunday, according to the Daily Camera, and was reported by about a dozen people. No one was hurt or threatened, and the bear eventually wandered away.
Police say such sightings are not uncommon. Anyone who sees a bear should stay calm, back slowly away, and avoid eye contact. They also recommend that people keep garbage cans clean and secure, and keep their garage doors closed.
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The post Rocky Mountain Airport truck crash, Valmont Power Station ash meetings, Boulder County health care merger appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Coming up on today’s program:
- Colorado GOP Party Chair Dave Williams sent out incredibly homophobic messages online last week. Today, we’ll hear a response to that messaging, from a gay Republican running to represent Denver in Congress
- To-go liquor is becoming a permanent offering at Colorado restaurants. We’ll hear how that might impact the restaurant industry.
Listen:
- play_arrowEfforts to recall GOP Party Chair Dave Williams, To-go liquor in ColoradoPhilip Armour The post Efforts to recall GOP Party Chair Dave Williams, To-go liquor in Colorado appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow06_17_2024amheadlinesGreta Kerkhoff Jefferson County GOP leader censured
The Jefferson County Republican Party has formally censured their party chair, following her efforts to oust Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams.
JeffCo party chair Nancy Pallozzi started circulating a petition last week without endorsement from the local Republicans she leads. Her own executive committee moved to nullify the petition, as it was not circulated on behalf of the party but was publicized on the party’s Facebook account and under its letterhead.
The efforts were prompted by Williams’ anti-LGBTQ+ email and social media post last week, calling gay people “godless groomers” and encouraging people to burn all Pride flags. The petition lists several concerns with Williams’ leadership.
The Jefferson County executive committee released a public statement, saying, “this action concerns only the matter of the Chair acting without authority and is not to be construed as an endorsement of or opposition to statements or actions of any other party.”
The censure bars Pallozzi from speaking on the matter any further.
Pallozzi’s efforts garnered public support from several prominent Republicans in the state. Similarly, the Denver Republican Party’s executive committee unanimously voted to call for Williams’ resignation or removal as state chair on Wednesday last week.
In addition to the recent criticism related to his anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments online, Williams has received backlash for calling LGBTQ+ Pride supporters “Nazis” in a recent debate, and for using party resources to attack his primary opponent in the 5th Congressional District race.
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Proposal to drastically change Colorado’s elections
There’s a newly-approved ballot initiative that aims to eliminate single-party primary elections.
According to Colorado Public Radio, Initiative 310 advocates for an “all-candidate primary,” as well as ranked-choice voting for general elections.
The measure is backed by one of Colorado’s wealthiest residents: Kent Thiry, the wealthy founder of the dialysis company DaVita.
Though backers still need to collect 125,000 signatures from voters by the first week of August in order to get on the ballot, CPR reports that Thiry’s funding will almost certainly carry the initiative through to the November elections.
The initiative’s supporters argue that the changes would improve Democracy by lessening the political strength of the two-party system. They also say that candidates will be less inclined to appeal to extreme views in order to win primaries, and that third party candidates will have more opportunity.
Critics say the new system may be hard for voters to understand, and that there would be limited time to educate voters before the upcoming election.
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Boulder airport neighborhood on ballot for fall
Two proposed measures to close the Boulder Municipal Airport and turn the area into a neighborhood have officially garnered enough signatures to appear on the Nov. 2024 ballot.
The news came from the City Clerk’s Office last week. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, “Repurpose Our Runways” and “Runways to Neighborhoods” ballot initiatives each gained just over the 3,401 signatures required to qualify for the ballot.
Supporters say the proposed measures would fill a gap in Boulder’s need for affordable housing.
Aviation enthusiasts oppose the measure, saying it’s unlikely the Federal Aviation Administration would allow the airport to be closed. Boulder currently has about 18 years left on a 20-year contract requiring the airport to operate due to FAA grant funding.
The City Council will make final determinations about the ballot measures in the upcoming months. They may suggest amendments to the measures – but if the campaign committee doesn’t agree to those changes, the city and committee could end up putting competing measures on the ballot. It’s also possible that Council could bypass the whole process and adopt the measures as city ordinances, in which case the measures wouldn’t go on the ballot.
The City plans to have a conversation about the airport on July 25.
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Record-setting revenue from skiing in Colorado
Sunday was closing day at the Arapahoe Basin ski resort, marking the end of the lift-served ski season for Colorado. Arapahoe was open for 222 days this season, from October 29 to June 16.
Colorado ski resorts logged 14 million visitations for the 2023/24 season – higher than most other states, but slightly down from 2022/23.
According to the Colorado Sun, total ski season spending in Colorado’s ski resort municipalities reached $4.5 billion, up from $4.4 billion in the record-setting 2022-23 season and up 50% from the pre-pandemic 2018-19 season.
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The post Jefferson County GOP leader censured, Proposal to change Colorado elections, New communications plan for Flagstaff road appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Coming up on today’s program:
- RTD lightrail delays are becoming more and more of a nuisance for riders, especially in Denver. I spoke with an RTD representative to try and get some clarification on why the delays are piling up, and what end might be in sight.
- Then, a gun buyback event is happening in Lakewood tomorrow. You’ll hear the details, including what happens to those weapons once they’re collected.
- After that, you’ll hear from a Colorado doctor working with Palestinians. She was in Gaza the day before the October 7 attacks.
- We’ll wrap up with the future of a local I-25 landmark that might be in danger.
Listen:
- play_arrowaudio3918395768Podington Bear The post RTD lightrail delays, Gun buyback event in Lakewood, Colorado doctor works with Palestinians appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow06_13_24 am headline newsGreta Kerkhoff Boulder Creek closed to tubers
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office closed Boulder Creek to tubing yesterday. The closure will remain in place until water flow reduces to a level that is deemed to be safer, according to the Daily Camera.
Until further notice from the Sheriff’s Office, the closure remains in effect for, “tubing and single chamber flotation devices” from below Boulder Falls at Colo. 119 to 55th Street in Boulder. Kayaks and white-water canoes are still permitted for use in the Creek.
Boulder Creek’s water flow is expected to increase as temperatures rise. The cold, high water can cause dangerous rapids and snags.
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Boulder office building to be turned into affordable housing
In order to create more affordable housing in Boulder, some developers are converting commercial spaces into housing.
Boulder Housing Partners plans to turn a portion of an office building, located at 3300 Penrose Place, into permanently affordable housing. According to the Daily Camera, they also plan to add several more residential buildings on-site.
The site was previously home to the Geological Society of America, a collaboration of scientists from all industries.
The Camera said the building has been relatively unused since employees began working from home more at the onset of the pandemic. Boulder Housing Partners bought the building back in 2022 for $10.3 million.
The project will add 113 new permanently affordable housing units. Those units are required to be deed-restricted, meaning they stay affordable for people making no more than a certain percentage of the area’s median income.
Boulder’s Planning Board held a public hearing for the project on May 7 and unanimously recommended approving the site.
Construction is expected to begin in 2026.
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Boulder considers limits on legal THC content
The City of Boulder’s Cannabis Licensing Advisory Board will consider a measure to limit maximum THC content.
On August 5th, the Board will review a policy recommendation to ban cannabis concentrates, though its authority to implement a ban is uncertain.
As reported by the Boulder Reporting Lab, parents, teachers and health care workers are concerned about the effects of high THC products on youth.
The last meeting of the board included an update from the Cannabis Research & Policy Project, including the latest information on high potency marijuana and THC concentrates.
At the state level, there have been attempts to regulate THC potency. Legislation was introduced back in 2021 to cap potencies at 15%. None of the potency regulations became law. However, restrictions did eventually pass regarding how Coloradans under 21 could get access to medical cannabis.
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Wildfire near twin lakes
A wildfire burning in the Interlaken Historic District near Twin Lakes grew to 443 acres and prompted evacuation orders yesterday.
According to the Denver Post, the fire grew from 164 acres Tuesday evening to 443 acres by 8:45 p.m. last night.
The fire was started by an abandoned campfire about 60 yards from the Interlaken trail, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Fire officials believe the campfire was not properly extinguished, and left burning for several days before sparking the wildfire.
Four helicopters, at least one air tanker and 135 fire personnel are currently fighting the fire, agency officials said Wednesday afternoon.
The U.S. forest service is currently trying to calm the flames, but as of last night the fire had not been contained. No historic structures were burned as of 11 a.m.
Camping is prohibited on the east side of Twin Lakes, as well as around the Interlaken trailhead, until further notice.
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First all-female climbing route established in Boulder
Rock climbing legend Lynn Hill and partner Sasha DiGiulian have completed a new route on the Maiden formation in the Flatirons.
Hill and DiGiulian’s successful effort marks the first all-female team to pioneer a new route in the area.
The Maiden is a distinct pillar of sandstone visible just west of South Boulder, and Hill and DiGiulian named the three-pitch route The Queen Line. It’s rated 5.13 – which is considered an advanced climb that requires experience and strength. The duo initially faced some opposition for needing to drill bolts into the rock. Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks eventually issued the permit on the second application.
A film crew documented the effort over the last four years, which included DiGiulian overcoming major physical struggles. The documentary, titled Here To Climb, premiered in Denver last Friday and will begin streaming on HBO Max on June 18.
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Boulder Municipal Airport’s fate on fall ballot
Two citizen-initiated ballot measures about the future of the Boulder Municipal Airport will likely make their way onto the ballot this fall.
Both the “Repurpose Our Runways” and “Runways to Neighborhoods” ballot measures have exceeded the number of signatures required to qualify for the November 2024 ballot.
Both measures seek to close down the Boulder airport, and turn the area into a neighborhood.
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The post Boulder Creek closed to tubers, Wildfire near Twin Lakes, Boulder Municipal Airport’s fate on fall ballot appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
In the days since Mexico elected their first female president – on June 2nd – gender in politics has been at the forefront conversations across the country.
Claudia Sheinbaum won in a landslide victory with almost 60 percent of the vote.
We spoke with CU Boulder professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo about Sheinbaums election and what that could mean for Mexico and the U.S.
Listen:
- play_arrowInterview on Claudia ShienbaumGreta Kerkhoff Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: On June 2nd, earlier this week, Mexico elected its first female president. Claudia Sheinbaum won in a landslide victory, with almost 60 percent of the vote. KGNU’s Greta Kerkhoff spoke with Professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo about Sheinbaum’s election.
Dr. Bayard de Volo is a professor of women and gender studies at CU Boulder with a PhD in political science. Her regional area of specialization is Latin America.
Greta Kerkhoff: So starting off, what do you think contributed to Claudia Sheinbaum’s election as the first female president of Mexico, especially as a more progressive candidate?
Lorraine Bayard de Volo: Well, the main thing that contributed to it is that she is coming on the heels of a very popular outgoing president from the same party. And so, and she’s worked with his, in his administration and kind of rose to some political prominence through that route. So just that factor is key. As a woman, it’s not really clear.
I mean, nothing really stands out particularly for her, but of course she was running against somebody, another woman, so Xóchitl Gálvez um, who came in second, and then there was a third candidate who ran third in those elections. In generally, Politically, Mexico has adopted a principle of gender parity, and that means ensuring that women are elected in roughly equal numbers to men in their legislature. So the, the Mexican Supreme Court, um, is part of that gender parity initiative. And there’s 11 ministers and now five of those 11 are women. And the last four ministers that have been appointed to the Mexican Supreme Court have been women, and the president of the Mexican Supreme Court is a woman.
And, uh, since about 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court has been, has, it’s had two separate rulings that have liberalized abortion rights in Mexico. Um, particularly, it’s decriminalized abortion and legalized it at the federal level. So individual states still have laws against, many individual states within Mexico still have laws against it, but, uh, federally it’s permitted within the first trimester. So Mexico has had this unprecedented move towards adopting the principle of gender parity within its political systems at a variety of levels at the same time that, uh, the United States For example, with abortion, it’s been moving in a very different direction.
Kerkhoff: Totally. And along those lines, what do you think this race means for free elections? Specifically, in terms of the U. S., what can the U. S. and Colorado take away from this election?
Bayard de Volo: This election, and I think upcoming presidency, will be yet one more example of women’s capacity for national leadership, which, of course, the United States has not yet achieved.
But it also is another example of the specific challenges that women political figures face around the world, not only in the United States, but just comparatively across countries. There’s this process by which many women as national leaders or high profile political figures have faced what in political science is often called this double bind. Where women need to somehow take on these qualities of leadership that are so closely tied with what is understood as masculinity or masculine qualities.
So an effective leader is strong, they’re capable, they’re courageous, they’re decisive, they’re assertive. And so, when a woman tries to perform those qualities as a national leader, it can be very difficult to successfully perform those qualities without also getting into a critique of of her presidency as being overly masculine or her being unfeminine and being criticized in that way.
And that critique of a woman in power as being unfeminine is a very effective critique politically. And so it can prove, it can prove they’re undoing, and it can really be a lag on their effectiveness. And so that is, it’s going to, we’ll have to see how Sheinbaum does in terms of navigating that double bind. But it will be just another example that we can all learn from in terms of how women can gain and hold on to power in elected positions, you know, navigating that double bind.
Kerkhoff: Yeah, that’s interesting. I can think of a lot of, Presidents or political figures just in the U. S. alone that have probably suffered that same scrutiny and those double standards. In terms of her time in office, as being a woman and with the state of Mexico right now, what sort of challenges might she face?
Bayard de Volo: Well, within Mexico, there’s a major concern for violence. Kind of everyday interpersonal criminal violence as it’s associated with the drug cartels, for example, but also just more criminal elements in general. And so she will have a lot of pressure on her to respond to that. Uh, but Mexico has seen the emergence, kind of in this sustained movement, uh, that the women’s movement mobilized particularly against what’s called femicide. And femicide is the killing of women because they are women. And so Sheinbaum’s predecessor, uh, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been very much criticized by the women’s movement in Mexico for not, uh, doing enough to end femicide in that country.
And he’s even been rather antagonistic with that movement. So even though he in many ways is understood as being of the left, he has had a very fractious relationship with mobilized women and feminists. And so we’ll have to see how Sheinbaum interacts with and responds to the Mexican women’s movements calls for this end of violence against women.
Kerkhoff: Yeah, Sheinbaum has proposed creating a legal definition for femicide in order to properly address that violence against women that you mentioned. I believe in Mexico it’s around 10 women and girls murdered every day. What can you say about the history of violence against women in this region, and why do you think the numbers in this region are so high?
Bayard de Volo: That is a question that very few people have felt like they’ve been able to answer for it with any satisfaction. I think it’s, it’s, it’s a whole number of different factors coming in. And part of it is, well, the drug trade mixes in with all that. And it’s one of the few ways that, young men in particular have as a path for status in many communities within Mexico, particularly if they aren’t getting or pursuing an education and come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
And so joining a cartel, joining a gang, is a way of achieving status that equates masculinity in many ways with kind of a very assertive, aggressive, and even violent style. And so I think women have been on the losing end of that dynamic. Uh, but there’s many other factors going on as well. Part of it is a recognition of femicide for what it is.
Women are increasingly understanding that there is this phenomenon of femicide, and are increasingly probably more likely to report it to authorities or at least have it recorded to some degree. And so the numbers are growing, but part of it might be simply people feeling more compelled to have a disappearance or a murder recorded as a femicide.
And that’s a small comfort, but it might. Help bring more needed attention to finally trying to find some way of combating this. Other elements that, that contribute to femicide have to do with a lot of the internal migration going on within Mexico as people move away from their traditional communities, um, looking for work, they lose a lot of their support network that can leave them more vulnerable. And give them fewer options for avoiding being able to get out of dangerous relationships or otherwise avoid violence.
Kerkhoff: Quickly, I do want to mention on the topic of violence, there were 37 documented assassinations of political candidates before this election. What do you think President Sheinbaum can do to address political violence? What has she spoken about in terms of her approach to tackling the violence in Mexico?
Bayard de Volo: She’s certainly has tried to distance herself from this approach that her predecessor had, which was called basically, I forget what it was called exactly, but hugs, not bullets or something like that. I don’t remember, but It’s such an intractable problem.
She is trying to create more and more autonomous security forces that separate themselves from drug cartels, but yeah, her success remains to be seen.
Kerkhoff: Going back to the women’s movement that’s going on there right now, what has from your perspective, the reaction of women in Mexico been to this election, how do you think that this is going to change or propel the movement?
Bayard de Volo: I think that a lot of outsiders might expect that having a woman president will really maybe either address the women’s movement’s demands in some fashion, or if Sheinbaum is not able to find a means of, of collaborating with this important movement, they might see it as, as a way of undermining the women’s movement.
But I think that from what I’ve seen and heard, the women’s movement doesn’t hold out too much promise that she will go much further than the previous president, Lopez Obrador, did, uh, but are waiting to be proven wrong. I don’t expect them to pull punches or be less forceful in their demands in the face of a woman president.
Kerkhoff: And lastly, I want to kind of wrap up going back to how the U. S. is still yet to elect its first female president. And once again, this might be something that does not have a straightforward answer whatsoever. But from your research, what do you think are some reasons that the U. S. is yet to elect its first female president?
Bayard de Volo: Well, I think that it does have a lot, going back to how much of the U. S. public understands leadership, and leadership qualities, and, and how difficult it can be for women candidates to appear to be a potentially effective leader while not losing their femininity. I think that in Latin America, to me, it seems like there’s a little more leeway for women to be able to emphasize their femininity without having their intelligence immediately become in question. And I think that in the U. S., women aren’t given that grace. It’s so easy for women in the United States to be criticized as either too feminine or not feminine enough.
Sedley: Once again, that was KGNU’s Greta Kirchhoff speaking with Professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo about Claudia Sheinbaum’s election in Mexico. She is the first female president in Mexico’s history.
The post A local perspective on Mexico’s first female president appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, another update on the Dolores River, which is facing lots of controversy around a proposal for a national monument to protect it. Then, a Colorado collaboration between land management agencies and municipalities to get kids outside – even if they bring their phones. After that, Chris Mohr shares his weekly commentary, Make Them Hear You. We’ll wrap up with herbalist Brigitte Mars and her regular Wednesday feature, Naturally.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-06-12Jackie Sedley The post Dolores River monument pushback continues; Getting kids outside – even if they bring their phones appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Since last July 2023 in Denver, 1,512 individuals have been moved on indoors from unsheltered homelessness, but the average length of stay once they moved indoors is just 104 days. That’s according to Denver’s current dashboard for the All in Mile High Initiative, which used to be called House1000. That’s Mayor Mike Johnston’s initiative to move individuals indoors from unsheltered homelessness.
Initiatives like these are being taken on by local governments across the country, but they’ve prompted a question that lots of organizers and community organizations are asking: Where do these people go after their stays end?
I spoke with one individual from Denver, one individual from Los Angeles, and one individual from New York in a roundtable setting to compare and contrast the experiences that they’re all having while trying to help their unhoused neighbors, the ways in which their local governments do or don’t support those efforts, and what they hope or expect to see in the days, weeks, months, years to come.
V Reeves is an organizer with House Keys Action Network Denver.
“We’re trying to ensure [safety for] people who are incredibly vulnerable, who we know personally out on the streets – people like Gary or Mindy, both of whom have colostomy bags, and when they’re camping out in the cold, their colostomy bag literally freezes so that they have a bag of urine attached frozen to their leg and they’re trying to maneuver and often times they experience leaks. They have to cut the whole of the colostomy bag to fit to their organ using nail clippers because shelters will not allow them to take scissors, regardless of medical notes, things that are just absurd that you can’t believe that this is really the kind of conditions we’re forcing on people, but again, there’s no prioritization for people who are in most need of safe spaces.”
“We can’t expect these different services or programs or agencies to be taking care of the problems without us. We need to understand that if we expect them to act without us, they’re going to act in ways that we don’t appreciate and…that don’t serve our needs because of money interests. And so recognizing that you’re as much a part of that process as anybody else is really important. And then I think maintain your discontent. It’s normal and it’s healthy to feel absolutely enraged and disappointed and drained and, you know, exhausted from seeing this kind of trauma. And I think when we numb ourselves to it too much, we risk complacency. We risk becoming part of that population that accepts that this is the normal. When it really isn’t. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to the absolute worst, like, ‘Well, at least we’re not, you know, bombing our own people.’ That’s not even true, history has shown we’ve done that, and we could do that, and we still do that. There’s a lot of violence happening right now. And we cannot just decide that that’s life. So I hope that folks do find ways to heal and to find community in the meantime and to realize that community and people power is really what’s going to get us through all of these hurdles.”
V Reeves (left) stands with a man who arrived in the United States from Columbia, after a violent encounter with Columbian police. Housekeys Action Network Denver helped him find a hotel room after he spent time sleeping on the streets of Denver. Photo Courtesy of @housekeysactionnetworkdenver on Instagram.Kitty Davis-Walker is the Vice President of Public Relations at the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles.
“Programs will not work unless they provide affordable housing. Otherwise, it’s going to be a continuous stream of folks. Um, this is a crisis that is a FEMA-like crisis, and it should be treated as such. And that’s not what’s happening here in Los Angeles. It’s sad. We’re going to continue to do what we do. And hope that other folks will come on board and do what we’re doing because we know what works. And we’re on the front lines. We’re, we’re on the front lines here on Skid Row. So, you know, someone sitting in their office making policies and things and have never been on the front lines to see what is happening, like what Vis talking about. And, and, and what Nathalie’s talking about, what’s going on in, in New York. We’re the ones who know we’re on the front lines.”
“If you give somebody everything you’re not really giving them a hand up. You’re giving them a handout. So we are providing services and programs where you’re investing in your own recovery of what’s going on with you of why you became homeless in the first place. What’s not working is just getting folks off the street, putting them into a shelter and with no accountability, basically just putting them there, providing food and shelter, and that’s it. That’s, that’s what’s not working.”
Kitty Davis-Walker (right) stands with Denise and Violet, a mother and daughter featured on Union Rescue Mission’s Angels of Hope fundraising television special. Photo Courtesy of Kitty Davis-Walker.Nathalie Interiano is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Care for the Homeless in New York City.
“I think when we have these conversations, especially in my work, you know, in policy and sort of talking to people, educating them about homelessness, I do want people to understand that we very much can solve homelessness. Of course, we focus on a lot of the issues that we need to be focusing on because then that leads to the solution, but we know what the solution is. We we’ve seen it in action. We’ve seen the impact. I think it just takes a lot of systems that need to work together at the same time, and that coordination is sort of what’s lacking.”
“A lot of what we’ve seen, especially since the pandemic, there were some really great interventions that came from the federal government, but also locally that really address housing instability for people. We actually saw in numbers the impact that it had in a very small time frame. And yet, we have to make the case that we need to continue the funding because it’s on deaf ears. It happens at every level of government, city, state, and federal. The reason we’re seeing the incredible increases in homelessness right now is because all of those interventions stop. And we have been sounding the alarm for two years, three years saying, ‘This is going to happen if we don’t go back to what we had before.
Nathalie Interiano speaking on behalf of Care for the Homeless. Photo Courtesy of Nathalie Interiano. play_arrowAPublicAffair_2024-05-01Jackie Sedley Transcript:*
Jackie Sedley: 8:35 on listener-supported KGNU.
You’re listening to A Public Affair. Since last July 2023 in Denver, 1,512 individuals have been moved on indoors from unsheltered homelessness, but the average length of stay once they moved indoors is just 104 days. That’s according to Denver’s current dashboard for the All in Mile High Hotel and Micro Community Outcomes Program, which used to be called House1000. That’s Mayor Mike Johnston’s initiative to move individuals indoors from unsheltered homelessness. But the question, “Where do these people go after their stays end, after they leave?” is something that a lot of individuals around the country are asking themselves and their local governments as they work to help those living on the streets, their unhoused neighbors. I spoke with one individual from Denver. one individual from Los Angeles and one individual from New York in a roundtable setting to compare and contrast the experiences that they’re all having while trying to help their unhoused neighbors, the ways in which their local governments do or don’t support those efforts, and what they hope or expect to see in the days, months, weeks, years to come. I’ll allow them to introduce themselves now and we’ll get right into that conversation.
V Reeves: I’m V Reeves. Uh, first name is just the letter V. Last name is Reeves, like Keanu, now relation. And I use they, them pronouns. I’m here in Denver and I’m an organizer with House Keys Action Network, Denver.
Kitty Davis Walker: I’m Kitty Davis-Walker and I’m at Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles and my title is Vice President of Public Relations.
Nathalie Interiano: My name is Nathalie Interiano. I use she, her pronouns. And I am the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Care for the Homeless in New York City.
Sedley: I want to go around and give each of you the opportunity to introduce the initiatives you take part in that provide aid for the unhoused in your communities. So, V, starting with you over in Denver, what would you say are the main goals of House Keys Action Network Denver and what kind of steps are you taking currently to achieve those goals?
Reeves: Yeah, thank you. Um, so HAND is currently fighting for housing to be a human right for all, and that looks like, um, a lot of policy and legislative change, um, we do so by making sure that the voices and the presence and the leadership of the unhoused themselves, the ones who have the experience, are leading the efforts, and so any kinds of solutions or programs or things that are brought forth that directly impact folks, Need to be led by those who are directly impacted. So we have a lot of experience bringing folks to speak to city council, to the mayor, and to speak to press about their situation and really bring light to their experiences so that folks feel that they are seen and heard. Because we know that oftentimes the unhoused are treated with a sense of invisibility. It suggests that they don’t exist or they live on the outskirts of society when they are fully part of our society and just victim to a system that preys on the impoverished and keeps people in a cycle of poverty. We also make sure to lead with a racial justice lens that recognizes marginal identities and intersectionalities with being unhoused. We also were working with city council to push no freezing sweeps bill. That was able to pass with city council, but not with the mayor. The mayor vetoed it, even though it’s something that he had said during his initial campaign that he would support, that he would not be doing sweeps and freezing weather, clearly that wasn’t consistent, that didn’t end up being the case, so we’re just making sure that people have their rights protected and expanded upon while they’re experiencing houselessness.
Sedley: Thank you V. Kitty, moving to you in Los Angeles, how would you describe the work that Union Rescue Mission does and what does that provide for Angelenos living on the streets?
Walker: So we’re a 135-year-old Mission and what we do is we provide shelter, comprehensive programs and services for men, women, and families. And we really don’t turn away anybody. We are a clean, sober living environment for our guests. That is the main thing that we have. Partnerships with USC Dental. Um, they come and provide dental for our, our, our guests. We are in partnership with Pepperdine University for legal issues that our guests may have. And also in partnership with them for our mental health, uh, counseling. For our guests here as well, uh, and, um, we also provide medical and the comprehensive services that will help folks get back on their feet and connect them with housing or whatever it is that they need. So we meet them where they are, and then they’re case managed, and then, uh, they’re able to, to leave us with whatever resources it is that are needed to help get them back on their feet, to move into housing.
Sedley: All right. And Nathalie, moving to you, tell me a bit about your organization Care for the Homeless and how you serve the unhoused population in New York City.
Interiano: Certainly. Thanks to both of you. That’s really great work that you’re both doing. So at Care for the Homeless in New York, we take a little bit of an interesting approach because we’re primarily a healthcare organization, and we provide shelter services as well, specifically to people experiencing homelessness through 26 federally qualified health centers, We also operate, at this point, three shelters. There’s different modes of shelter here within our system, and so we operate a safe and even, and two shelters for single adult women. We’re about to open a single adult men’s shelter, um, in East New York. Um, but the one model that we have always is an FQHC on site, so understanding sort of that link between homelessness and healthcare, and access to healthcare, so that’s the two big things that we do, and then the third is the policy part, which is what I do, and it’s really advocating for policies to prevent it in homelessness, and specifically focusing on three issue areas that we think are incredibly important to the population that we serve, and one is Making the health care system responsive to people experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, so having better access to medical and behavioral health care, which includes both mental health care and substance use treatment. Um, and then also stable housing is an incredibly important part of addressing homelessness in general, especially for addressing, uh, the health of a person, um, and then equity and social justice issues are really trailing too. Um, challenge the roots of oppression that have led us to the point where we have homelessness, and specifically who is represented in the population of people experiencing homelessness, um, in New York City and nationwide, being largely, um, people of color. Um, and every, you know, sort of city is different, and certainly a population that we have in New York, it’s different than other cities because we have a large shelter system. We have the right to shelter, which kind of changes the way that we provide services. Um, and although we do have an unhoused population, it’s certainly not as large as other cities, um, like Los Angeles, Denver, um, and so on. So, um, it’s a little bit of a different perspective, but certainly a lot of things align in terms of what other folks are doing in other cities.
Sedley: Thank you to all three of you for that information. I think to start just by giving some context to those general populations. Starting with V and then moving to Kitty and then Nathalie, do you have an idea of how many people live on Denver streets, Los Angeles streets, and New York City streets currently? And if not, is there a reason that that number is unclear starting with V?
Reeves: Yeah, I would say that it’s hard to assess. We’re dealing with unprecedented numbers of migrants coming in right now, which has totally tipped the scale. Before, I would say it kind of depended how you looked at it because there were certain systems. That showed that around 25,000 people would be applying for the lottery or applying for unhoused services and resources, but then you’ve had, you know, accounts that kind of fluctuate between two, 3,000 people experiencing this at a time in the streets actively. Um, sleeping in the streets at that moment. So it kind of shows, I think, that a lot of the times people get missed. There are plenty of people who, uh, were unable to pay rent and are in this intermediary period where they’re living on someone’s couch or they’re living in their car before they’re truly, um, in the streets. And, and I think that unfortunately a lot of those people don’t have access to the same services because they don’t meet the high definition of Being unhoused or being homeless, um, which means that you actively slept in the street the night before. We face this problem when we try to house, um, migrants who are families with small children, and we try to keep those small children indoors. So they may be ending one program and they may have spent that night in a hotel the night before, but they wouldn’t actively qualify for another program until they actually spent the night in the street, um, the night before, which is kind of maddening. Um. But that’s, you know, the way that a lot of these guidelines work. So yeah, really, we’re, we’re fighting for not just the current unhoused, but also the people who are going to become unhoused and that’s actively what we’re looking at. We’re looking at huge spikes just because rent in Denver continues to go up as I’m sure it does everywhere else as well. And it’s becoming much more unlivable and creating much harsher conditions. So. Really, we exist to advocate for all people so that if anyone finds themselves in this situation, they’re going to have the supports needed.
Sedley: Kitty, can you speak at all on the population size of the folks living on the streets of Los Angeles?
Walker: It’s absolutely horrible, Jackie, and I want to commend Nathalie and the folks in New York for their right to shelter folks because, they’re keeping the numbers very, very low, but here in Los Angeles, it’s over 75, 000 plus devastated by homelessness, about 55, 000 unhoused. It’s, it’s more than that actually, but that was the last recent count and also as V mentioned, that number has an error because there’s folks living in their cars and perhaps couch surfing and some people do have money. So even during the count might’ve been the time where they had some money and they got a hotel room that night, so they weren’t counted. The numbers are staggering here and we are known in Los Angeles as the holiest capital of the U S and that’s just a horrible thing to be known by. Uh, so we actually have three places, one on Skid Row, which is Union Rescue Mission, uh, and. We have a place about 22 miles away for moms and children and senior ladies, and they can stay there up to three years. So they’ll go through the program. They can start taking college classes to up their game so that they can get a better job so that they can afford housing and to be out on their own and take care of their families. Then we also have another place which will be two years in April, and it’s our bridge housing, and that’s for families that are actually working, but need to save money so that they can get back into their own house or into their own housing. And then, of course, here downtown is emergency, and that’s where we have the largest population where bugs are coming in every single day. And we’re making room for them. Our gym on our third floor, we, we don’t use it anymore. We can’t because it’s full of families. Um, and so, um, with that being said, our focus, uh, is to get folks case managed to find out where they are and what it is that they need, uh, and then try and connect them with services and a place to stay. Uh, and again, our focus is a clean, sober living environment. We’re solely privately funded because the monies that, if we got from the state or the city or the federal government, we’d have to allow drugs and alcohol to freely flow. And we’re not that type of organization, Union Rescue Mission, we’re not doing that. Our focus is to make sure people are protected. in a safe, sober, living environment, and that there’s accountability and expectation, if they’re going through anything, to recover from that, and then reconnect them with communities and back into life, uh, and having their own home.
Sedley: Thank you for that, Kitty. And Nathalie, on to you, touching on the numbers of unhoused folks counted in New York City. And if that number is impacted by this right to shelter that you mentioned, I would love for you to touch on that a little bit. I know that that can obviously change demographics.
Interiano: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, sort of adding on to the one estimate that we have from the federal government to show what the numbers look like in every locality, in every state, is the annual homelessness assessment report, the AHR. Um, and this is the point in time count that usually happens in the same day, uh, or the same night in January of every year. And so. In some ways it’s flawed. I think we sort of touched on some of those reasons. There’s a lot of folks that are not captured. For example, if you’re in an emergency room, most of the times you’re not captured. And we understand that it gives us sort of a framework to work from, but also know that it doesn’t actually capture everyone. So, for example, for us in 2023, last year, we had about 5,000 people that were unsheltered. It’s a significant increase from what we’ve had the last couple years, but that’s for a couple of different reasons. Now, the reason that we don’t have the same numbers that Kitty NV we’re talking about is because we have what’s called the right to shelter, and one, we’re really one of the only localities that has that in. It’s only to New York City. It’s not even to New York State. And it was a consent decree that happened in the 1980s. Um, and it essentially means that if you are in need of a bed, so you come to the Department of Home Resources and say, I am in need of a bed, depending on certain requirements, um, the city is required to provide that for you. And so for us, our shelter system and our numbers of people experiencing homelessness look different because of that right to shelter. Part of, I think, what V was touching on, and I think is really important, is that it’s an ever changing situation, and so these numbers, again, we use them as frameworks, but, for example, in the last year, there has been, you know, some challenges to the right to shelter in New York City, specifically from the mayor. Some policies have been enacted to specifically focus on migrant and asylum seekers. For example, if I go into the shelter system, I would not have a time limitation in terms of how long it could be there. But there have been time limitations set on folks that are either single adults or families with children that are within that emergency population of migrant and asylum seekers coming in. So, I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of nuances when it comes to how policy affects the numbers that we’re seeing. And I think both of you have really touched on how that can look. And part also I think is as policy people or people who work in the field is understanding how those specific policies are going to look down the line and the kinds of things that we have to prepare for, which I think sometimes we are much better at doing than say like government officials or government representatives.
Sedley: Thank you for that explanation. And I think that that’s a really good segue into a conversation about your organization’s respective relationships with city officials, especially with mayors who often take on responsibility for initiatives to help the unhoused in their communities. We’ve talked on KGNU about HAND, House Key Action Network Denver’s relationship with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who worked to provide shelter for the unhoused and close encampments across the city for that. His office says that they successfully housed over 1, 000 individuals in the second half of 2023, and are planning to continue their efforts this year. Do you want to speak more on that relationship with the Mayor, V, or opinions on his efforts to start us off?
Reeves: Always want to speak more on that. Yeah, as you said, the average length of stay was less than a month, and they were counting those numbers as housing 1, 000. Um, I think we continuously throughout. This entire program that he had, we’ve been really highlighting the fact that he’s been using the wrong vernacular. He’s been saying housing. He’s not housing people. He’s briefly sheltering people. He has expanded the shelter system. We are grateful for his focus on hotel shelters and a kind of sheltering that does offer some more dignity. It does offer a closed door, privacy, um, your own access to bathroom, and in some cases, kitchenettes, and these are things that people have been asking for and need. However, definitely, um, you can’t house people effectively if you’re creating these intermediary systems, and then, as Kitty was saying earlier, there’s nowhere for people to go to after that. So you now create the system, and unfortunately, the mayor refers to a large population of people as being shelter reliant. Um, and we really are against that term just because it’s negligent of the kind of harm that the city and the government has done to create a reliance because there is no other system, there is no way for people to have housing with the kind of services they need to keep them in that housing and the kind of support that would be able to sustain that. The House1000 program has had a lot of criticism from us. Um, we have seen him continuing to close camps and, and sweep entire streets without offering hotel shelter, and this has caused a lot of indignation in the unhoused community, why are they getting it, why am I not getting it, and even in certain areas where they did designate, uh, camp closure to result into hotel stay or hotel sheltering, they, uh, Don’t often have enough room or capacity to include all of the people at the camp, so they start creating a buy list a week earlier, and let’s say somebody’s at work, or somebody happens to get there later, um, regardless of their vulnerability, regardless of their conditions, and other aspects that should be taken into consideration when we talk about who’s going to be prioritized for housing. And for sheltering opportunities, um, instead, he has continuously pushed that he’s just doing it geographically, and it’s very clear to us that this is much more about visibility, um, than about vulnerability, and if he can make the streets look like there weren’t any unhoused people ever there, and kind of wipe them from existence, then out of sight, out of mind, the public is gonna Give him higher ratings in the next election. So we’re pretty disappointed by this approach.
We’re trying to ensure that people who are incredibly vulnerable, who we know personally out on the streets. People like Gary or Mindy, both of whom have colostomy bags, and when they’re camping out in the cold, their colostomy bag literally freezes so that they have a bag of urine attached frozen to their leg and they’re trying to maneuver and often times they experience leaks. They have to cut the whole of the colostomy bag to fit to their organ using nail clippers because shelters will not allow them to take scissors, regardless of medical notes, things that are just absurd that you can’t believe that this is really the kind of conditions we’re forcing on people, but again, there’s no prioritization for people who are in most need of safe spaces.
So, the result is people have been kicked out at high rates. They have incredibly stringent rules. Some people might choose not to go to the hotel shelter because they’re not allowed to have family or friends visit. You can’t have something that isolates people from their community, their support networks. These are incredibly needed. You know, they also have curfew rules. The locations of a lot of these places are really out in the middle of nowhere. So you’re now removing their access to their resources that they usually need to go to, including medical resources. There’s no transportation support. People find themselves stranded. There’s limited food that they’re provided that is not sufficient for a lot of diets. There’s no consideration of medical conditions. The list can go on and on, and actually we know that a lot of people internally within government, a lot of people from the Department of Housing and Stability, they have their own critiques, and folks who have been doing this work for years, let alone the people living it and experiencing it who know the very best what those barriers are, are just not being listened to throughout this process.
So, uh, we would wish that the mayor would stop campaigning. He’s already in office. And also we can’t forget that in doing so, it offers him the opportunity to increase criminalization of people who are still on the street under the false pretense that he’s provided so many opportunities and so many spaces for folks, and if you haven’t taken advantage of that, then it’s your own fault. And you’re the one who now needs to be maybe forcibly institutionalized or into a jail system and, and further. Oppressed. So yeah, we, we hope that things will change. He’s already admitted to being wrong about his approach before. He’s already admitted that the definition for what they were using for housed was insufficient. So I hope he keeps learning, and I hope that he’s open to the many fallacies of what he’s put forth and listening to the people who are going through this and what they need.
Sedley: Thank you for that input, V, I appreciate it. If you’re just tuning in now, you’re listening to KGNU FM 88. 5 Boulder, KGNU 1390 Denver. This is A Public Affair. You are hearing a conversation between myself and three individuals working with the houseless population across the country. One is V Reeves. They are an organizer with House Keys Action Network Denver. There is also Kitty Walker at Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles, and Nathalie Interiano, the Director of Policy and Advocacy at CARE for the Homeless in New York City. We’ll go back to that conversation right now.
Moving over to Kitty in Los Angeles. Kitty, I know that the current mayor, Karen Bass, as her first act in office declared a state of emergency on homelessness in LA County. I also know that LA County is home to Skid Row, the 45 block area where one of the largest unhoused communities has consistently lived since at least the 1930s. What kind of conditions are you seeing there and what is the Union Rescue Mission’s relationship with Mayor Karen Bass and her efforts for Skid Row and beyond to the greater Los Angeles unhoused community?
Walker: We’d like to have a closer and better relationship with her. She’s doing the best that she can. She is getting a lot of pushback. There are a number of programs and services, but it’s not enough, and I say it’s not enough because if, if, uh, recovery, if mental health services, if substance abuse services, if those services are not connected to those housing programs, or getting folks inside safe, and if those services are not connected, it’s not going to work. A lot of billions have been misspent. In terms of making those things happen, because if people aren’t held accountable and responsible, then it’s just going to be a continuous cycle of out on the street, bringing you into a place, and then doing some of the same things that were happening out on the street, is not going to help somebody get back into society, because you don’t have a foundation to help you do that. To budget, to even know if you need mental health service because you have been out on the street for so long, or that has caused your mental health issues. To, to to go down if you’re self-medicating, uh, by using substances and things of that nature. And with the funding that comes from the federal government, from the city, they have the harm reduction model. And the harm reduction model allows drugs and alcohol to freely flow. It allows, um, places that are. Sub human folks shouldn’t even live in some of the apartments and places and things that, uh, receive that kind of funding. And, and, and so again, the only thing that is going to decrease our unhealth population is the services have to be connected to whatever shelter to help them in those areas of mental health, substance abuse. So things have to change. And they can only change if we do make our city, state, and federal, uh, officials accountable for what’s going on in our cities, in our states, across the country. That’s the only way it’s going to happen. And so those of us who vote need to make sure that we are making our voices heard and demanding that the programs and services that are. Available need to align with and make sure that they are addressed, um, when taking care of folks.
Sedley: Thank you for that perspective, Kitty. And moving on to Nathalie. Now, Nathalie, I know that New York City. is obviously known for its large unhoused population. It’s also known for this historic reputation of poor infrastructure on the streets for sanitation and living conditions. Uh, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made headlines in late 2022 for enforcing the state law that allowed first responders to involuntarily commit people experiencing a mental health crisis. A year later, so in November of 2023, he announced that initiatives like these did lead folks living with untreated severe mental illness and those experiencing homelessness to shelter and support. Does Care for the Homeless have a stance on the mayor’s efforts in this realm? And if so, what does the relationship with the mayor look like for your organization?
Interiano: You know, it’s, it’s a good question and I think that’s an interesting policy to look at and building off of what Bea was talking about, I think there’s been, uh, a pretty significant move across the nation to respond to homelessness, very punitive approaches to addressing, especially unsheltered homelessness and, and part of what Mayor Adams has done since coming into office is really try to expand, uh, a current law that already exists. To allow for transferring someone to a hospital, whether or not they actually are a danger to themselves or others, or it expands it to say that the responder can make the assumption or make the call to say, you know what, we need to transfer you because you are not able to take care of your own personal needs. We haven’t seen a lot of data in terms of what actually has happened from that. What we have heard is that most people that get transferred don’t stay because they’re not befolded to have to stay at the hospital. And I think we touched on this really well as well as these are all emergency response systems, right? They don’t end homelessness. And so part of our shelter system, part of the very specific interventions that we have for people who are unsheltered, like safe havens, drop in centers, rapid rehousing, Rapid rehousing is maybe the one thing where we are actually addressing homelessness, but the rest of it is just to sort of get people into a space where they’re not having to deal with the elements. But then what? And I think that’s what the mayor is missing is that yes, we need to focus on the emergency system because that’s important. We have to be able to provide those emergency services, but then what do we offer people afterwards? And what does that actually do in terms of ending homelessness? So if we don’t have enough housing to offer people, if we don’t have permanency to offer people, we don’t have services like mental health services or connections to community based services, Then what happens? People languish in these emergency services and that’s not what the overall goal is. And a lot of times, even within our hospitals, and I think Kitty talked about this, a really important aspect too is that a lot of our systems don’t talk to each other. And so if someone is coming out of the hospital system and getting discharged to the street, the outreach team doesn’t know that’s happening or that they were hospitalized and therefore they’re not able to intervene much more quickly or much more efficiently. Or, for example, if they get discharged into the shelter system, sometimes we as shelter providers don’t know that that happened, and therefore we can’t try to set up a plan for them to maybe prevent that from happening next time.
And I think Jeff Olivet, who’s the executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council of Homelessness, he does a really good analogy to think about, you know, it’s a faucet running of people who are unstable and unstable housing, possibly becoming homeless. And there’s all these leaks and somehow we expect the emergency response system to then actually solve homelessness when we’re actually talking about all of the other systems that interact with it. Um, and so I think, you know, I’ve sort of talked about a lot of things right now, but I just wanted to sort of address with both B and Kitty in terms of like how that actually looks on the ground. And really what’s happening in all of our cities, it’s, it’s the same thing. It’s just sort of looks different depending on what policies have been enacted. And every mayor is kind of doing the same thing. They’re just taking different approaches to not really solving the issue. And the issue is one housing, very important. Uh, but then also really scaling up those, those other supportive services that a lot of people need, even when they get into permanent housing. So I’ll stop there.
Reeves: Well, I commented something in the chat about what you were saying, I love so much what you’re talking about, I think that rapid rehousing is playing itself out differently in Denver, and maybe it’s just because now people are timing out. So the rapid rehousing, the way it’s been working is it’s temporary financial relief for around a year. The idea that a lot of people were sold on. Especially in a lot of shelter programs, they were actually using rapid rehousing when they were closing down a lot of these COVID shelters because the funding was no longer there and they were promising that after a year you’d be able to reapply and you could continue if you still had that financial need. Instead, we’re now getting to a point where people are timing out of that program and we’re, are actually facing eviction and not being offered a way to apply for another voucher or some kind of other program to take over payments. So here in Denver, we have a lot of of people who are reaching out to us and saying that they’re confused. They don’t understand what happened. They were able to save up, they were able to take care of things. They were able to get to a place. But now being faced with market rates, again, with housing, and it’s like a, it’s, it’s from zero to a hundred. Right? And folks just can’t. Um, afford that. And so there is a lot of insecurity there. So, I’ve seen, especially with Salvation Army, I’m going to name drop right there. I’m sorry, but I’m going to do it, because they deserve it. They worked really hard at tanking their reputation with folks here in Denver. They just have, and they’ve had a lot of folks really pushing, especially through the House1000 program in order to continue having capacity to take new folks in, they’re actually pressuring people into unstable and unsustainable housing situations with the promise of rapid rehousing for a year. And we just know that it’s not going to last. And these are not the folks who can afford it. There are folks who, like Kitty was mentioning too, there are people who just need a place to stay or just need financial assistance. So I wish we had the same kind of communication here with rapid rehousing, um, that it sounds like they have in other places, but it really sounds like it’s being used as a quick ticket for case managers to be able to get folks out and invite more people in. So, yeah, we’ll, we’ll see if that changes.
Interiano: That’s, that’s very interesting. And I’ll just sort of add to that. I think when you have these new initiatives, a lot of it is contingent on funding. And, and a lot of what we’ve seen, especially since the pandemic, there were some really great interventions that came from the federal government, but also locally that really address housing instability for people. We actually saw in numbers the impact that it had in a very small time frame. And yet, we have to make the case that we need to continue the funding because it’s on deaf ears. It happens at every level of government, city, state, and federal. The reason we’re seeing the incredible increases in homelessness right now is because all of those interventions stop. And we have been sounding the alarm for two years, three years saying, “This is going to happen if we don’t go back to what we had before.” And I think this is a very prime example of that. It’s so, so I, I appreciate you bringing that up because I do think that it’s different in certain places in the way that it’s actually been implemented. Um, that’s a really good question to sort of follow up on.
Reeves: And, and I also love like the point that you bring up that actually COVID by. Creating a, a situation where now a large majority of the population are experiencing what marginalized populations have been experiencing for so long. Um, now there’s a willingness to create accessible programs that address this for the masses, um, and lower all these barriers and put people in hotel shelters rather than congregate that are actually better for everybody’s health and safety. And so, yeah, to see that they’re now peeling it back again. incredibly disappointing, but hopefully, hopefully we’re able to make sure that a lot of that sticks around. And like you said, we’re able to convince them to, to get back on the bandwagon and follow what works.
Sedley: Kitty, is there anything in Los Angeles related to rapid rehousing that you know of that you can speak on right now?
Walker: Um, I can tell you that there was a program or programs for rapid rehousing. Um, but again, they don’t, really work if you, um, don’t have something in place that you put a time limit on it, and then you’re stressing the folks to get out at a certain time, knowing that they only have a week or six months or what, what have you. Programs will not work unless they provide affordable housing. Otherwise, it’s going to be a continuous stream of folks. Um, this is a crisis that is a FEMA-like crisis, and it should be treated as such. And that’s not what’s happening here in Los Angeles. It’s sad. We’re going to continue to do what we do. And hope that other folks will come on board and do what we’re doing because we know what works. And we’re on the front lines. We’re, we’re on the front lines here on Skid Row. So, you know, someone sitting in their office making policies and things and have never been on the front lines to see what is happening, like what Vis talking about. And, and, and what Nathalie’s talking about, what’s going on in, in New York. We’re the ones who know we’re on the front lines. I’ll give you an example before our former president CEO, God bless his heart. The Reverend Andy Bales, he actually went and spoke in Sacramento about Um, hospitals just dumping folks after they’ve gotten sick, maybe their insurance ran out or whatever, but they would just dump folks right here on Skid Row, in a hospital gown, and, but, he got those policies changed, uh, because they started fining hospitals. You have to have a connection, and so, those are the kinds of policies and things where we, as folks who work on the front lines, have to be at the table. And working with our, our mayors and our governors and all of the folks, our public officials who have the power and the authority to make things happen.
Sedley: I appreciate that, Kitty. And I think that I really want to draw attention to the fact that although all three cities are different, there is this through line through everything that all three of you are saying, where these are people that we’re talking about. And these are people that are important to humanize if we want to provide aid, and also they’re a population that is suffering at the hands of systems that we have created. And so being on the front lines, like you kept saying Kitty, obviously exposes you to things that people that are sitting at offices and making policies, like you mentioned, might not otherwise see. So I wanted to ask all of you, if you can speak a bit on, maybe something that you feel like hasn’t been working either within the community to help these folks or from your organization’s perspective and something that has been working, something that you think has been helping folks.
Walker: So for Union Rescue Mission, what has been working is providing a safe, sober living environment where people can thrive. and providing them with shelter and the comprehensive services that come along with that. Now for us, we have programs here where if you have some income, you have to save 50 to 60 percent of your income. We also have a fee after like three month period or so. to get you to begin to budget so that when you do move from us, you’ve saved so much, and now you can begin to, uh, prepare yourself. But when you do move out on your own, you’ve got to be accountable for paying your rent and paying the regular bills that come in all the time. And basically, if you give somebody everything you’re not really giving them a hand up. You’re giving them a handout. So we are providing services and programs where you’re investing in your own recovery of what’s going on with you of why you became homeless in the first place. What’s not working is just getting folks off the street, putting them into a shelter and with no accountability, basically just putting them there, providing food and shelter, and that’s it. That’s, that’s what’s not working.
Sedley: Thank you, Kitty.
Interiano: There’s so many things that are not working. And I think when we have these conversations, especially in my work, you know, in policy and sort of talking to people, educating them about homelessness, I do want people to understand that we very much can solve homelessness. Of course, we focus on a lot of the issues that we need to be focusing on because then that leads to the solution, but we know what the solution is. We we’ve seen it in action. We’ve seen the impact. I think it just takes a lot of systems that need to work together at the same time, and that coordination is sort of what’s lacking, so, you know, one thing that I think has worked really well, and we didn’t touch on it too much, um, in this conversation, but I do think it’s a really important aspect, especially because we’re seeing that as the leading cause of death for a lot of people that are experiencing homelessness, is substance use, um, in New York City, we’re the only locality right now that has safe injection sites, or places where they can come in Use drugs in a way that is in a safe environment. And in the last two years, or I believe five years that they’ve been in existence, they’ve reversed about 600 overdoses, which is huge. Every year, we’re also one of the only localities that does a report on the deaths of people experiencing homelessness, and year after year, the last couple of years, I mean, it’s, it’s increased to about 600 people in the last report that we had, and the highest percentage of substance use, and so. As a healthcare provider, we really want to look at that and say, how do we address that? And another sort of thing that we’ve, as an organization, have been really successful at is addressing substance use with our medical team going out on the street up in the Bronx. And so we, we operate out of a health center that we have there. We have a street outreach team that goes out and just sort of just try to create a relationship with people to feel comfortable to possibly engage with our health, with our health services. And we sometimes induce someone’s right on the street. Um, I think that’s the one thing that’s working. In terms of what’s not working, this probably is the case for most places. We rely a lot on our social service infrastructure to provide a lot of these emergency services that we’re talking about without really, um, investing in it. And so, for example, for us, you know, especially at the city level, there’s been freezes in terms of hiring folks. We have not invested in the human service workforce, which are really the people that are going to be processing these housing applications, right? That are going to be processing these SNAP applications. Public assistance applications that are going to get people into housing out of the emergency shelter system. If we don’t invest in that, then we’re not going to have the people or the workforce to help with that. So I think there’s sort of a lot of moving parts to that, but that’s the part that we’re really starting to see fracture.
Um, and we’re starting to see really significant impacts on the way that people are able to interact with our social services and the kind of responses that they’re getting. But I think, especially for our new listeners, we know what it means to end homelessness. We know that increasing housing stock, increasing access to that housing stock through a variety of different ways, vouchers being sort of one of the most effective ones, but then also providing wraparound services that include health care, that include social services, that include child care, that include job training, you know, there’s a lot of different things that have to act at the same time. We do know what those interventions will actually lead to. It very much is possible to solve homelessness.
Reeves: Yeah, I think there are a lot of great points there and I want to piggyback on some of that too. I think that a very clear example that we actively play out in our own practice, in our own organization, and that should be expanded upon across the board with government approaches and organizational approaches is the idea of outreach and resources versus enforcement. I think outreach, it’s one of our pillars. We go out three days a week to wherever unhoused people are, the shelters, the streets around hospitals, around these hotel shelters, all kinds of places where folks go. And we’re able to connect with them and do a two way communication. We have some very dangerous teams that go out there that claim that they’re doing outreach, but never have any resources and are only there to harass people and tell them that they’re not allowed to occupy public space and in ways that are oftentimes illegal and bending the law. You have increased payment for police. That is going into that as well, suggesting that the police are going to be showing up and providing education and resources when that’s absolutely not their function and not what they’re doing. They don’t have the training for it. They also show up and just by being who they are and the fact that they can check for warrants and fine people result in far more interactions that end up with people being fined who are already experiencing high rates of poverty or being assaulted or thrown into jail. So, we even had instances where migrants now, who have no way of earning any kind of legal income, who are expected somehow to exist for multiple years between immigration appointments, without having any right to work, are going out and trying to offer a service of cleaning a car window, for example, and are receiving tickets from police officers who are otherwise telling leadership that they are providing education, but these are fines with court dates, completely in English. So it’s, it’s all, you know, mind boggling to suggest that somehow enforcement is what people need. They even use it to suggest that if you don’t make camping illegal, then people will choose that over housing opportunities. And all of our research and all of our conversations and everything that we know is that that’s not true, that people want housing. It’s just because it’s not accessible and not the right kind of housing for them. Um, you can’t force, you know, a guy who has mobility issues into a second story, apartment that has no elevator access, but things like that are happening all the time. Also, it’s just about basic humanity and compassion and dignity, recognizing that these are people who deserve choice, people who deserve to be able to choose what they want their life to look like and what fits for them beyond need. So, I think that’s a big focus, uh, that we have, and it’s also really shocking to find out how many organizations don’t have an outreach element. And yet are really involved in policy work. And I think that’s very concerning. So I think, you know, we always have to keep that in mind. What else? I think in terms of when we’re talking about that affordable housing also, it needs to be housing that is not going to be affected by the market rate. Um, social housing, master leasing, um, a lot of the times the city will purchase or, or rent the housing, and then they have the contract with the owner, and instead, um, they can surpass all the different barriers, like, needs for, um, an immediate identification, or credit checks, things like that, background checks, and be able to put people, assign them into housing based on need, And be able to manage that relationship and have, you know, affordable costs passed down to the people who are occupying those units. So, I, I really hope that we start realizing that we need to be moving in that direction, because otherwise, like it was said before, housing is going to continue to be a commodity for the rich to trade and for so many to be without. And that’s really the key thing that we need to keep focusing on.
Sedley: I really appreciate that. My final wrap up question for all of you at the end of this really, really enlightening conversation, so much. As I said at the beginning, and as I want to close with, I’ve talked a lot on these airwaves about the need to humanize, like V said, with compassion, dignity, humanity, look toward people, and try to meet people where they’re at, and ask them what they want and they need, rather than assuming and imposing what you think they need onto them, so, in this last couple of minutes here, I just kind of wanted to go around the circle and see, in a few sentences, if each of you have advice for listeners that would be helpful. Do you want to help provide aid to be unhoused in their respective communities, but they either feel overwhelmed or unsure or, or frightened? Any word that you’ve heard folks say as a reason or a barrier that stands in the way of them helping? What kind of advice would you give them or guidance or feedback?
Walker: I’ll start, Jackie. Everyone can do something. And even if you don’t have. Someone near you, or you know of someone who, who’s experiencing homelessness, you’re talking about a human being, a mother, a father, a sister, a cousin. And there’s a backstory to every person that you see that is experiencing homelessness. And so the compassion has to be for. Humanity. And that compassion can come in the form of organizations, uh, like Union Rescue Mission, go to Charity Navigator and see what their rating is. We have a 100 percent rating. They can volunteer. They can donate some items at shelters, uh, like Union Rescue Mission. Hygiene products, socks, and underwear. Those three things are like really big things. And you can financially give a financial gift. You can also pray. We’re faith based. Pray for us. Pray for our staff who are on the front lines every day, helping those who have been through trauma and, uh, abuse and, and, and, and some things that are just unheard of. So again, we can all do something.
Sedley: Thank you, Kitty. I appreciate it.
Interiano: I think maybe to add up over this is coming from the policy perspective, but I think those are the two things for people that are interested in being involved in this type of work, especially for people that are interested in sort of the housing aspect of things, there’s a ton of opportunities to be involved in tenant organization, in housing efficacy. So looking out for those types, ways to get involved is one way, or I think very basic sometimes too is a lot of the public education, I focus on a lot of that, our work on public education, I always encourage our Consumer Advisory Board, that are people with a lived experience that have gone through this system and have used our health services so that they’re able to speak to folks and talk from experience. And I know that anyone that we talk to, it always has been enlightening for them to understand sort of one, what precipitated someone’s experience of homelessness and what the process was to get out of it and how, how many barriers there were, how traumatic it was. But, and I think part of what ends up happening there is that when you hear people start to talk about, or villainized or stigmatized people that are experiencing homelessness, you have the ability to then say, actually, no, that’s not what’s happening, and this is what’s happening, or this is what I’ve heard, or this is something that I’ve read, or a presentation that I saw, and I think sometimes that’s, especially with changing public opinion, it really starts from those conversations, and I think even, even higher than that is really getting involved in the local politics of where you live, And there really is no locality now that is not focusing on homelessness, and so be part of those conversations that you don’t see these types of policies, these punitive approaches, or criminalizing homeless, that ends up being enacted because a lot of people in the community, only the ones that are loudest and that have really stigmatizing ways of addressing people who are experiencing homelessness, and so you could be the balance for that in those types of conversations and use your power in a local way to be able to sway that to say, no, that’s actually not what we should be implementing. We should be approaching folks with a lot of dignity and understanding that the reason that they’re experiencing this is not for personal reasons, but it’s because of how the system works. That’s maybe the two things that I would add to what Kitty is saying is the policy perspective. There are some ways for you to get involved. If you’re not so much interested in going to volunteer somewhere, because I know sometimes that’s difficult, especially after COVID, for people to take volunteers, that’s another way for you to get involved in the conversation and trying to sway opinion.
Sedley: Thank you, Natalie.
Reeves: Yeah, absolutely appreciate that. I, I think that with houselessness, there’s an aspect of palatability. Certain causes that people feel tied to need to have some kind of palatability, or they have to have some kind of trending aspect. Um, you can look at the BLM movement, you can look at the current Palestine movement that has thousands of people protesting, you can look at, um, the migrant crisis, um, where children and babies in tents, Um, are causing more of an uproar for the sake of being babies and the fact that we’ve been dealing with this crisis for so long. It’s like the analogy of the frog in boiling water. I think people don’t necessarily realize that this is not normal and it hasn’t been normal. And if you are inspired and radicalized by these different causes, you need to stay with it, because it’s really not about what you can do to, to portray to the world some kind of aspect of being a good person. This is about your skin being in the game. This is as much about you than it is about anyone else. And so recognizing that we really are affecting and deciding every single day through these policies, through our individual actions in our own local circles.
And then beyond, we’re deciding what our society and what the future will look like, our future and our lives and the kinds of challenges that we’re going to be facing tomorrow. Um, if we’re not currently facing them, it’s something that marginalized populations have known for forever, that folks who have been going through this are tired, are exhausted. Maybe they don’t look like they want to try, because they’ve been trying and they’ve been having the door shut in their face. Again and again, and it’s exhausting and humiliating and, and it, it’s, it’s so easy to give up because it seems like that’s the only way that you’ll have peace of mind because you’re not gonna set yourself up or further disappointment. So if you have that energy, you are so needed in this work. We need people who are inspired and ready, but, um, most importantly, those people need to sit back and listen and recognize that they need to be learning from the people who have been going through this for years, because they’re going to have this kind of immediate desire and energy to want to do something, thinking that we need to reinvent the wheel, but like it’s been said, um, the solutions are there. We know what they are. So it’s really about creating that pressure. You know, individuals can have huge impacts. Going out and creating that personal connection with people is really important, but you can also do things, if it is from a policy perspective, from the comfort of your home, you can make those calls, you can do those emails, there is real impact there, you can share those ideas, have those conversations. There’s a lot of things that don’t necessarily take, um, money or even a lot of time that could be done to show that support for people who are currently going through it. Um, but I think taking the time to develop your personal understanding to why this is important for you, why this affects you, that’s really essential. And so, I think also recognizing that these, all these different causes, the Palestine cause, um, when we’re talking about mass displacement of people, uh, of people. Hundreds of thousands of people talk about mass displacement here too. It’s talk about the fact that migrants are coming over here and how are we treating them different than we’re treating, you know, white people here in the U.S. but we have to recognize a lot of those racial barriers. We have to recognize these systems are so interconnected that when we start to address them, we’re pulling at the individual threads to hopefully eventually make the fabric of it all of the white supremacy fabric flag fall the f**k apart.
And so. A few of my kind of mottos that drive me are justice is just us recognizing that we can’t expect these different services or programs or agencies to be taking care of the problems without us. We need to understand that if we expect them to act without us, they’re going to act in ways that we don’t appreciate and…that don’t serve our needs because of money interests. And so recognizing that you’re as much a part of that process as anybody else is really important. And then I think maintain your discontent. It’s normal and it’s healthy to feel absolutely enraged and disappointed and drained and, you know, exhausted from seeing this kind of trauma. And I think when we numb ourselves to it too much, we risk complacency. We risk becoming part of that population that accepts that this is the normal. When it really isn’t. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to the absolute worst, like, “Well, at least we’re not, you know, bombing our own people.” That’s not even true, history has shown we’ve done that, and we could do that, and we still do that. There’s a lot of violence happening right now. And we cannot just decide that that’s life. So I hope that folks do find ways to heal and to find community in the meantime and to realize that community and people power is really what’s going to get us through all of these hurdles. Um, but at the same time, keep fighting, keep staying involved, be interested, and be willing to be humbled by the perspectives that you’re gonna come across, because again, like, the people that we need to be listening to are the ones who have the most marginalized intersectional identities. And when we’re listening to them, we’re going to expand opportunities and livability for everybody else.
Sedley: Thank you all so much for those, those sentiments. I really, really, really appreciate all of the work that you all do and the vulnerability that you all brought to this conversation.
Interiano: Awesome.
Reeves: Wonderful.
Walker: Thank you, Jackie.
Reeves: Thank you all very much.
Walker: Thank you, Natalie. Nice to meet you guys. Blessings to you. All right.
Interiano: Bye bye.
The post “We very much can solve homelessness:” A roundtable discussion with advocates in Denver, LA, and NYC appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, KGNU’s first-ever Radio Week kickstarted yesterday…we spoke with Boulder Mayor Aaron Brocket about the week itself, as well as things like arts taxes and housing. You’ll hear that conversation this morning.
Listen:
- play_arrowKickstarting Radio Week with Boulder Mayor Aaron BrockettJackie Sedley The post Kickstarting Radio Week with Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow05_20_24_am_headlinesJohn Kelin Abortion Rights on Colorado BallotColorado voters will decide whether to add abortion rights to the state constitution this fall, following the approval of an initiative that will put the question on the ballot.
Colorado’s Secretary of State office announced on Friday that enough valid signatures have been gathered for it to qualify.
The initiative requires 55% voter approval, according to the Denver Post. If it is approved, state and local governments would be prohibited from outlawing abortion, and from impeding access to abortions.
State law already protects abortion in Colorado. But if it’s in the state constitution, adding new restrictions would be more difficult.
Adding abortion rights to the constitution would also mean that it’s covered by health insurance plans for state and local government employees, and for people enrolled in state and local government insurance programs.
In April, backers of a separate measure to ban abortion in Colorado failed to get enough signatures to put the question on the ballot.
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Boulder Electric CodeBoulder City Council is expected to take a final vote on the city’s new energy code early next month.
Council members voted unanimously last week to advance the new code to a third reading and final vote.
The 2024 City of Boulder Energy Conservation Code sets minimum energy efficiency standards for many new buildings and remodels, according to the Daily Camera. It includes exemptions for certain buildings, like restaurants and hospitals.
City officials in Boulder say that buildings are “major consumers of energy,” and that upgrading the energy code could reduce energy costs, and greenhouse gas emissions.
If the city council approves the new code, it is expected to go into effect on December 1st.
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Auraria DemonstrationA pro-Palestinian encampment on the Auraria campus in Denver has been taken down, but demonstrators say they will continue their fight for Palestine.
Pro-palestinian protesters camped out on Denver’s Auraria campus for twenty-three days before they packed up midday this past Saturday. Campus officials announced that buildings would be closed until further notice, with the campus switching to fully-online classes for the beginning of its summer semester.
Demonstrators told Denver7 that are seeing the campus shut-down, along with what the protest cost the university, are signs of success, according to interviews from Denver7.
Students for a Democratic Society, an organizer of the efforts, said in an emailed statement that the encampment was just a tool of their protest, and that now, they’ll be picking up a new one. The protest cost the university nearly $290,000 in damages to the quad, hiring emergency personnel, and staffing safety and officer support.
There is no indication that the protest forced the campus to fulfill the demands of the demonstrators, which included cutting all financial ties to the Israeli government.
Meanwhile, at the University of Denver, a student group called DU for Palestine says the university is restricting their movements around campus, because of their pro-Palestine activities. Administrators said the measure, called “location restrictions,” is written into the school’s Honor Code, and will continue until student demonstrators comply with identification checks. The students say they will appeal.
Auraria encampment ends
Administration statement 1
Administration statement 2
University of Denver
Public Transit BillGovernor Jared Polis has signed four bills aimed at improving public transportation in Colorado.
The bills, signed into law last week, are expected to direct tens of millions of dollars into transit projects in the years ahead.
One of the projects is a multi-billion dollar plan to create a rail system connecting Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver, and in a later phase, Colorado Springs and Pueblo, according to the Denver Post.
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Mt. Sanitas Trail GrantOne of the most popular hiking areas in Boulder is about to get an overhaul.
The city has received a 1.1 million dollar grant for repairs on existing Mount Sanitas trails, and the construction of two new ones.
The city calls the trails on Mount Sanitas some of the city’s “legacy trails.” But they are steep and prone to erosion, and require ongoing maintenance.
The planned improvements, according to a press release, include repairs, new infrastructure like fencing and signage, and creating several new trails. The city says they’ll also improve access to rock climbing in the area. It’s being paid for through a fund administered by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The Mount Sanitas area averages more than 375,000 visitors every year.
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The post Abortion rights in Colorado; Boulder electric code; Auraria demonstrations; public transit bills; Mt. Sanitas trail grant appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, national efforts will take place on May 22nd asking the U.S. government to fund education and not genocide – organized by The Debt Collective. We’ll hear from some organizers of those actions. Then, we’ll hear from Women Powering Change. We’ll end our show with Sports Talk, with Jimmie Searfoss.
Listen:
- play_arrowDebt Collective asks U.S. to fund education, not genocideJackie Sedley The post Debt Collective asks U.S. to fund education, not genocide appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow05_16_2024_am_headlinesGreta Kerkhoff Denver teachers demonstrate over payA contract dispute between the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Denver Public Schools (DPS) led to protests in front of DPS headquarters this week. About 100 educators protested outside the building, while a Board of Education meeting inside hosted public comment.
The teachers’ union alleges that the district is breaking their 2022 contract. This agreement pledged to give educators a 5.2% cost-of-living raise annually, as part of a total 8.34% annual raise.
This year DPS is only offering a 2.06% cost-of-living raise for the 2024/25 school year, amounting to 5.2% total pay increase.
According to the Denver Post, DPS says state lawmakers are withholding the full raise percentages due to unavoidable budget shortfalls associated with the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, the district announced Friday that it has reached a tentative three-year contract with the Denver School Leaders Association, which includes a 4.5% cost-of-living raise in the first year for principals and other school administrators.
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New Colorado school-funding formulaThe Colorado Legislature passed an overhaul of school funding that begins incrementally in the 2025-2026 school year. Legislators changed the formula to support needier school districts, however all school districts will continue to get support at a minimum of their current level.
Tanya Mares Kelly-Bowry, a lobbyist for the Boulder Valley School District, says the bill doesn’t provide predictability for school districts to budget according to the Daily Camera.
Eventually, the new formula will lead to a $500 million (dollar) increase in school funding statewide. The increase will be in addition to current funds that are sourced through a mix of local property taxes and state funding.
The new formula will provide more state support in part to school districts with more students experiencing poverty and with more English-learning students.
Districts such as Boulder that have had a surge of students migrating from out of the country will also receive additional funding from the state budget. According to the Daily Camera, BVSD will receive $700,000 of the one-time funding of $24 million to support newly arrived students.
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Aviation study shows danger of leaded fuelA new study by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shows that children living near airports have higher amounts of lead in their blood.
The study looked at those under age 18 living within 5 miles of an airport according to the Colorado Sun.
The bill funds airport’s use of unleaded fuel and helps pilots pay for plane upgrades that would allow the use of unleaded fuel.
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Wolverines to potentially be reintroducedColorado legislators have passed a new bill authorizing the reintroduction of wolverines into the Colorado wilderness.
According to experts, fewer than 400 wolverines remain in the US, and Colorado’s high country could be a perfect habitat for this endangered species to thrive again.
According to Fox 31, if Gov. Polis signs the new bill, Colorado Parks and Wildlife can’t reintroduce wolverines until they are reclassified from a threatened and endangered species to a “nonessential experimental population” under federal law.
The bill also states that compensation must be given to any livestock owners that suffer loss of livestock caused by wolverines.
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The Denver Police Department to restrict low-level traffic stopsThe Denver Police Department (DPD) is cutting down on low-level offense traffic stops. Minor violations, like expired registration tags, failing to use a turn signal, or headlights and tail lights which are not fully functioning will not be enforced as rigorously.
According to Axios Denver, Denver PD says the cuts will help with short staffing, police response, and racial profiling. Studies show Denver police arrest people of color at disproportionate rates.
DPD will continue to make traffic stops for any drivers who threaten public safety, such as speeding and reckless driving. Low-level offenses may still be punished if drivers are pulled over for additional safety concerns.
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Denver restructures homeless shelter contractsThe Denver City Council has approved an $8 million contract to support family sheltering services. According to the Denver Gazette, the city council approved the contract with the Salvation Army on Monday and will also help support the Tamarac Family Shelter.
The Salvation Army has received $274 million from city contracts since 2021, however the operation of their shelters has come into question with frequent reports of gun violence, drug use, and other violent crimes.
The council also approved $12 million dollars for rental assistance expansion.
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The post Denver teachers protest pay cut, fuel study shows impact on lead in blood appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, Saturday is Boulder’s Migratory Bird Day. We’ll have some bird talk with a local expert. After that, it’s Cannabis Report, followed by Radio Nibbles.
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-05-16Alexis Kenyon The post Why you should care about migratory birds; what the FDA’s announcement could mean for the world of cannabis appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
It’s bird migration season again. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, there are two world migratory bird days per year. This Saturday, the Environment for the Americas, a nonprofit in Boulder, will host a Migratory Bird Day celebration.
KGNU’s Jackie Sedley spoke with Director of Environment for the Americas Susan Bonfield about the event and why, this year the theme is “protect insects, protect birds.”
Listen:
- play_arrowMorningMagazine_2024-05-16Alexis Kenyon The post The Front Range is a major stopover for migratory birds appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow05_15_2024amheadlinesGreta Kerkhoff Boulder breaks ground on new affordable housing development Boulder Housing Partners began building a new affordable housing development in North Boulder Tuesday morning. Hawthorn Court will consist of close to 70 new units for people making between 30% and 60% of Boulder’s medium income.
According to the Daily Camera, the city is reserving five of the three-bedroom units for those at risk of or currently experiencing homelessness. The Emergency Family Assistance Association, the Boulder Valley School District, and the Family Resource Center will refer low-income families who are eligible for those units.
Additionally, the all-electric building will use solar energy and be wheelchair accessible. RTD will provide Eco passes to residents.
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Colorado lawmakers push for new cell phone driving lawColorado legislatures approved a new bill last week to criminalize drivers using their cellphone while driving.
Cell Phone use while driving is already illegal in Colorado for those under 18. However, until recently efforts to expand distracted driving laws have failed according to CPR News.
If Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs the new law, drivers will only be able to make calls using hands-free accessories. Those reporting emergencies or parked first responders will not apply. Fines for usage will begin at $75, but drivers can get their first fee waived by purchasing a hands-free device.
Although the bill would address safety concerns, some are worried the bill could lead to over-policing of drivers of color. If signed, the law will take effect in January 2025.
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CU study finds social distancing made a big difference
All that social distancing during the height of COVID-19 saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States. That’s the conclusion of a new study by researchers at CU-Boulder and UCLA.
The study, according to 9News, says that without pre-vaccine safeguards like social distancing, lockdowns, and school closures, another 800,000 people in the U.S. would have died from COVID and COVID complications.
Study
Worldwide deaths
Wolf killed by mountain lion
A wolf that was found dead in Larimer County last month was probably killed by a mountain lion.
That conclusion follows an examination of the wolf’s body conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Service said in a statement that the cause of death was not definitive, but the wounds were consistent with those inflicted by mountain lions. The wolf was one of ten gray wolves reintroduced to Colorado at the end of 2023, according to 9News.
An examination of the remains was required, because wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
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The post New cell phone driving law, wolf killed by mountain lion, and new affordable housing development in North Boulder appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, a quick news scan about pollution in Colorado will bring up names like Suncor and Cemex. This morning, we’ll speak with an environmental reporter about the latest polluter news in the state. After that, Chris Mohr shares his weekly commentary, Make Them Hear You. We’ll wrap up with herbalist Brigitte Mars and her regular Wednesday feature, Naturally.
Listen: play_arrow*The latest Colorado pollution newsJackie Sedley The post The latest Colorado pollution news appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
In an effort to reduce the impacts of climate change and the dangers of elevated temperatures, many cities have adopted plans to increase tree canopy coverage in densely populated urban areas. Back in 2022, Denver Parks and Recreation set their sights on supporting a citywide urban forest. One strategy they’ve implemented since is tree planting, which relies heavily on community involvement. Emily Moyer is a graduate student pursuing an MFA (in the printmaking area) at CU Boulder, and is a Arts Community Organizer in Denver. She went to Globeville, and has the details.
Volunteers with The Park People, Left to Right: Chaille Lempcke, Terry Hausler, and John Sepulveda. Residential backyard in Globeville on April 20, 2024. Photo by Emily Moyer.Listen:
- play_arrowWant your city to be greener? Take some notes from GlobevilleJackie Sedley Transcript:
Emily Moyer: A small but mighty group gathers on a snowy Saturday morning in Globeville, ready to get their hands dirty.
Sort of making our way. Do you want to try this shovel and I’ll take that shovel? Sure, yeah, is that one better for going…
Moyer: They’ve come together for a community tree planting event, organized by Bird Seed Collective, the Park People, the Nature Conservancy, and Denver Parks and Rec. Everyone’s eager to get planting. It’s an exciting day for Globeville residents. The whole community has been in the loop for a month or so. Dawn Diaz and others with Bird Seed Collective made sure to spread the word.
Dawn Diaz: Um, so, we went door to door and asked neighbors if they wanted a tree, if they were interested in a tree.
Um, Bird Seed paid for the trees that they got, we got from park people. Then after that, we put them on a list later on when about a week ago. We started to call everybody and let them know hey your trees are here if you’re gonna come pick them up or are we taking them to you and planting them and I already went and marked the spots where we’re gonna plant them got permission from them that if they’re not there, can we still plant? And yeah. So everything’s set to go.
Moyer: Dawn grew up in Globeville and is making an effort to help local residents be directly involved in re-greening their neighborhood from the ground up.
Diaz: It makes it more personal and it gives us a responsibility to take care of what is ours versus when the city comes and plants trees, that’s their responsibility. So our intent is to combine everybody and have us have some togetherness.
Moyer: It’s no secret that trees can help revive cities bogged down by industry and pollution. But some benefits are less obvious than others, as Colorado Urban Conservation Manager Chris Hawkins with the Nature Conservancy explains.
Chris Hawkins: Yeah, I mean, the research is super abundant at this point that trees provide tons of benefits, not just, obviously, addressing heat. Trees can address air quality issues, especially around particulate matter, reducing particulate matter. Trees also help with mental health. They get people out and, you know, recreating more and able to recreate and walk more, which helps with just physical health, cardiovascular health. Um, they help certainly with, you know, perceptions of quality of life and then, you know, just generally support human health and wellbeing.
Moyer: The list of tree benefits goes on. Tree canopies have been attributed to slower driving speeds, lower crime levels, and even improved healing time after surgery. In Globeville specifically, the need for these types of benefits is very high. Denver’s average tree canopy is 25%, while the Globeville area has just 5%. Some of the lowest tree canopy coverage in the entire city of Denver.
Hawkins: And so one of the things that we can do to address heat is to create shade, right? Um, and so areas in Denver that, you know, are shaded tend to, you know, have better human health outcomes and
Globeville has about 5 percent tree canopy cover. That’s about 7 times less, 7 to 8 times less than a lot of wealthier, whiter neighborhoods. And that’s pretty classic kind of situation across a lot of cities, a lot of neighborhoods in Denver, a lot of cities nationally.
At a neighborhood backyard in Globeville, three volunteers from The Park People (Chaille Lemcke, Terry Hausler, John Sepulveda) dig a hole to plant a tree in. April 20, 2024. Photo by Emily Moyer.Moyer: Anthony Garcia Sr. grew up in Globeville. His family has been connected to the neighborhood for five generations. He’s the executive director of Birdseed Collective, an arts focused non profit that runs the Globeville Rec Center. And says the geography of the neighborhood has had particularly negative health impacts on its residents.
Garcia Sr.: I think the location of Globeville has always been very important to me because it has such defined boundaries, I 70, I 25, BNSF Railroad, as well as the The Platte River, south Platte River, you know, growing up it’s always been, ’cause it’s kind of enclosed in its own little self, very tight community and neighborhood. Um, now that I’m an adult, I could see the impact that that has caused on, you know, environmental health and, um, overall health in general of the people that have lived in that neighborhood ’cause of, uh, high pollutants that were. Planted in the soil, um, that’s ran along that area of the river as well as, you know, air pollution and noise pollution from the railroad and the two highways that intersect right where our neighborhood is at.
Moyer: Not only is Globeville divided by I-25, I-70, and the BNSF railway, which you may have already heard in the background, Globeville was also home to multiple smelters beginning in the late 1800s, which deposited toxins like arsenic and lead across the neighborhood for over 100 years. Globeville became a designated Superfund site in 1993, with topsoil and residential lots being removed and replaced. That initiative left residents disappointed and frustrated, since many trees were removed and the new soil was too low in nutrients to support plant growth. That disappointment and frustration inspired a need for direct community involvement.
Garcia Sr.: Our neighbors have known about You know, the issues that we face for years now, but as it starts to get more like a spotlight put on our neighborhood and these issues, pots of money are popping up. And so we’ll see multiple organizations come out every year and just try to, you know, they all mean well, but they, you know You know, they’re part of their job is to find money, you know, and so, uh, they will come into the neighborhood and try to do their best to serve the neighborhood to get, you know, get a certain grant to make this happen. Um, but the neighbors don’t respond to them that well because they have no relationship with anybody in the community. Fortunately for us in our neighborhood, like I said, I was born and raised there. My mom lived there. My grandma, great-grandma, everybody has lived there for years. All these people, like, we’re a big family. So when we’re able to connect them to resources, they have, it’s coming from a trusting place.
Moyer: The Nature Conservancy is an outside organizer and funder of efforts to support re greening projects across the globe. They’re sensitive to the concerns Garcia mentioned. Here’s the Conservancy’s Chris Hawkins again.
Hawkins: Nature Conservancy is the largest environmental organization in the world. Um, you know, I think it is our responsibility in that way to, be able to show up with resources for community based partners for them to really lead their vision for their community, right? I think it’s you know a dynamic that happens I think frequently is that outside organizations often come in I think with an agenda and with their own incentives and their own kind of narrative and Sometimes that gets forced on community based organizations And that can be really tricky because, you know, as a community-based organization, I think sometimes it’s hard to turn away resources and collaboration. And I think the onus has to be on, you know, organizations that are showing up with resources to do so in a way that doesn’t, I think, hinder other, you know, things that a community is trying to address. So Birdseed Collective does a lot of different work in the community. What I would say is really significant is that Birdseed’s really been able to kind of stand up as an organization and move forward some of the urban community forestry work. And doing so in a way that also leverages some existing efforts like the Park People’s, Denver Digs, trees, etc. So, our goal has always been to try to come up with some kind of sustainable and durable community led model for greening and climate resilience. And this is, I think, one more milestone in kind of getting towards that.
Moyer: The larger Globeville-Elyria-Swansea neighborhood needs to plant 10,000 trees in order to reach a 20 percent tree canopy rate. Local and outside organizations are stepping up to provide resources to meet this goal one tree at a time. In the end, the residents of Globeville will be the ones to care for these trees and watch them grow. Denver Parks and Rec is taking this initiative further than just Globeville. Denver Digs is a tree distribution program run by the Park People, a local non profit. They provide-low cost trees with special attention to low-canopy areas. You can attend a training program run by the Park People to become a community forester in your own neighborhood, or reach out to Birdseed Collective and volunteer at the next tree planting event.
For KGNU, I’m Emily Moyer.
Globeville residents gather for a tree planting demonstration with Dawn Diaz of Birdseed Collective and Amanda Morian, Community Connector of The Park People. At Globeville Pocket Park (E.44th Ave and Pearl Street) on April 20, 2024. Photo by Emily Moyer.The post Want your city to be greener? Take some notes from Globeville appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, we’ll hear from two reporters who’ve investigated Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s efforts to address houselessness. The City is still lagging behind many others in terms of its approach. Then, oil giants may have to pay for climate damage…. that, and more on This Week in Water. We’ll wrap up with our Listener Comment Line.
Listen: play_arrow*A critical look at Johnston’s approach to houselessnessJackie Sedley The post A critical look at Johnston’s approach to houselessness appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow05_14_24_am_headlinesGreta Kerkhoff DU Demonstrations Ten people are facing charges after occupying part of a building on the Auraria campus in Denver.
The occupation of a restricted area by pro-Palestinian demonstrators began just after 4pm yesterday, and led campus authorities to place the campus on lockdown for about an hour, according to Fox31.
Auraria officials said in a statement that while some of the demonstrators left peacefully and continued their protests outside, ten stayed in the building. While authorities did not make any arrests, they have charged those who stayed behind with trespassing, interference, and disturbing the peace.
The Auraria campus has been the site of demonstrations against the war in Gaza for nearly three weeks.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the University of Denver campus say they intend to stay at their encampment where they set up more than two dozen tents last week more than there until administrators meet their demands.
The DU students set up an encampment of more than two dozen tents last week, according to CBS News.
Their demands include the disclosure of any financial ties the university has to Israel. KGNU’s Steve Miller has more.
Members of the student group “DU for Palestine” met with administrators on Sunday. They said afterward that the meeting didn’t accomplish anything. Fox31 says that a second meeting has been agreed to, but no date has been set.
Unlike at the Auraria campus, where a pro-Palestinian encampment has been in violation of campus rules, camping is allowed on the DU campus, provided everything remains peaceful.
Some protestors, however, said that on Saturday night authorities threatened a sweep, and said arrests could happen if they didn’t comply with requests. According to one student, that meant everyone at the camp had to show identification.
In a statement to the media, the university denied having threatened a sweep. But they conceded that students were asked to show IDs. They said by checking IDs, they could verify that everyone at the encampment was a DU student. They said they wanted to remind students of the need to follow university policy.
Auraria statement
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Boulder Council Pay Raise?Voters in Boulder may be able to decide whether to give city council members a raise, later this year.
The City Council told city officials last week to draft a ballot measure to raise council member pay, and put the question on the fall ballot. The objective, according to Boulder Reporting Lab, is to get people from a broader socioeconomic background to serve on the council.
Council membership is not a full-time job, and members make about a thousand dollars a month, plus benefits. That can average out to below the minimum wage, so people can only be on the Council if they can afford to.
Voters in Fort Collins passed a measure two years ago that raised city council pay to 50% the area median income. Nothing has been decided in Boulder, but they could use the same formula, according to Boulder Reporting Lab.
Boulder City Council is expected to take an initial vote on how to craft the idea in July.
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Boulder County Commissioners Review Greenway ProjectBoulder County Commissioners will meet next week to review plans for possible participation in the Rocky Mountain Greenway Project. Regional planners proposed the multi-use trail connecting Broomfield and Boulder via Rocky Flats in 2016..
The Greenway, a sprawling site south of Boulder was once home to a nuclear weapons plant. Even though its now a wildlife refuge, its opponents say it’s too dangerous for the trail. The route runs through a portion of the refuge that was not part of a federal cleanup. the remediated, cleaned up, area.
The Commissioners meeting is Thursday, May 23rd, at 2:30pm. The meeting is closed to public comment. More information can be found on the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center website.
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
Commissioners agenda
Rocky Mountain Greenway Extension
Fake Elector BillsColorado legislators passed a variety of bills highlighting voter protection and access for the upcoming 2024 State elections.
State lawmakers have sent a series of election integrity bills to Gov. Jared Polis to sign.
The measures include House Bill 1147, which requires Colorado candidates to disclose any use of Artificial Intelligence in their campaigns, according to Colorado Newsline. This includes content such as AI voices or images meant to represent candidates, commonly known as deep fakes. The governor has not yet signed this bill.
House Bill 1150 makes it illegal to serve as a fake elector, and disqualifies anyone those convicted of being a fake elector – from holding a public office in Colorado. Anyone convicted of contributing to a fake elector scheme is subject to a fine of up to $10,000. The governor has already signed this bill into law..
Senate Bill 72, requires county sheriffs to make sure people who are behind bars but still eligible to vote, have the opportunity to do so. This bill is not yet signed, but if it is, it would be the first of its kind in the United States.
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New Wolf AttackState wildlife officials have confirmed another wolf attack on livestock in Grand County.
This most recent attack happened on Saturday, according to 9News. A cow was killed at the same ranch where four yearling cattle deaths were reported in April.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials added Saturday’s incident to their list of confirmed wolf attacks.
At least some of the Grand County attacks were from gray wolves reintroduced to Colorado last December.
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A-Basin Open Until June Arapahoe Basin Ski Area has announced that it will remain open until June, following the 10 inches of new snow received on Sunday.
After June first, operations will be assessed on a week by week basis according to the Denver Post.
A-Basin is usually the last Colorado Ski Area to close for the season. Five years ago it stayed open until July 4th.
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- play_arrow05_14_24_am_headlinesGreta Kerkhoff The post Auraria and DU protests, city council pay hike, Rocky Mtn Greenway, fake electors, new wolf attacks, A-Basin appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
The Colorado River provides water to more than 40 million people. The Basin includes 30 federally recognized Indian tribes and seven states (Colorado, Wyoming, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada). Tribal nations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have been left out of key agreements involving the Colorado River for well over a century now. In April, the Upper Colorado River Commission – that’s an agency at the nexus of many Colorado River discussions in the Upper Basin – voted to back a new proposed agreement that would make regular meetings with tribes be mandatory for the first time in the group’s 76-year history.
Mira Barney is a Diné (Navajo) woman working at the National Wildlife Federation. She is also pursuing a graduate certificate in Environmental Justice at CU Boulder, and works as Program Assistance with Indigenous Women’s Leadership Network. She talked to individuals from one of the two federally-recognized tribes in the state of Colorado: Southern Ute Indian Tribe.
Listen:
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: You’re listening to The Morning Magazine on listener-supported KGNU. I’m Jackie Sedley. The Colorado River provides water to over 40 million people. The basin includes 30 federally recognized Indian tribes and 7 states, including Colorado, California, and Utah. Tribal nations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming have been left out of key agreements involving the Colorado River for well over a century now. In April, the Upper Colorado River Commission, That’s an agency at the nexus of many Colorado River discussions in the Upper Basin, voted to back a new proposed agreement that would make regular meetings with tribes be mandatory for the first time in the group’s 76 year history. This led to a Memorandum of Understanding, also known as an MOU, between six Upper Basin tribes and the Upper Colorado River Commission. Mira Barney is a Navajo woman working at the National Wildlife Federation. She is also pursuing a graduate certificate in environmental justice at CU Boulder, and works as program assistant with Indigenous Women’s Leadership Network. She talked to individuals from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, one of the two federally recognized tribes in the state of Colorado.
Mira Barney: When Lisa Yellow Eagle grew up on the Navajo Reservation, she did not have access to running water.
Lisa Yellow Eagle: And so our family had to haul water, and you really learn the value of every drop of water that is used for your household, um, and for your animals.
Barney: Yellow Eagle is the Tribal Water Attorney for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. She understands firsthand how important access to water is.
Yellow Eagle: You know, it’s, I know that everyone says it, but I think we all know that water is life. It’s necessary for not only humans, but for all fish, plants, animals, Mother Earth herself.
Barney: Yellow Eagle highlights what every Coloradan can take into consideration when approaching discussions around established senior water rights of states and tribes in the Colorado River Basin.
Yellow Eagle: One, tribes are sovereign nations. Therefore should not be treated like any other water user. Two, Federal Indian reserve water rights cannot be lost, abandoned, or forfeited like a state water right can. And then three, tribal water rights are usually, like in a settlement, are negotiated for present. and future water rights. So this means that many tribes are not using their full quantification of water right now because they negotiated for that future water use for their future generations of tribal members. That future water allows time to grow into their water use as their tribe is growing as well.
Barney: Only 22 of the 30 tribes in the Colorado River Basin have recognized water rights, with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe being one of them. There are still 12 tribes in the basin that have unresolved water rights claims. That’s why recent conversations between tribes and the Upper Colorado River Commission, also known as the UCRC, are such a big deal.
Yellow Eagle: I think it’s been a really good experience to share information with the UCRC between the Upper Basin Tribes and have the UCRC share information with us. It’s, um, it’s also been a lot of hard work to build up that trust from the, from the beginning. Um, when we started these meetings, I think there was, um, Some mistrust because there have been many failed, um, attempts just with tribes in general and trying to, trying to work through, um, relationships. So this has been a really amazing opportunity and credit all of the tribal leadership and the commissioners for the four states on working on this and, and making this happen.
Barney: These meetings led to a Memorandum of Understanding, also known as an MOU, between six Upper Basin tribes and the Upper Colorado River Commission. This is historic as there has never been an MOU between Upper Basin Tribal Sovereign Nations and the states before. The six Upper Basin Tribes held a signing ceremony on April 22nd to all sign together. Celine Hawkins is the Colorado River Tribal Partnerships Program Director at the Nature Conservancy. She’s noticed a lot of new developments in the legislative space with Colorado tribes in the past few years.
Celine Hawkins: And I will also note that we have seen Colorado do new things of the legislative space with Colorado tribes. And one really exciting thing that happened last year is when the legislature convened the drought task force, tribal nations participated in the state legislative process and they asked for a separate tribal sub task force to be appointed and to be appointed jointly between the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and the tribal nations to focus on issues. That was part of the state legislative process. There was a tribal sub task force that I was appointed to that focused on tribal matters, and that allowed us to make sure that tribal information requests got back to the state legislature.
Barney: This shift towards authentic and formalized collaboration makes Hawkins feel optimistic about the conversations between the state of Colorado and the tribes, especially as we approach the discussions around the 2026 interim guidelines.
Hawkins: We are hearing that we can’t get to a sustainable, durable Colorado River without thinking about the role of tribal water. So I am hopeful that in this round of negotiations, We can make progress on really understanding the role of tribal water and particularly undeveloped tribal water and the role that that’s playing in propping up the system and creating environmental flows and make sure that we’re creating more equitable programs where we’re looking at who we compensate for what in the basin. And we’re building solutions that are really going to work.
Barney: Colorado tribes are also optimistic of the changes being made and looking towards future discussions that allow tribes a seat at the table, such as discussions around the 2026 interim guidelines. Lorelei Cloud is the Vice Chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.
Lorelei Cloud: I would hope that tribes are right alongside the state commissioners voting on different aspects of the, the negotiations and that we do have a large say in what happens. You know, 10 out of 30 tribes have allocations of the river between 25 and 30%. That’s major. That’s more than any municipality. And so we have to be included in those conversations. When we’re negotiating the water, because we’ve been left out for over 100 years. Now it’s 102 years to this year in 2024. And so changing that that dynamic and making sure that we’re included. It has got to be a priority as we go forward. And so. I would hope that in after 2026. It’s normalized for tribes to be at those conversations. It’s normalized for us to be to be invited to conferences and to speak anywhere, you know, on water and that they know that we’re a valued part of the river system.
Barney: Giving tribes a seat at the table allows for a formalized role of communication and just collaboration. This diversity of perspectives allows for a more holistic discussion about our relationship to water within the Colorado River Basin as we interact with competing needs for water during a drought.
Cloud: This world has been created so that men, the patriarch, is the dominant. Force in, in just about everything. And now it’s been changing to be more matriarchal. You people were matriarchal by nature and it’s coming from a matriarchal system where we value women. We just don’t value water. ’cause we know water is sacred, but we also know, and we believe women are sacred and we value our women. And so elevating our other women into these different roles have been I think, uh, a challenge because you have to. Not just deal with your own people to get them to help them, but also the outside world, which doesn’t see us that way. And they always see us as being the dependent upon the government. And that’s not what we are. That’s not who we are.
Barney: Cloud highlights valuing shared connections and relationships to water for every recipient of Colorado River water.
Cloud: We prayed for the water. We prayed for the water that we didn’t have. We prayed for the water that we do have. And it’s still real today. That’s that concept is still today. We’re praying for the water that we do have and for the water that we don’t have. And hopefully the water that is going to be coming in the form of rain or snow, whatever that is, you know, there’s always that spiritual connection. And when you grew up in a Ute home, we always did all of our traditions and cultural activities. And so prayer was a big part of our daily activity and so was water. And so those two are always connected. And so when I think about praying, I always think about the water and that has to be, that’s ingrained in who you are as a body, not just your body is made up of water, but your soul as well too, because it’s connected.
Barney: For KGNU, I’m Mira Barney.
Sedley: Once again, that was Mira Barney speaking with members of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe about recent moves toward collaboration and water justice between tribes and state and federal governments.
The post Nearly half of Colorado River tribes have unresolved water rights claims. New agreements could change that appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, cases of syphilis are on the rise in Colorado. Hear which population is seeing the highest spikes, and what the state is doing to try to tamper the increase. After that, the outlook for the Colorado River could be better than previously thought…. that, and more on This Week in Water. Then, a preview of KGNU’s first-ever Radio Week. We’ll wrap up with our Listener Comment Line.
Listen: play_arrow*Kenneth_Radio_WeekJackie Sedley The post Syphilis on the rise in Colorado; Biden moves to protect wetlands appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
For the first time in station history, KGNU will be hosting a Radio Week from May 19th to the 25th. Kenneth Flowe is our Underwriting Account Manager here at KGNU, and he came up with the idea for Radio Week. KGNU’s Jackie Sedley sat down with him to talk about what’s in store.
- play_arrowKenneth_Radio_WeekJackie Sedley Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: Okay, so, Kenneth, just to start off. Tell me about this idea that you envisioned that’s coming to life now.
Kenneth Flowe: Sure. So I had this idea for an event called Radio Week, and I first heard the concept when I lived in the Washington, D. C. market, where it was an all-city, all-radio station, all-media event. But I thought that in order to distinguish KGNU from our competitors in the market, that we should do Radio Week and keep it exclusively to KGNU.
Sedley: And so what does Radio Week mean to you outside of just establishing it as this week to celebrate the station? We could do that all year-round. What’s different?
Flowe: Sure. So Radio Week is a concentrated week where we do a citywide, week long series of events that demonstrate to the community. KGNU’s relevance and the fact that we’ve been broadcasting for close to 40 years consistently, you know, it’s funny because I was looking at a schematic drawing of a car the other day for 2026 and there’s no AM or FM dial in there. So a lot of times people think that means KGNU is going away, but we broadcast worldwide on the internet.
And, you know, if there’s a fire in Boulder or an emergency, people turn to KGNU. You can’t go to Sirius Satellite or XM Radio for something like that. If something’s going on on the diagonal, it’s going to be KGNU that’s going to keep the community-informed. So, I just wanted to demonstrate to the community our relevance and our impact on the local culture. You know, as a Community radio station, 80 percent of our content is created by people who live right here in the community. So, we’re excited about that and we want to celebrate it.
Sedley: What makes it different from one of our fund drives?
Flowe: We’re using multiple venues and we’re using multiple partners to show the city that we enjoy broadcasting from here and give them a couple of opportunities to enjoy some of the many fantastic venues we have in Boulder.
Sedley: And the city has, has recognized this week, right? Tell me about that a little bit.
Flowe: Yeah. So that’s very exciting. The city of Boulder recognized May 19th to May 25th as Radio Week is, and you know, that’s a KGNU initiative. It’s unique to KGNU, the first time that we’ve had a Radio Week and the city has bought in completely. I mean, they, they recognize that when it comes to articulating public policy, KGNU is a partner with them.
Sedley: And you said May 19th to May 25th.
Flowe: Correct. So it’s going to go from Sunday to Saturday. And we have a great series of events coming on. So we have indigenous recordings that will take place at, uh, our new building downtown. And then we have a live concert at Roots Music Project here in Boulder, which is an awesome venue that I think it’s overlooked a lot. So hopefully we can bring some attention to them and they can bring some attention to us.
And then on Wednesday, we’re going to have a birthday party for dun dun dun dun! KGNU Radio! And we’re going to have that here at our home studios. So that’s open to the public and we’re very excited about it. Then on Thursday, we’re going to have old time radio, uh, called Destination Freedom. And it’s a radio play that we’re going to broadcast live from the downtown public library. We’re going to have a reception beforehand so folks can come and get something to eat before they enjoy the program. And then on Friday, we’re going to have a really nice art exhibit here at our Walnut Street location. We’re partnering with open studios and there’s going to be a battery of artists. I don’t know if artists congregate in batteries, but that’s the only way I know how to pronounce it. So we’re going to have a battery of artists here at, uh, KGNU’s studio, and they’re going to turn our studios into an art gallery. So we’re really excited about that. And then on Saturday, we’re going to broadcast live from the Boulder Creek Festival. So it’s going to be multi-venues, week long excitement, more excitement on top of more excitement. And, you know, just as the Olympics comes to a town and makes things better, Radio Week is going to do the same thing. So we’re actually transforming the radio, the radio station into a gallery, but it’s also a chance for us to really get rid of some things that we’ve been meaning to get rid of to add some things we’ve been meaning to add so that we can make our studios spick and span.
Sedley: All right, Kenneth, anything else that you want to add?
Flowe: No, and I apologize for that really long answer to your question.
Sedley: No, don’t at all. You with the memory. It’s impressive. You have, for the record, Kenneth has nothing in front of him to dictate that schedule. It’s all up there in the brain.
Flowe: Hahaha! Well, you know, it’s funny because what basically what I did was I was sitting on my lawn chair – phone rings – That’s Hollywood, baby! turns off ringer
But, basically, I was sitting on my lawn chair and I thought to myself, “What could KGNU do that no other radio station could do? Radio Week!” Absolutely. I mean, that’s pretty much how it came to me because no other radio station is capable of putting together a week-long, multi-venue event in the city of Boulder. No one else could do this except for KGNU. We are uniquely qualified to create Radio Week.
Sedley: Alright, Kenneth Flowe, thank you so much for chatting with me this morning.
Flowe: Thank you for having me.
The post The City of Boulder recognizes KGNU Radio Week. Here’s what we have in store appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrow05_07_24_am_headlinesJohn Kelin High Wind Outages and CancellationsWinds are calming down along the front range, but the after-effects of yesterday’s powerful wind gusts are still being felt.
About ten thousand Xcel Energy customers lost power yesterday because of the high winds, which gusted up to 86 miles an hour in some places. More than two thousand of those customers were in Boulder County, according to Fox 31. However, there were no preemptive shutoffs by Xcel.
The power outages yesterday stretched from Boulder to the northwest, along the foothills corridor. But most of them were in Jefferson County, affecting more than eight thousand Xcel customers. Another 2600 Xcel customers in Golden also lost power.
Xcel said that its power system is designed to restore power automatically within a few seconds of an event like a tree making contact with a power line. But under yesterday’s windy conditions, settings were changed to prevent that automatic restoration. Instead, power must be restored by work crews.
About 55,000 Xcel customers in Boulder County lost power last month because of a preemptive shutoff by the energy company. It took up to three days for some to have power restored, and state regulators are still investigating that case.
At Denver International Airport, the high winds yesterday forced the cancellation or delay of more than 1,000 flights, according to the Denver Post, citing FlightAware.
High winds also forced the cancellation of a Monday night show at Red Rocks. Those who had tickets to see the indie band Hippo Campus will be refunded, according to the Post.
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Auraria CampusAn anticipated Monday meeting between Metropolitan State University Denver officials and one of the leaders of a student pro-Palestinian group didn’t happen.
In a message posted to a Metro State website yesterday, the university said that the student they approached about the meeting declined the offer, unless other members of the group that has been encamped on the Auraria campus were allowed to attend. That stipulation was apparently unacceptable to the university.
The pro-Palestine demonstrations have been on the Tivoli Quad at the Auraria campus since April 25th. The campus is shared by Metropolitan State University, the Community College of Denver, and CU-Denver. Demonstrators have vowed to stay there until their demands are met.
Students at the Auraria Campus started a sit-in outside of the admin offices yesterday afternoon. They moved outside after a meeting was agreed upon for tomorrow at 11 a.m., with folks from the Auraria Campus Board of Directors.
That’s according to The Metropolitan, MSU Denver’s student-run newspaper.
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Property Tax, and Other BillsWith time running out on this year’s legislative session, Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bi-partisan bill to lower property taxes.
Supporters on both sides of the aisle say if Senate Bill 233 passes, it will bring Coloradans meaningful property tax reductions.
The bill was negotiated over the weekend by state lawmakers, the governor’s office, and advocacy groups.
It would hold residential and commercial property tax rates steady this year for taxes owed in 2025, according to the Colorado Sun.
In other legislative news, the House of Representatives approved Senate Bills 229 and 230. The two measures lay the groundwork for a production tax on the oil and gas industry. Most of the revenues from the tax would pay for public transit, according to the Denver Post, with some of it going to public land restoration.
Senate Bill 229 still needs fine-tuning in the Senate, according to the Sun, while Bill 230 is ready for Governor Jared Polis’s signature.
Finally, a House bill that would have banned the sale, purchase and transfer of assault weapons in Colorado has failed. In shelving the bill, State Senator Julie Gonzales said that more conversations need to take place outside of the pressure cooker of the Capitol.
The regular legislative session ends on Wednesday.
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Boulder County Mobile Home ProgramBoulder County has launched a new pilot program aimed at improving and repairing mobile homes at two mobile home parks.
The Mobile Home Communities program is starting with the Columbine and Orchard Grove parks, both are in Boulder. They decided to begin with Columbine and Orchard Groove because they have the greatest need. The project will address energy efficiency, health and safety concerns, accessibility issues, and general repairs in more than thirty mobile home units.
The work will include improvements like adding insulation, weatherproofing, bringing units up to code, and other physical improvements.
The program is funded by $400,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Boulder County will combine what they learn from the Columbine and Orchard Grove projects with the results from a 2023 survey of mobile home park residents in Longmont and Lafayette. With this combined information, what they learn will be applied to future mobile home repair initiatives.
Magnus White RideA memorial bike ride in memory of honoring a rising Boulder cycling star is scheduled for next August.
The “Ride for Magnus: Ride for Your Life” memorial ride will be held on August 11th.
The ride is in memory of Magnus White, a member of the USA Cycling National Team who was struck and killed by a driver along the Diagonal Highway last summer.
At the time of his death, the 17-year-old was training for the Junior Men’s Mountain Bike Cross Country World Championships in Scotland. He was also about to enter his final year at Boulder High School.
The route covers thirteen-and-a-half miles and, organizers say, has minimal elevation gain.
Magnus White’s father said that every pedal stroke of the ride will be in honor of his son.
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The post High winds but no pre-emptory energy shutoffs; legislative news; Auraria campus appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
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- play_arrow05_06_24_am_headlinesAlexis Kenyon Metropolitan State University and SDS-Denver to discuss Auraria campus protestMetropolitan State University officials and Students for a Democratic Society-Denver have scheduled a meeting for this afternoon to resolve the impasse over an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the Auraria campus.
Metropolitan State is one of three institutions sharing the campus, along with CU Denver and Community College of Denver. Organizers for the Students for a Democratic Society-Denver, or SDS, last week rejected an offer from the campus of a $15,000 donation to the Red Cross in exchange for taking down their encampment, according to the Denver Post. SDS Denver says they won’t leave until administrators meet their demands.
Their demands include the University of Colorado publishing a statement condemning the actions of Israel; divesting from any corporations doing business in Israel and refusing grants from corporations that contract with the U.S. armed forces.
Denver Police arrested 45 students on April 26 during a sweep of the encampment. They have not arrested protesters since then. On Friday, police chief Ron Thomas said there are no plans for a second sweep because at present there are no legal grounds for doing so.
Also on Friday, Metropolitan State president Janine Davidson said that the university has agreed to provide demonstrators with financial information related to the university’s investments and industry relationships, according to Denverite. The Denver demonstrations are part of a wider movement on college campuses nationwide.
Check out our reporting on the protests
Read more from the Denver Post
Read more from Denverite
Colorado fines Cemex $1.3 million for air pollution violationsThe State of Colorado is fining the Cemex Cement plant near Lyons another $1.3 million for violating air pollution standards.
The new fines are for violations during 2022 and 2023, according to the Colorado Sun, and are on top of a $375,000 fine from 2021. State air pollution control officials have ordered Cemex to “take quick actions to reduce air pollution and improve compliance.
“The company said in a statement that while they have agreed to the terms of the fines, Cemex, “steadfastly maintains that it operates as a responsible environmental steward of the communities in which [they] operate.”
A member of a community advocacy group noted that fines “have clearly not been enough to deter Cemex’s actions.”
Last month Boulder County regulators issued an order terminating the right of Cemex to operate its Lyons plant, due in part to a safety hazard posed by increased traffic around the facility. The company is expected to respond to that order later this month.
Read more from the Colorado Sun
Read more about community pushback to Cemex
Colorado to vote on removing same-sex marriage ban from state constitutionColorado voters will have the opportunity to remove obsolete language from the state constitution this fall.
A proposed amendment to remove language banning same-sex marriage will be on the ballot this November, according to the Denver Post, after the state House of Representatives passed the measure on Saturday.
Colorado voters approved a same-sex marriage ban in 2006, but that became obsolete after the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions in 2015. The proposal to remove the ban passed the state House and Senate with two-thirds majorities.
Since it involves changing the State Constitution, it now needs voter approval to take effect. Supporters of removing the ban from the State Constitution say it’s necessary because the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated a willingness to revisit high-profile decisions.
Read more from the Denver Post
Federal judge upholds Colorado’s ban on ghost gunsA federal judge has denied a request by two gun rights groups to block Colorado’s new ban on so-called ghost guns.
The ghost gun ban became law last year. Ghost guns are generally defined as firearms assembled from kits or 3-D printers, and are untraceable because they don’t have serial numbers.
According to Colorado Politics, the new law makes ghost gun possession a misdemeanor, unless the owner obtains a serial number from a licensed dealer, and the dealer performs a background check.
The National Association for Gun Rights and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners sued to strike down that law under the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Judge Gordon Gallagher ruled last week that the law, in his words, “imposes a condition on the commercial sale of a firearm,” but does not prevent anyone from buying one.
Read more from Colorado Politics
Boulder considers future of municipal airportThe City of Boulder says they have not decided anything about the future of the Boulder Municipal Airport. In March, the city’s housing board recommended exploring the possibility of closing the airport and converting it to a mixed-income neighborhood.
Boulder Reporting Lab called that part of a broader plan to increase affordable housing. In a release posted to its website last week, the city said they are at a crossroads in determining the airport’s future.
Read more about Boulder’s airport site
Read more from Boulder Reporting Lab
RTD ramps up security across Denver transit systemsThe Regional Transit District has stepped up its security on its light rail platforms, lines, and buses.
As of yesterday, RTD Transit Police began 24/7 patrols, and a spokesperson says they are armed, and patrolling the system primarily on foot, although they have police vehicles, too. Before this round-the-clock patrolling, there were several gaps in the system, according to Denver7. RTD has 274 security guards.
In addition to that, there are sixty-one transit officers, with sixteen more graduating from the academy this month. There are also six mental health clinicians and five homeless outreach coordinators.
Read more from Denver7
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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston created a how-to guide for cities welcoming new immigrants. The guide has been distributed to other cities, dubbed the Newcomers Playbook. Johnston’s office described his city as “the national leader on this topic,” in a statement, according to Denverite.
Johnston added that QUOTE “Over the last year and a half, despite the federal government failing to support our cities, Denver has led by building sustainable systems that help newcomers get back on their feet and turning a crisis into opportunity.”
Johnston has admitted that the city’s initial response to new immigrants was not sustainable, and councilmembers have expressed concerns about communication efforts and those ineligible for the program.
V Reeves, an organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver, also known as HAND, joined KGNU’s Jackie Sedley to discuss the new “playbook,” as well as Johnston’s overall efforts when it comes to aiding new migrants.
I think basically when you have all these factors compiled together we’re basically saying that this program is virtually non-existent,” Reeves said. “You’re putting all these barriers that are, again, insurmountable for these folks – let alone for the average person – and you’re, you’re basically saying that in order to qualify for employment and housing support, you have to already have stable employment and housing. So, we haven’t been able to get any direct answers on why that is. We’ve, we’ve had conversations with the city about this and they seem as though they don’t understand or that they’re unaware that migrants are being told that this is how they get into the program.”
“The fact that this program is only going to serve a thousand people. And after that, everybody else gets up to three days of shelter, something that we’ve already seen people be straight out denied,” Reeves added. “Some people receive zero days of shelter. If this were to be a national model, the result would be that every 72 hours migrants on the streets would become arrestable, deportable, and would have no safe place to exist. And so, I, I think it’s highly questionable that we should have it here, let alone anywhere else in the U. S., and I think it’s pretty deplorable to see that a place that’s claiming to be friendly to migrants and understand the importance of having migrants in our community is able to treat them in such a deplorable way.”
Listen:
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: 8:11 on listener-supported KGNU. This is the Morning Magazine. I’m Jackie Sedley. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston created a how to guide for cities welcoming new immigrants. The guide has been distributed to other cities. It’s dubbed the Newcomers Playbook. Johnston’s office described his city as the national leader on this topic in a statement that’s according to Denverite. Johnston added that quote “Over the last year and a half, despite the federal government failing to support our cities, Denver has led by building sustainable systems that help newcomers get back on their feet and turning a crisis into an opportunity.”
Johnston has admitted that the city’s initial response to new immigrants was not sustainable, and council members have expressed concerns about communication efforts and those ineligible for the program. Here to talk about this new Playbook, as well as Johnston’s overall efforts when it comes to aiding new immigrants, is V Reeves.
They’re an organizer with House Keys Action Network Denver, also known as HAND, and they’ve been on KGNU’s airwaves more than once before, including yesterday during A Public Affair for a roundtable discussion between V, an advocate for the unhoused from NYC, and another from Los Angeles. V, thanks for joining us this morning.
V Reeves: Thank you for having me.
Sedley: So, let’s dive right into this playbook. What is this exactly?
Reeves: So, on April 10th, Mayor Mike Johnston announced a new plan for migrants coming to Denver that you know, started off with a lot of language surrounding the importance of migrants, the history of migrants coming to the U. S. The idea that a lot of folks are escaping violent persecution in their home countries which are all very important statements, and then he followed it up with the actual specifications of the plan, which included for a thousand people, six months of of housing and employment support. And then for any newcomers after that, only three days of sheltering, which was a severe reduction from the 14 to 42 days of sheltering offered before.
Sedley: Sorry, we lost you there at the second, but I think we got your whole, your whole statement. So, how has the playbook affected what you’re seeing on the streets through your work with HAND?
Reeves: So, initially there was already a lot of concern surrounding this. The idea that this program was supposed to only be supporting a thousand migrants, when we can have up to a thousand migrants coming to Denver in one week. This was clearly going to be a drop in the bucket. It wasn’t an initiative that was going to support folks long-term. It wasn’t an initiative that was going to support, you know, the majority of people coming to Denver. And it did feel very short-sighted. It felt as though the six months of support was not going to be sufficient. These are, are people who are up against legal the legal immigration process, which can take a lot longer for a lot of folks.And then the three days of sheltering was incredibly disturbing. It felt like an afterthought. It’s not like three days of shelter can be enough for anybody to find real stability or to be able to connect in the community, let alone understand the channels available to them, the opportunities available.
So, already there was a lot of concern. Now what we’ve seen in practice is that the six month program is actually not being offered widely to anybody. If anything, it turns out that there’s only enough funding for around one, potentially two months of support. And there have not been funding resources allocated yet to support the full six months.
So it feels a bit short-sighted that he would have announced this entire program without having secured anything to ensure that this program would continue for six months. That being said, we also have documentation from many migrants who have sent in screenshots of messages directly from the housing partners, the program partners that the city’s working with, particularly Vida Wellness. And these screenshots show that to get into the six month program, there’s a whole lot of requirements that are insurmountable, and also seem as though they would make it redundant to even be part of the program because they would suggest that somebody was already pretty stable.
So, I’m just going to pull up real quick to be able to refer to that message. One second. So, as for the requirements:
- The first requirement regards which shelter they’re staying in. So this program hasn’t been offered widely across the different micro shelters. It’s been primarily offered at one family shelter, leaving hundreds of individuals without ever being able to qualify for the program.
- The next qualifier is the name and ages of everyone.
- The third one is a employment verification letter. So basically, they’re suggesting that in order to get into this program, for employment support, you’d have to have an employment verification letter of stable employment. You have individuals who are going around and getting odd jobs to be able to make do, things like cleaning homes, you know, not necessarily the most stable employment, but it’s something where they are able to earn some income, and even those individuals are not qualifying. When we had a meeting with the Director of Economic Development and Opportunities, he’s supposedly going to be heavily involved in the workforce aspect and the workforce training aspect of the six month program, and he had zero idea that they were requiring verifiable fixed employment in order to qualify for this program. So there’s a lot of dissonance between the different groups that are supposedly part of this program as well. And a lot of folks who have no idea what migrants are being put up against.
- Another qualifier is that they need to have been already evicted from the shelter or have a letter that’s stating their date of exit.
- Even this documentation is not being given when a lot of migrants are leaving. A lot of them get kicked out prematurely. A lot of them don’t understand the reasons why they’ve been dismissed before their allotted timeframe.
- Another requirement is ID cards. This is something that migrants a lot of folks don’t have them because they had to travel often by foot across eight different countries to get to the U. S. And in that process, having to go through the Darien Jungle and being put against all odds they have lost their ID cards. There are also reports that some border patrol have actually taken people’s passports and cut them up or refuse to give them back to folks. So, ID cards are something that are hard to come by. So requiring that is another barrier, which the Director of Economic Development was surprised to learn about.
- And the final one is perhaps the most ridiculous of all of them. It’s a lease contract that’s signed by everybody in the family. So in order to enter this program, again, for employment and housing support, you have to already have a lease, have done the work to, to source your housing, probably have gone through some kind of background check or, or gone under some kind of scrutiny in order to get it. Somehow understand the language, usually a lot of the lease contracts are in English and these folks don’t speak English, and have it signed by everybody before having any kind of assuredness that you’d receive any kind of rental assistance.
So, all of those requirements are things that we’re incredibly, you know, disturbed to see happening. We’re, we’re disturbed to see that this is the process folks are being put up against. It’s resulting in a lot of people trying to find ways around the system. And, and a lot of disappointment in finding out that even if they’re asylum seekers, when they mention this program, they’re either told that they don’t qualify it’s not an option for them, or in some cases, some migrant shelters don’t even know about Mayor Johnson’s new plan at all, and they say basically that it has no effect on the protocol that they’ve had since now. So, so yeah, so I, I think basically when you have all these factors compiled together we’re basically saying that this program is virtually non-existent. You’re putting all these barriers that are, again, insurmountable for these folks – let alone for the average person – and you’re, you’re basically saying that in order to qualify for employment and housing support, you have to already have stable employment and housing. So, we haven’t been able to get any direct answers on why that is. We’ve, we’ve had conversations with the city about this and they seem as though they don’t understand or that they’re unaware that migrants are being told that this is how they get into the program. And so with that I think a huge concern is there seem to be a lot of different parties or elements or agencies involved in Mayor Johnson’s new plan that are not communicating well between them and that are being given limited information in order to do a limited aspect of the program.
But it’s resulting in this program not serving anybody that it was intended to serve.
Sedley: And we have just about 15 seconds. I just wanted to quickly ask, what is the general feeling that comes up when you hear Johnston passing this on to other cities and saying that Denver is a national leader on this topic? Just about 15 seconds.
Reeves: Even if he were to, for example the fact that this program is only going to serve a thousand people. And after that, everybody else gets up to three days of shelter, something that we’ve already seen people be straight out denied. Some people receive zero days of shelter. If this were to be a national model, the result would be that every 72 hours migrants on the streets would become arrestable, deportable, and would have no safe place to exist.
And so, I, I think it’s highly questionable that we should have it here, let alone anywhere else in the U. S., and I think it’s pretty deplorable to see that a place that’s claiming to be friendly to migrants and understand the importance of having migrants in our community is able to treat them in such a deplorable way.
Sedley: V Reeves with HouseKeys Action Network Denver, thank you so much for talking to us this morning, we appreciate it.
Reeves: Thank you. Always a joy.
The post “Every 72 hours migrants on the streets would become arrestable, deportable:” Local organizer critiques mayor’s latest plan appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Today marks Day 12 of the ongoing protest and encampment at the Auraria Campus in Denver, organized by Students for a Democratic Society Denver – commonly referred to as SDS – in conjunction with other groups. Organizers plan to keep the demonstration up and running until their demands are met. They have many demands, including that the University of Colorado fully divest from corporations that operate in Israel, refuse to accept grants from corps that contract with U.S. armed forces, and terminate study abroad programs to Israel.
The Auraria encampments have received lots of media attention, in part due to the arrest of 44 students, faculty members, and community members two Fridays ago by the Auraria Police Department and Denver Police Department. They were charged with municipal offenses including trespassing and interference, according to an Auraria Campus statement.
There have been over 2,200 student arrests across the country related to these kinds of pro-Palestine on-campus demonstrations.
Student protestors have occupied the campus’s Tivoli Quad since April 25. Tents cover a large portion of the quad’s grassy knoll. KGNU’s Jackie Sedley went to the Quad over the weekend, on Sunday May 5. At that time, there were over 30 tents.
Sedley spoke with two SDS organizers who were arrested while protesting, as well as one organizer from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Hear those conversations, as well as the latest updates from local police departments and campus administrators.
Paul Nelson is a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member. He was arrested on Friday, April 26, while protesting at the Auraria Campus encampment on Tivoli Quad. “What happened on Friday was horrible, it was brutal, it was an attack on our democratic rights, but it was also a gift to the student movement insofar as it lit a fire on this campus and in our community and across the whole country where students are standing up and fighting for justice,” Nelson said. “And see these kind of charges as nothing compared to what the people of Palestine deal with.”Lucia Feast is a second-year Metro State University (MSU) gender studies student, and a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organizer. She was also arrested on Friday, April 26, at the Auraria Campus encampment on Tivoli Quad. “It’s really exciting that I, as a student, can create that space for our entire community to be in conversation with each other, and sharing space together. This does not exist enough for us. And it’s really a shame that it takes something like genocide, something like our money going to genocide for us to be in community and so close with one another,” Feast said. “I think that’s something I want to take away from this of like, we should be able to be in this kind of community before these things happen, right?”Rae Jones is a local leader of Denver/Boulder Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). They helped organize a “Celebrate Liberation” event on Sunday, May 5th – a counter-event to Jewish Colorado’s “Celebrate Israel” event. “This moment is not complex in terms of whether there’s a genocide or not, but, but the history of, of Judaism, of anti-Semitism, of Jewish trauma is complex. And we wanted to give us space to really have those discussions and share some of those discussions that we’re having internally with a broader audience.”Listen:
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: Today marks Day 12 of the ongoing protest and encampment at the Auraria campus in Denver, organized by Students for a Democratic Society – commonly referred to as SDS – in conjunction with other groups. Organizers plan to keep the demonstration up and running until their demands are met. They have many demands, including that the University of Colorado fully divest from corporations that operate in Israel, refuse to accept grants from corporations that contract with U. S. armed forces, and terminate study abroad programs in Israel.
The Auraria encampment has received lots of media attention, in part due to the arrest of 44 students, faculty members, and community members two Fridays ago by the Auraria Police Department and Denver Police Department. They were charged with multiple offenses, including trespassing and interference, according to an Auraria campus statement. There have been over 2, 200 student arrests across the country related to these kinds of pro Palestine on campus demonstrations. Student protesters have occupied Auraria campus’s Tivoli Quad since April 25th.
Tents cover a large portion of the Quad’s grassy knoll. I went to the Quad yesterday and at that time there were well over 30 tents. I saw tents tagged with phrases like, “Free Palestine” and “You Shall Not Pass.” There were a handful of billboard like murals around the encampment with similar messages: “End Apartheid, Divest from Genocide,” “We Keep Us Safe,” and “Free Gaza.”
While there, I spoke to Paul Nelson. He’s a member of SDS and one of the organizers of the Auraria encampment. Nelson was one of those arrested two Fridays ago on April 26th, just one day into the start of the encampment.
We sat down together in this makeshift living room positioned at one end of the encampment. The floral embroidered couch we sat on was donated. They’ve received tons of donations. One organizer said they receive donations of food, snacks, money, and other resources every hour at this point. Here’s Paul Nelson’s account of his arrest.
Paul Nelson: So on Friday, the camp’s actually in pretty high spirits, and there’s just these weird rumors going around of a sweep, you know, and our marshal team is at the same time trying to keep people safe, but also trying to keep people from, like, panicking is a part of that. And so we’re trying to quash unsubstantiated rumors. And a Palestinian member of the community comes up to me and says, “Paul, is it true that the police are coming? I hear the police are coming.” And I say, “No, no, I think that’s just an unsubstantiated rumor.” And just as I say that, right behind him comes this small army from the north end of the Tivoli, you know.
And so, we, uh, right there and then we knew sh*t was about to hit the fan and we had to prepare so we did what we’ve been practicing and the people formed a picket arm in arm around the encampment and, you know, as the police approached we actually sat down and students on either side of me, there was a faculty one over from CU and there were several faculty who got arrested. My buddy Flanders got ripped up by the DPD and they cut him. And he was shouting, “Police brutality! Police brutality,” and I’d seen it on so many videos, but to see it right there and then was something else. You know, next to him was fellow SDS-er Samira, who got ripped up by the cops as well. I held fast to her arm as they tried to tear her up. And you know, your emotions were running really high in that situation. So what I did was I started singing, “We Shall Not Be Moved.” It’s one of my favorite songs. And in that moment, I think it was just really fitting.
And I wanted those cops to know I wasn’t afraid of them, but you know, those cops, they seemed shook in so far as I saw them, I kept telling them, you know, “You have every right to,” and I’d look them in the eyes when I’d tell them this, I’d say, “You have every right to refuse an illegal order. This is wrong. You do not have to do this.” And of course they didn’t exercise that. But they zip us up in these horribly tight handcuffs and haul us off to the bus and we go smiling, you know, and as I’m walking away being, being hauled off by the cops, you know, I’m saying “This isn’t the end of the student movement, this is the start of the student movement” because I’ve never seen activity like this ever in my life, only in my study of like the 1960s and the student movement, which was alive back then fighting the Vietnam War. So we’re getting hauled off to the, to the bus. And, they’re taking everything out of your pockets, and they actually, I, we witness, while this is happening, it looked like a young student, it was either a young student, or a young community member, who was handicapped, and used a cane to walk, they took their cane from them, and forced them to walk to the bus, with the police leading them, just as they would lead anyone else, you could see their paint walking, but the bus began to fill with students, and faculty and community people who had come here to stand for peace. I would say that in the bus I was in, there was probably maybe 25 people. And in total, I, it was my understanding, like 40 people were arrested. I think there might be more.
Jail was horribly dehumanizing. You know, as you can imagine, they, you get in there, and they’re all barking orders at you, and none of it’s clear, they’re angry that you don’t understand. They force you to strip down, right in front of a cop that’s staring at you, and put on this, like, jail garb, this, uh, this comfortable jail garb. And so, like, we learned firsthand just how despicable the Denver Jail is, and shame on the administration here for allowing their faculty and their students and their community to get sent there for a peaceful assembly to exercise free speech. We organize students who clearly have a problem with the way their university is being ran in regards to its relation to the genocide, and they want to have a conversation with the administration. They want more than that. They want a change of course towards justice and away from genocide and apartheid. And for that, you know, the administration has tried to instead wield police, small armies, and their institutional power to stop that from happening. But we know that student power is far more lasting and has a far better track record when it comes to bringing about change, institutional change.
Sedley: And how long were you there for?
Nelson: 12 hours. And so they let me out at 2:00 a.m. I was lucky that I had the community out there and the jail support and so I was able to, I was able to get a ride back to the camp and I went straight back to the camp. 2:00 a.m. I come back down here and, and, and go right back to where my tent is. But in part, I think the, noth the trauma of the police brutality, the political repression that I experienced combined with the fact that this is just some historical times we’re living in, my brain hasn’t been able to process it all. So, I’ve been having trouble holding onto people’s names, memory of the event. I’ve relied really strongly on my legal support to document what happened and to make the necessary requests so that we have a full and clear account of what happened on Friday. So, like, what happened on Friday was horrible, it was brutal, it was an attack on our democratic rights, but it was also a gift to the student movement insofar as it lit a fire on this campus and in our community and across the whole country where students are standing up and, and, and fighting for justice, you know, and, and see these kind of charges as nothing compared to what the people of Palestine deal with, you know.
More than 2,200 students have been arrested, as I understand it, and that number’s probably gone up at this point. I’m proud to be counted in their number, you know. It’s going to be a good thing when this is all said and done. And it will be all said and done, because it’s already begun in a few universities, you know.
Sedley: Nelson calls the arrests an abuse of students and a deprivation of their freedom of speech. Still, he went on to tell me that he’s optimistic about the legal course forward. His court date is set for later this month.
Nelson: It seems like a, seems like a hell of a case, you know, and I think that students have a right to protest, and I’d be happy to be part of defending that, and so, we’re setting precedent here, and, and that precedent is in defense of academic freedom for our teachers who participate in this action, who have consequences coming down the chain. This is already an anti-protest tactic that the police have used against the people’s movements for a long time, so, we have to be wary of every inch they try and take against us, all these anti protesting laws.
Sedley: Nelson says the encampment has not moved an inch since they got there on April 25th, and that their demands have only expanded.
Nelson: We’ve gone from targeting CU to targeting CU and MSU, and increasing our demands to drop the charges on the 40 people who were arrested, and to drop any sort of academic consequences on those students and faculty academic conduct charges.
Sedley: Last Thursday, the Auraria Executives Council, which is made up of representatives from the Auraria Higher Education Center, the Community College of Denver, MSU Denver, and CU Denver, said a $15,000 donation would be made to the International Committee of the Red Cross if the encampment came down by 5 p.m. that day. Nelson delivered a speech on site on behalf of organizers, saying that the offer was deeply insulting. They vowed to stay out there for as long as it takes. Once again, you just heard the voice of Paul Nelson, a protester that was arrested two Fridays ago at the encampment on the Auraria campus. We’ll take a short break. When we come back, you’ll hear from a second member of Students for a Democratic Society who was arrested Friday.
A tent at the Auraria Campus encampment in Denver. It reads “Free Palestine” and “You Shall Not Pass.”This is the Morning Magazine on listener supported KGNU. It’s 8:20. I’m Jackie Sedley. If you’re just now joining us, we’re shining a light on the Auraria encampment in Denver, which has been stationed on the campus’s Tivoli Quad for 12 days now. The demonstration is a largely student-organized effort to stand with Palestine and demand the University of Colorado divest from corporations that operate in Israel, among other demands.
I went to the encampment yesterday and spoke with two organizers who were arrested two Fridays ago. You already heard from one of those individuals, Paul Nelson, before the break. The other organizer is Lucia Feast, a second year Metro State University gender studies student and member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). She told me that leading up to her arrest, she was preparing herself for something like that to happen after seeing what was happening on other university campuses. She has bruises on her body from the police and says the whole arrest experience still feels unreal. that she hasn’t had time to process since she immediately returned back to the encampment, just like Paul Nelson did, after her arrest and kept organizing. I asked her about how one living in the encampment finds the balance between talking about the political issues they’re there for and also taking space to rest and care for themselves. Here’s what she had to say.
Lucia Feast: Yeah, it’s really hard to like keep the focus on Palestine. If we’re here for 10 days, not every second can be filled with that. That’s not sustainable. It’s just not possible. Just taking up the space, right, is the protest. And so even if we’re just in this space in community, that is doing so much already. It’s really exciting that I, as a student, can create that space for our entire community to be in conversation with each other, and sharing space together. This does not exist enough for us. And it’s really a shame that it takes something like genocide, something like our money going to genocide for us to be in community and so close with one another. And I wish I think that’s something I want to take away from this of like, we should be able to be in this kind of community before these things happen, right? So that these things don’t happen.
Sedley: She feels like Auraria campus and the affiliated groups are positioned pretty well for a demonstration like this and that that maybe explains why other campuses in the Denver Boulder area haven’t established similar encampments at this point.
Feast: Having people that know how to marshal and take care of each other having legal support those things are are so key to what we’re doing here, and it would not be possible without those things. And so, if people don’t have those kinds of resources, if they don’t have the funds, things like that, will easily hold you back from doing things like this. And so, we really have been in, like, a really good place, right place, right time, it feels like, to, to do this action
Sedley: SDS, that’s Students for a Democratic Society, is meeting with Metro State University’s Board of Trustees today. Feast told me it’ll likely happen around 3:30 p.m. in tandem with an emergency rally hosted by SDS. Last Friday, the university agreed to provide demonstrators with financial information related to the university’s investments and industry relationships. That’s according to both Feast and a statement by MSU President Janine Davidson. So, while there’s been steps forward between organizers and MSU, Feast says there’s been a lot less movement when it comes to the University of Colorado.
Feast: And I think that’s largely because they’re a bigger institution. It would be a bigger hit to them to make those changes, but that’s also why we, originally targeted them because their investments are much bigger and their support of these companies is much bigger. And so we’re hoping to see more movement from them. And hopefully if one university makes some changes, then the next, the others will follow.
Sedley: SDS has invited university officials to sit at their bargaining table at the encampment. They literally brought in a dining room table, put a tent over it, and added chandeliers. However, Feast told me that other than someone from Auraria Higher Education Center, none of the people that they’re formally negotiating with have accepted that invitation.
Feast: I think that’s obviously intentional, right? They know that this isn’t an unsafe space they say that to discredit us, to get us to go away and if they had to come here and see it, they, they could not deny that, right, that we are a community, this is a safe space, this is a, a, a growing and community and social space and that can’t be denied when you come here and see it.
Sedley: That was Lucia Feast speaking with us, an MSU student and a member of Students for a Democratic Society. Stay with us. In 30 seconds or so, you’ll hear from an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace on their relationship with the Auraria protests and the movement for justice in Palestine.
Back in 15 seconds.
Many billboard-like murals are strewn about the North border of Tivoli Quad, around the encampment on the Auraria Campus.You are tuned in to listener-supported KGNU. This is the Morning Magazine. We’re highlighting voices from the Auraria encampment in Denver this morning, which is a pro Palestine demonstration that organizers say will continue to stand until their demands are met, which include the University of Colorado entirely divesting from corporations that operate in Israel. The third and final voice from the encampment I have for you this morning is Rae Jones. They’re a local leader of Denver/Boulder Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and they were helping to organize a “Celebrate Liberation” event yesterday, a counter event to Jewish Colorado’s “Celebrate Israel” event. Here’s some of the reasons they said the group decided to host the event.
Rae Jones: Judaism and Zionism are not the same, and Jewish Colorado and Zionist Jewish institutions don’t speak for all Jews. And we think that it’s gross and shameful to celebrate Israel during a time of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza carried out by the Israeli government. This moment is not complex in terms of whether there’s a genocide or not, but, but the history of, of Judaism, of antisemitism, of Jewish trauma is complex. And we wanted to give us space to really have those discussions and share some of those discussions that we’re having internally with a broader audience.
Sedley: Jones went on to tell me that there’s a lot of fear in the Jewish community when it comes to speaking out publicly, especially within Jewish institutional leadership.
Jones: I hear a lot of we support you privately, but can’t support you publicly, which is really frustrating, especially in this time of deep, deep violence and need for people to speak out and, and to speak out against genocide as, as Jews, we know the history and how dangerous it is to not do that. And so to see our Jewish leaders not speaking out in this moment is really disheartening and disgraceful.
Sedley: Jones says JVP has seen a huge influx in membership since the October 7th attacks. They went on to say there’s a lot of manipulation of the word anti-Semitic that they find particularly harmful and that they hope to educate folks through JVP efforts and education.
Jones: We’re hearing locally and nationally and internationally that these camps are anti-Semitic, and or even pro-Hamas which is one, incorrect and two, extremely dangerous for the real instances of anti-Semitic that are happening. Criticizing a government is not anti-Semitic. And we need to, like, especially with the House Billthat was passed recently that conflated criticizing Israel with anti-Semitic, we, that is extremely dangerous and that’s why many of the Jewish constituents in the House voted against it, despite their support for Israel. Because when we conflate criticism of a government with the real oppression of Jews that happens at times, and hate for Jews that can happen, that means that that hate is hidden by something that is not actually dangerous.
Sedley: That was Rae Jones, a local leader of Denver/Boulder Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Some more updates on the Auraria encampment outside of just the organizer’s statements.
Last Friday, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas spoke at a regular meeting of Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board. There, he said he refused a second request from Auraria campus officials to clear the pro Palestine demonstrators from the encampment. In the wake of 44 arrests the week prior, Thomas said there is, QUOTE “no legal way” for officers to dismantle the demonstration, since currently it can’t be considered an unlawful assembly. Thomas went on to blame Auraria Campus leaders for mishandling the aftermath of the mass arrests, saying he’d expected campus officials to collect the tents. He said that their lack of QUOTE “cleanup” made it easy for protesters to quickly rebuild their encampment on the Tivoli Quad.
That’s all according to the Denver Post. I reached out to the Auraria Executives Council, Metro State University Denver, the Auraria Police Department, and the Denver Police Department for comment.
I’ve heard back from the Denver Police Department and the Auraria Higher Education Center so far. Auraria Higher Education Center’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Devra Ashby, directed me to Auraria campus website.
The most recent statement from May 3rd said QUOTE “Members of Auraria Higher Education Executives Council met again today (May 3rd) with student protesters to maintain an open dialogue and find a peaceful path forward for our campus community. The discussion provided an opportunity for all parties to be heard. MSU Denver and CU Denver are actively setting up campus dialogue sessions as a way to engage our community. We will continue to support and encourage peaceful debate and civil engagement on our campus, while ensuring the safety of our students, employees, and visitors.” He also said that QUOTE “the most recent post from Friday addresses the AEC’s meeting with the Students for a Democratic Society. The AEC will continue to meet with SDS to work toward a peaceful resolution for all parties.”
Denver Police Department’s Director of Communications, Doug Schepman, told me that their department only made six of the arrests out of the total 44 from two Fridays ago. He said that the Auraria Police Department are the main point of contact for the encampment. He also sent over a statement, QUOTE “As we continue to keep the students and faculty of Auraria campus safe, the Auraria Campus Police Department and DPD are in alignment on responding to the demonstrations moving forward. We believe we can both keep the campus safe and have peaceful protest.”
As organizers enter week three of the encampment, KGNU will keep you updated on negotiations between those groups and university administrators, any altercations between organizers and police, and any statements I receive from other parties involved.
And that brings us to the end of today’s Morning Magazine. Once again, I’m Jackie Sedley.
The post Auraria encampment arrests have “lit a fire” for protestors, as they enter 12th day of campus occupation appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On this morning’s A Public Affair, we hear from Scott Dickers, the founder of the Onion. He spoke at CU Boulder’s Conference of World Affairs last month. Dickers shares the story of creating the Onion back in college with his friends, what they learned in the first few year,s and then lines between fact in fiction became more difficult to understand.
If you listened to the first half of this speech this morning on KGNU’s APA and want to hear the second half, start the video at around 40 minutes.
The post Scott Dickers, founder of the Onion, talks about blurring the lines between jokes and journalism at CU Boulder appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Según datos de la Encuesta de Acceso a la Salud de Colorado del 2021, más de 80,000 personas en nuestro estado dijeron necesitar tratamiento por consumo de sustancias pero nunca lo llegaron a recibir.
Para informar sobre los servicios gratuitos teniendo en cuenta no sólo las barreras del lenguaje sino también las necesidades culturales de nuestra comunidad, charlamos en nuestro programa de Pasa La Voz con la portavoz de la comunidad latina para los programas de salud que ofrece Colorado: Virginia García Puvik.
García dió detalles no sólo sobre los programas: Quitemos la Etiqueta, Fuerte Como Una Madre, y YoImportoColorado.org; sino que además compartió con Rossana Longo Better, varios testimonios de personas en recuperación que se han beneficiado de los varios recursos de terapia gratuita para luchar contra el problema de la adicción.
- play_arrowServicios de Salud Mental Gratuitos, Accesibles y Culturalmente Apropiados para la Lucha contra el Consumo de SustanciasRossana Longo-Better (Descargue)
The post Servicios de Salud Mental Gratuitos, Accesibles y Culturalmente Apropiados para la Lucha contra el Consumo de Sustancias appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- Ekko Astral – Pink Balloons
- Record Label: Topshelf Records
- Release Date: April 17, 2024
- YouTube Link: Echo Astral – “UwU type beat”
- Bruno Berle – No Reino Dos Afetos 2
- Record Label: Far Out Recordings
- Release Date: April 5, 2024
- YouTube Link: Bruno Berle – “Tirolirole”
- Alice Russell – I Am
- Record Label: Tru Thoughts
- Release Date: April 5, 2024
- YouTube Link: Alice Russell – “I Am”
- The Iliad and the Odyssey and the Ghoulies – Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
- Record Label: Count Your Lucky Stars
- Release Date: April 25, 2024
- YouTube Link: The Iliad and the Odyssey and the Ghoulies – “April 25”
- Project Gemini – Colors and Light
- Record Label: Mr. Bongo
- Release Date: April 5, 2024
- YouTube Link: Project Gemini – “Colors and Light”
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*Sonhos Tomam Conta – Corpos de Água*
- Record Label: Longinus Recordings
- Release Date: March 29, 2024
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YouTube Link: sonhos tomam conta – corpos de água (full album)Compilation: Congo Funk
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Record Label: Analog Africa
- Release Date: April 5, 2024
- YouTube Link: Congo Funk! The Making of the Poster (Promo Video)
The post April Monthly Music Roundup: Ekko Astral, Bruno Berle, Project Gemini and Congo Funk! appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, tomorrow is Wildfire Community Preparedness Day. Hear more about how you can prepare for natural disaster. Then, it’s the first Friday of the month, and that means it’s time for Nature Almanac – with a morning ramble at a Boulder Cattail Marsh. After that, our Monthly Music Roundup featuring KGNU’s music director and two beloved KGNU DJs, about the best music that came out in April.
Listen: play_arrow*How to prepare for wildfires in Colorado; a morning ramble at a cattail marshJackie Sedley The post How to prepare for wildfires in Colorado; a morning ramble at a cattail marsh appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
This Saturday (May 4) is Wildfire Community Preparedness Day. It happens on the first Saturday in May, sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association and State Farm Insurance, and it sets out to bring people together to do projects that can reduce wildfire risk to homes and property.
Michelle Steinberg is the Division Director at the National Fire Protection Association. KGNU’s Jackie Sedley spoke with her about what community members should know, in Colorado and beyond, when it comes to wildfires in 2024.
Listen:
- play_arrowWildfire_PrepJackie Sedley Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: How big of a problem would you say wildfire is in our country right now? And how is that risk impacted by climate change?
Michelle Steinberg: I would say wildfire is a growing risk across the country. It is of course, part of the natural ecosystem, ecosystems across North America in many cases, but we’re seeing climate change driven impacts that really result in longer seasons. We even say there’s no season anymore. It’s a wildfire year. We’re seeing fire just much more frequently on the landscape in places that we don’t always expect to see it. And at times of year that we traditionally do not expect to see it. So it really calls for that kind of awareness and preparedness that we’re trying to promote.
Sedley: I live in Colorado now. Our listeners are all in Colorado mostly, but I’m originally from California, so I’m very familiar with fire danger. Colorado is growing more and more familiar with wildfires, but the climate is obviously different here than in dry California.
Steinberg: What should Coloradans or people that aren’t just in historically dry desert zones keep in mind when preparing for fires? So the idea that wildfires are only going to happen in certain areas, historically, Colorado has certainly had more than its share of wildfire, and we see it happening in places, again, that aren’t necessarily where we think about it. If you remember the Marshall fire in 2021 in Boulder County that was in an area where you didn’t have sort of large stands of forest. It was coming through grasslands and shrub lands to impact the built environment. And so what we’re seeing is that wherever these fires begin in the vegetation, they can readily impact homes and communities because we’re seeing the high winds and the specific conditions that can blow embers in from a fire to start to impact our homes and everything right around our homes in the home landscaping.
Sedley: Yeah, I live in Boulder now, and we talk frequently on KGNU’s airwaves about the ever continuing impacts of the Marshall Fire. What can people do to help protect their homes in the chance that there is another threatening fire on the horizon?
Right, so we speak about a concept called the Home Ignition Zone, and I think that’s widely used across many places in the U. S., but a lot of Coloradans have embraced this concept, which basically shows that the home itself and everything around it within about 100 feet is where you can affect the home fire risk by doing projects that basically remove things like debris in the gutters dead material around the home, moving out, say you’ve put ornamental landscaping or mulch right up against the house. You want to move that out. Doesn’t mean you can’t have it. It means that you don’t want anything touching your home that could carry flame to the home. So these kinds of practices, starting with the home and working your way out into the landscape, are really critical to bending down the risk. And then working with your neighbor on that adjacent parcel because their, their risk is your risk. Essentially, if you think about a shared fence line, for example you want to make sure that is clear of debris. You might want to even talk to your neighbor about making sure whatever material that fencing is, is not combustible and likely to bring fire to either of your homes.
Sedley: For individuals that maybe don’t have the economic financial resources to put in significant preparation into protecting their homes and their, their loved ones. What are the baseline kind of preparations people can put into place with things or resources that they already have in order to feel a bit safer?
Steinberg: Sure. I think some of these, when we talk about that Home Ignition Zone, starting with your home, cleaning out gutters cleaning immediately around the home, those are the most impact. And those tend to be the easiest things for people to do. I mean, if you had a very old, out of shape roof, for example, replacing that is quite expensive, but it’s something you need to have a safe roof for many other reasons, but there are many things you can do if the structure is in decent shape to just clear away some of that material really close to the home. It’s not significant amount of acreage or large, large trees or anything, but doing those things to kind of clean up. And the beauty of doing things as a community is many hands make light work. And so these kinds of community efforts are so valuable because they really can support the neighbors that maybe can’t afford to, or don’t have the physical capacity to do a lot of this heavy lifting on their own.
Sedley: And are there any events locally or nationally happening for Wildfire Community Preparedness Day that listeners could tap into?
Steinberg: Indeed. So if they’re on our website, NFPA.org/wildfire and look for preparedness day and look for put your project on the map, we’re really excited that many people have shared what they’re going to be doing on the day and into May that includes places right in, even right in Denver doing some projects on the day, and they’re all over the state. So there’s at least 30 projects that we know of. And in fact the sponsorship of this of this day has gone on for 10 years where state farm insurance helps NFPA to get funding out to communities. And we’ve provided that to several nonprofit organizations that work across Colorado. So they are out there continuing to amplify and get that support out to the folks that need it the most and in the high risk areas.
Sedley: Alright, Michelle, anything else that you’d like to add that we didn’t get to?
Steinberg: No, I think this is great. I’d like to encourage people to take those steps now before this fires fires or smoke in the air, so they have some peace of mind and can enjoy the summer season.
The post “There’s no season anymore. It’s a wildfire year”: The importance of being prepared appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
- play_arrowChefs, lentils, and the sandwiches of springRingo Joon How do you transform lentils into a palate delight? Where can you find zesty spring arugula? What’s the secret to serving lion’s mane mushrooms into steak? How do you make rhubarb-ade? Where IS Heine’s Market?
On Kitchen Table Talk hosts John Lehndorff (of Radio Nibbles) and chef Dan Asher (of River & Woods) welcomed veteran Boulder chef Kyle Mendenhall and Marcie Miller, owner of the Organic Sandwich Company in Boulder and Louisville.
They answered great cooking questions from KGNU listeners and tasted sandwiches and chef Asher’s creamy lentils with pickled radish and olive oil.
You can read John’s Nibbles column in the Boulder Weekly about a new Denver cookbook featuring the recipes and stories of new Colorado immigrants and refugees at: boulderweekly.com
The post Chefs, lentils, and the sandwiches of spring appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has created a how-to guide for cities welcoming new immigrants. We’ll hear feedback on that plan from a local advocate for the unhoused. After that, it’s Cannabis Report with Hannah Leigh-Meyers and Leland Rucker. Then, it’s Radio Nibbles – our weekly segment with John Lehndorff.
Listen: play_arrow*MorningMagazine_2024-05-02Jackie Sedley The post A critical look at Mayor Johnston’s “Newcomer’s Playbook”; Legal changes coming for marijuana appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, we check in local journalist Henry Larson about the pro-Palestine Auraria campus protests that led to over 40 arrests this weekend. After that, Chris Mohr shares his weekly commentary, Make Them Hear You. We’ll wrap up with herbalist Brigitte Mars and her regular Wednesday feature, Naturally.
Listen: play_arrow*MorningMagazine_2024-05-01Jackie Sedley The post The latest on Auraria pro-Palestine encampments appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Roughly 40 people were arrested and charged at Tivoli Quad on the Auraria Campus over the weekend, with multiple offenses like trespassing and interference.
Police in riot gear arrived on the scene around 12:30 p.m. on Friday, April 26, warning protestors they’d be ticketed or arrested if their self-made encampments stayed. Needless to say, the protestors continued their peaceful demonstration.
The Auraria Campus is shared by CU Denver, Metropolitan State University, and Community College of Denver. The community college has canceled all in-person classes for the rest of this semester.
Student leaders of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the Auraria Campus in Denver have told campus officials they have no intention of taking down the encampment they set up last week, until their demands are met. In a meeting with campus officials yesterday (Tuesday, April 30), Students for a Democratic Society – or SDS – leaders said they’re engaged in civil disobedience, according to a statement from the Auraria Higher Education Center. Since 2016, CU Denver has received almost $3 million from contracts connected to Israel. That’s according to reporting from Henry Larson with the CU Independent. The CU Board of Regents went into executive session on Monday to discuss the protests from a legal perspective.
Stories like these, of peaceful protests on college campuses being disrupted by armed officers who then arrest them, are popping up across the country – most led by pro-Palestine protestors, organizing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their respective universities to divest from funding Israel’s murder of Palestinians. Over 1,500 individuals have been arrested across the U.S. – many of them students.
Friday’s arrests did not entirely disrupt actions on Auraria’s Campus. Walkouts happened at Denver University on Monday and Tuesday, and the encampment is still there – bigger than ever.
Henry Larson joined KGNU’s Jackie Sedley in-studio to talk about the status of demonstrations on the Auraria Campus, and give some insight into the current protestor experience.
“I’d say there were probably, more than at least 50 students police officers there,” Larson said. “And during that initial period of demonstration, anywhere north of 150 to 250 protestors, I didn’t get an exact count, and throughout the day those numbers varied. The protest encampment was rebuilt minutes after police made their arrests and left the Auraria Campus, and then the numbers of protestors fluctuated throughout the rest of the day.”
“I think [protestors] feel very galvanized after Friday, after the police arrived a second time and subsequently left, they feel like they’ve won a major victory against the campus, against the police. they’re also definitely anticipating another police action sometime in the near future, they were asking student government representatives for things like lab goggles to protect against, uh, pepper spray yesterday,” Larson went on to explain. “As far as achieving their goals, I think that’s a significantly harder question. A lot of what they’re hoping the University of Colorado will do, they’ve only issued demands to the University of Colorado system, rely on a vote from the Board of Regents who have not made any public comment. I couldn’t reach any spokesperson for the CU system during my reporting. But again, it’s worth noting that they went into executive session, the CU Board of Regents, on Monday to discuss legal advice surrounding the protests.”
Listen:
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Pro-Palestine Protestors gather in Tivoli Quad at Auraria Campus in Denver on Friday, April 26. Photo Courtesy of Henry Larson.Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: Those are the chants of protesters on the Auraria Campus in Denver this past Friday. If you listen closely, you can also hear police officers shouting at those protesters to stay back.
Roughly 40 people were arrested and charged at Tivoli Quad on the Auraria Campus over the weekend with multiple offenses like trespassing and interference. Police in riot gear arrived on the scene around 12:30 PM on Friday, warning protestors they’d be ticketed or arrested if their self-made encampments stayed. Needless to say, the protestors continued their peaceful demonstration. The Auraria Campus is shared by CU Denver, Metropolitan State University and Community College of Denver. The community college has canceled all in-person classes for the rest of this semester. Stories like these of, of peaceful protests on college Campuses being disrupted by armed officers who then arrest them, are popping up across the country- most led by pro-Palestine protesters organizing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their respective universities to divest from funding Israel’s murder of Palestinians. Friday’s arrests did not entirely disrupt action on Auraria’s Campus. Walkouts happened at Denver University on Monday and Tuesday, and the encampment is still there, bigger than ever.
Here to talk about the status of demonstrations on the Auraria Campus and give us some insight into the current protester experience is CU Independent’s Henry Larson. Hi, Henry.
Henry Larson: Hi Jackie.
Sedley: So, you were at the campus on Friday. Let’s start there. What did you see?
Larson: Well, by that point the encampment had been going for about a day. Um, I showed up just as police were arresting some 44 protestors who had been camped out since about noon the previous day and when I got there, I saw at least four different law enforcement agencies in riot gear. They were carrying stun batons, brandishing pepper ball guns, clashing with, uh, at least one to 200 protestors. It was a very loud, tense atmosphere. People were receiving injuries from batons, from stampeding, trampling. I spoke with one particular organizer, Khalid Hamu, who is a CU Denver computer science senior. We spoke as he was watching those arrests happen.
Khalid Hamu: We’re currently seeing students get violently attacked by the police department for peacefully protesting to see an end to the genocide.
Larson: And so you hear there in his voice the emotion of this clash. It really was incredibly tense, incredibly painful for a lot of people. I followed up with Khalid later that evening as it had begun to rain, and if you listen, you can hear in his voice he’s been shouting all day, so he sounds much more hoarse.
Hamu: I really just see like a unity of opposites, you know? Like, we have to be so resolute in our demands, and that they are met to see an end to the genocide. But, to also have to like, to have to look at people, my friends, people I, I, uh, I value very highly in my life, like, um, to see them get arrested, um, but understand that I have to keep going, it’s, it, it hurts a little bit, but, um, you know, we have to keep going.
Sedley: Yeah, that, that pain in his voice is, is palpable, both in his voice being lost and just the, the emotion behind it. What, Henry, were the sizes like of the force of the police versus the amount of students that were, that were out?
Larson: I’d say there were probably, more than at least 50 students police officers there, um, and during that initial period of demonstration, anywhere north of 150 to 250 protestors, I didn’t get an exact count, and throughout the day those numbers varied. The protest encampment was rebuilt minutes after police made their arrests and left the Auraria Campus, and then the numbers of protestors fluctuated throughout the rest of the day.
Sedley: And the mayor showed up as well, right? Mayor Mike Johnston, briefly?
Larson: Mayor Johnston showed up, uh, towards the evening after a subsequent interaction with police. Um, it’s worth noting that during that second moment, the police didn’t advance on the camp. They just showed up and, uh, lined up and rank and file. And, uh, warned the protesters to disperse. Once it had begun to rain, the weather turned ugly, Mayor Johnston showed up, he approached the protesters, was surrounded by them, he spoke for only a minute before he was, uh, he left, um. In many ways, it looks like he was chased off by the protesters. He told them they had 30 minutes to get rid of their tents, um, that the city would store them safely and that they could continue protesting. But, um, because the tents were in violation of Auraria Campus policy, they couldn’t remain up.
Sedley: That was going to be my next question. You know, across the country, we’re hearing about over 1, 500 people, many of them students, being arrested for these demonstrations. Is it mainly because of the violation that the encampments posed to those areas? Or, what was the main justification for those arrests on Friday?
Larson: Yeah, so, Auraria Campus policy, like many places in Denver and across the state, bans camping in public areas, and so this particular protest encampment is right on Tivoli Quad, which is right next to the Student Union, Student Housing, and, uh, the university has had this policy since about 2004. They say that, uh, people who violate it are endangering the health and safety of campus and are obstructing a public area so that’s their justification for the protest for removing the protests organizers take a lot of issues with that. They say that the policy can be changed So that’s that’s the main debate.
Sedley: Okay, and bring us up to speed at this point. You were there all day yesterday, correct? You said that the encampment is, is what, two to three times the size as it was Friday? Is that right?
Larson: Yeah, in some ways, the arrests on Friday, I think, had the exact opposite effect that law enforcement and the campus hoped it would have. Uh, it has ballooned in size, the encampment. It’s now two to three times larger. There’s some 50 to 60 tents that we’ve been able to count. There, um, as far as the exact number of demonstrators, that’s a little harder to know because, again, it’s so variable throughout the day. People have classes, they’re coming in from other universities. Um, and so we saw, yesterday I saw people from, uh, University of Denver who were arriving, they had a walkout, which meant that they, uh, had to show up, uh, later on in, in the, uh, afternoon, and so they’re, they’re hearing from speakers like Angela Davis, Representative Elizabeth Epps, and Tim Hernandez, and they’re garnering traction based off of, um, how dramatic and hard to watch this clash was with police on Friday, I think.
Sedley: Right, we played Angela Davis speaking there over the weekend as well. So a big turnout. Did you talk to any demonstrators yesterday that had any thoughts or feelings about moving forward their interactions with police on campus? Obviously, if arrests happened Friday, even though In your words, that had the opposite effect on protesters, more coming out. Are they, are they afraid? Are they, are they hopeful?
Larson: You know, protesters, uh, have done every couple hours, uh, a safety drill where they go over, um, not talking to law enforcement. They rehearse a drill where they lock arms around the center of the encampment. Uh, that’s something that they did on Friday, two separate times while police were there. They’re also actively in negotiations with senior university officials. Yesterday they met with, uh, CU Denver Chancellor and the MSU president, as well as leadership from the Auraria Campus. Overall, those conversations went nowhere. Both parties say, as we heard in the headlines this morning, um, one protester called those talks a quote, “waste of time.”
Sedley: And so with those talks, with the general kind of campus energy or support from other students, are organizers feeling like they’re going to make meaningful change? I know that can be a hard question to answer. Obviously you’re reporting on it, you are not in their shoes, but how do they feel right now from your perspective?
Larson: I think, again, they feel very galvanized after Friday, after the police arrived a second time and subsequently left, they feel like they’ve won a major victory against the campus, against the police. they’re also definitely anticipating another police action sometime in the near future, they were asking student government representatives for things like lab goggles to protect against, uh, pepper spray yesterday. As far as achieving their goals, I think that’s a significantly harder question. A lot of what they’re hoping the University of Colorado will do, they’ve only issued demands to the University of Colorado system, rely on a vote from the Board of Regents who have not made any public comment. I couldn’t reach any spokesperson for the CU system during my reporting. But again, it’s worth noting that they went into executive session, the CU Board of Regents, on Monday to discuss legal advice surrounding the protests.
Sedley: And there’s obviously, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of protests happening on a national scale right now, all with varying outcomes, varying numbers of arrests and varying hope. Can you speak very briefly in the last 45 seconds or so we have here to what’s happening on a national scale and how it replicates or looks different from what’s happening here in Colorado?
Larson: Yeah, this protest in Denver very closely mirrors, um, many of the protests you’re seeing across the country. Mayor of New York City just said that some 300 protesters were arrested at two separate encampments, uh, in the city just last night alone. Uh, there were also demonstrations in Los Angeles at UCLA. Um, and so I think one of the tensions, uh, one of the issues that administrators, law enforcement are considering right now is they want to stay out of those kinds of headlines with how ugly things were on Friday and how ugly things are getting across the country. Just from a PR perspective, it’s something that they wanna stay away from.
Sedley: Hmm. Henry Larson, local journalist with the CU Independent among other publications. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, and we’ll be sure to have you back in if you continue this coverage.
Larson: Thank you, Jackie.
The post Arrests on Auraria Campus had “exact opposite effect” that police hoped, with encampments still standing – and growing appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen play_arrow*Denver student protests continue, Polis signs bill protecting transgender students, Boulder mental health workers move to unionizeKennedy Pickering CU Auraria campus protests continueStudent leaders of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the Auraria campus in Denver have told campus officials they have no intention of taking down the encampment they set up last week until their demands are met.
According to a statement from the Auraria Higher Education Center, Students for a Democratic Society—or SDS—leaders said they were engaged in civil disobedience in a meeting with campus officials yesterday.
The campus officials reiterated that while they support the student’s right to free speech and assembly, their encampment violates Auraria policy.
The student leaders replied that they fully understood they were violating Auraria’s no-camping policy, but according to the Auraria statement, they were engaged in civil disobedience.
Education Center CEO Colleen Walker and CU Denver Chancellor Michelle Marks were among the executive leaders who met with the SDS.
Chancellor Marks told the students that their demands that CU sever all financial ties to Israel were outside of her authority and were instead the responsibility of the CU Board of Regents and President.
According to the Denver Gazette, demonstrators later confirmed that the meeting produced no agreement with campus officials.
Meanwhile, some protestors have reportedly set up a homework tent at the encampment site so students can study for upcoming final exams.
CU Denver, Metropolitan State University, and Community College of Denver share the Auraria campus. The community college has canceled all in-person classes for the rest of this semester.
The demonstration against Israel’s war in Gaza began at Auraria last week and is one of many such demonstrations on college campuses nationwide.
In just a few minutes, we will speak with a local student journalist about the Auraria campus demonstration on the Morning Magazine.
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New Transgender bill signedA new law signed by Governor Jared Polis requires school employees in Colorado to call students by their preferred names.
The law, signed yesterday, makes it discriminatory for school employees to not call students by their preferred, gender-affirming name, according to the Denver Post.
It also allows students to file a report with their school if and when there is a violation.
The bill is similar to one recently signed into law, which allows people who have been convicted of felonies to use gender identity as a reason for legally changing their names.
These Democrat-backed bills resulted in lengthy debate in the state Senate and House of Representatives.
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Gray wolf confirmationColorado ranchers and state officials have reached an agreement to address rancher concerns about gray wolves, which attacked and killed eight livestock last month in Grand and Jackson counties.
In the agreement announced yesterday, the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association will receive up to $20,000 from the Colorado Department of Agriculture. The money will fund non-lethal deterrents against wolf depredation, a technical term for when a predator, like a wolf, repeatedly kills livestock.
The non-lethal deterrents include protecting livestock herds with overnight patrols and keeping livestock penned up overnight.
Ranchers and state wildlife officials have been at odds over the wolf depredation. At first, ranchers called on the state to take lethal action against the wolves, which the state declined.
Ten gray wolves were reintroduced to Colorado late last year. The governor said that statewide, voters approved a measure to reintroduce them despite knowing they would eat cattle.
But most voters in Grand County voted against wolf reintroduction, according to 9News.
In making the new agreement public, a spokesperson from the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association said the organization is thankful for the partnership with the state, which will help protect its animals.
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Colorado River Tribal talksSix Native American tribes, including two in Colorado, are now formally included in ongoing talks about water issues involving the Upper Colorado River Basin.
The tribes will meet with the Upper Colorado River Commission every two months under an agreement finalized last month.
The commission was formed in 1948, and its member states are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
According to the Colorado Sun, critical issues include allocating federal dollars and addressing an ongoing drought that could affect water security for the forty million people in the west who depend on the river.
Under current law, thirty federally recognized tribes have rights to about 26% of the Colorado River’s average flow.
The six tribes that now have permanent access to Upper Colorado River Commission negotiations have been meeting with the commission since August of 2022.
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Mental health workers in the process of unionizingEmployees at Mental Health Partners in Boulder have scheduled a vote on unionizing.
The voting on a decision join the Service Employees International Union Local 105.
Begins on Friday, with mail-in ballots counted on May 21st, according to a press release.
Workers at Mental Health Partners’ Valmont facility cite safety issues, unsustainable wages, and scheduling and staffing instability as reasons for unionizing. Some workers say those issues have hurt client care and resulted in staff burnout.
The release says if the vote to unionize is successful, it will become the first unionized mental health facility in Boulder.
From a press release
Iris Avenue wanting new protected bike lanesThe City of Boulder proposes to add protected bike lanes along one of the city’s busiest streets.
The protected bike lanes would be along Iris Avenue, which has a conventional bike lane running alongside traffic.
The new protected lanes are still gathering community feedback on other possibilities for Iris Avenue.
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Foothills North trials closedBoulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Department is closing the Foothills North Trailhead and the northern part of Foothills North Trail to install a bridge.
The closures could begin as soon as today, according to a city press release, and last for a week.
The city also plans to use a helicopter to bring in materials for the construction of a bridge over the Foothills North Trail. Weather permitting, that’s set for tomorrow.
The release also says that Open Space and Mountain Parks is nearing completion of a new three-and-a-half-mile trail called the North Sky Trail. The new trail will connect several existing trails in North Boulder and be open to hikers, cyclists, and equestrians.
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Eisenhower tunnel closerMotorists driving along I-70 west of Denver may encounter delays at the Eisenhower Tunnel over the next few weeks.
Colorado Department of Transportation crews will work overnight on improvements inside the tunnel, which will require lane closures in both directions.
Denver7 says the work began last night and will go through May 16th. C-DOT says there won’t be any closures on weekends or holidays.
Read here
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There have been dozens and dozens of arrests across the country of those protesting for a ceasefire in Gaza.
On KGNU’s airwaves, we’ve been keeping listeners updated on the dozens of students arrested on the Auraria campus in Denver for protesting the university’s funding of Israel’s murder of Palestinians.
Here, we’re focusing on a different pro-Palestine demonstration that also led to many arrests – 15 people – mostly members of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) – were arrested last December for civil disobedience, while protesting in solidarity with Palestine. They were standing up against the Jewish National Fund’s Conference (JNFC) in Denver. There was a court hearing earlier this month, on April 16th, and there will be another on May 10.
Rob Prince being escorted by sheriffs. Prince was arrested for civil disobedience following Jewish Voice for Peace’s demonstration on December 3, 2023. Photo Courtesy of Rob Prince.Rob Prince, former senior lecturer of international studies at Denver University, was among them. KGNU volunteer Remy Kachadourian interviewed Price about his experiences.
Perlmutter and his “Free Palestine” partners are charged with committing three misdemeanors on December 3, 2023, when they blocked traffic on Speer Boulevard by the Colorado Convention Center, which was hosting the Jewish National Fund’s Global Conference for Israel. The fifteen defendants sat in a circle and bound their arms together with makeshift tubes composed of duct tape and metal wiring, refusing to leave after being ordered to do so by police.
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- play_arrowRob Prince InterviewJackie Sedley The post Rob Prince was arrested for protesting the Jewish National Fund. Hear his story appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen: play_arrowAs student protests over Gaza continue, Auroria school officials cancel in-person classes for rest of semester; Andrew Buen faces retrialAlexis Kenyon In-person classes canceled for the rest of the semester as Aurora protests continue* Community College of Denver has canceled in-person classes after five days of student antiwar demonstrations on its Auraria campus.
College officials cited safety concerns and said students will need to attend classes remotely for the rest of its spring semester, which ends May 6, according to 9News. The announcement made no direct reference to anti-war demonstrations on the campus that have gone on there since last week. Community College of Denver shares the Auraria campus with CU-Denver and Metropolitan State University.
More than 40 protestors were arrested on the campus last Friday. Campus officials said that was because an encampment they set up there violated a camping ban. The Denver Post says the encampment has doubled in size since Thursday, when campers set up tents.
Yesterday, pro-Palestinian activists on the campus began urging students to walk out of their classes and join them in protesting the Israel-Hamas conflict. The demonstrators have demanded that the universities cut all financial ties with Israel, because of the war in Gaza. They also want a meeting with CU Denver Chancellor Michelle Marks.
In a statement yesterday, Chancellor Marks said while she supports the students’ right to free speech and assembly, the encampments were, in her words, “a different matter.” Her statement did not address demonstrator demands. The other two colleges sharing the Auraria campus have not said whether they will switch to remote learning.
Read more on 9News
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After deadlocked jury, Clear Creek County Sherrif’s Deputy in Christian Glass case faces retrialA former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Deputy, whose jury deadlocked on the second-degree murder charge against him, is facing a second trial on that charge.
Andrew Buen was convicted of misdemeanor reckless endangerment in the shooting death of Christian Glass, of Boulder, nearly two years earlier. Prosecutors requested the second trial yesterday, and the judge scheduled it for this coming August. Buen is the only one of eight officers involved in the death of Christian Glass to face trial. One other was fined and given two years of probation, while the remaining six are still going through the legal system.
On Sunday, the foreperson of Andrew Buen’s jury told 9News and the Denver Gazette that she believed the sole juror to hold out against conviction was predisposed against finding Buen guilty. She said the juror called the fatal shooting of Glass by Buen a “mistake,” for which he should not go to jail.
The foreperson also said that the jury saw the body cam video of the shooting five times during the trial, which convinced eleven of the twelve of Buen’s guilt.
Read more on Denver Gazette
Governor Polis signs budget; House approves two gun billsGovernor Jared Polis has signed a $40 billion-plus budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. According to Joint Budget Vice-Chair Rachel Zenzinger and Colorado Politics, it includes $737 more per student statewide.
Also, yesterday, as the legislature nears the end of its current session, the state House passed two gun measures and sent them back to the Senate, where they were first introduced. The House amended the original version of Senate Bill 131 to limit the number of so-called “sensitive places” in which firearms would be prohibited. According to Colorado Politics, those include polling places, schools, public college and university campuses, and local government offices and courthouses.
Senate Bill 131 allows the state Bureau of Investigation to investigate firearms crimes. Those would include gun purchases, where someone buys a gun for someone else who has been prohibited from buying one. Investigations would also include untraceable weapons known as ghost guns and illegal firearm components or accessories.
The bill includes a provision allowing citizens to challenge it once the governor has signed. If that happens, the bill could go before voters in November. Both bills were opposed by House Republicans and by some House Democrats.
Read more on Colorado Politics
State lawmakers make moves to protect same-sex marriage The State Senate has approved a measure that would help ensure that same-sex couples in Colorado have the right to be married, even if the US Supreme Court overturns its landmark same-sex marriage ruling.
According to the Denver Post, the state Senate passed the measure yesterday, but it still needs approval in the state House. If it passes there, the question of removing it from the state constitution will go before voters.
Colorado’s current legislative session ends on May 8 at the close of the day.
Read more on Denver Post
Gray wolf confirmationState wildlife officials have confirmed that the lethal attack on livestock in Grand County this past weekend was caused by a gray wolf.
Sunday’s attack was the fourth by a gray wolf in Grand County this month, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. This incident involved the death of one calf. The Middle Park Stock Growers Board asked Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials last week to kill two wolves suspected in these attacks.The agency denied that request, saying one wolf is likely in the process of breeding. But officials say that as the state’s wolf population grows, their position on this issue could change.
Asked yesterday about the wolf attacks, Governor Jared Polis said that any loss to a business is terrible, acknowledging that re-introducing gray wolves to Colorado had the approval of voters.
Ten gray wolves were re-introduced to Colorado late last year as part of a voter-approved initiative. One of those wolves was found dead in Larimer County earlier this month, reportedly from natural causes.
Read more on Daily Camera
Boulder bike theft ringBoulder Police have arrested two men in connection with a bicycle theft ring.
The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation into a larger bike theft ring, according to the Daily Camera. So far, police have served ten warrants and recovered nearly $30,000 worth of property, including bikes and bike parts. They also seized two firearms, among hundreds of other items. Police said in a social media post that they also found a lab making MDMA, commonly known as Ecstasy. That discovery required a hazardous materials team response. One of the two suspects arrested also has ongoing kidnapping and assault cases in Boulder County.
Read more on Daily Camera
The next round of Denver e-bike rebates opens this morning In Denver, the next round of the city’s E-bike rebate program starts this morning at 11:30. The program gives participants a rebate for buying an e-bike at a participating bike shop. It’s part of the city’s voter-approved Climate Protection Fund. The Denver e-bike rebates cannot be combined with Colorado’s e-bike voucher, which went into effect on April 1st.
To apply for a Denver rebate, visit DenverClimateRebates.com. The portal opens this morning at 11 a.m.
The post As student protests over Gaza continue, Auroria school officials cancel in-person classes for rest of semester; Andrew Buen faces retrial appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, a conversation with someone arrested back in December for protesting the Jewish National Fund’s Conference in Denver. Then, an award-winning high school mariachi band from Uvalde, Texas, wrapped up a 6-day trip to Boulder County with a concert at Skyline High in Longmont on Sunday. You’ll hear their story. After that, some positive climate and environment-related stories from This Week in Water. We’ll wrap up with our Listener Comment Line.
Listen: play_arrow*Jewish Voice for Peace activist speaks about his December arrest; Texas high school mariachi band makes their way to BoulderJackie Sedley The post Jewish Voice for Peace activist speaks about his December arrest; Texas high school mariachi band makes their way to Boulder appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Student protests have been happening on campuses across the nation, calling for an end to the war in Gaza. These demonstrations, often involving tent encampments and occupations of campus spaces, have led to numerous student arrests.
Over the weekend in Denver, at the Auraria campus, dozens of students were arrested by police in riot gear. They were charged with municipal offenses including trespassing and interference, according to an Auraria Campus statement.
Police surrounded a pro-Palestine encampment at the Tivoli Quad, which houses the University of Colorado Denver, Metro State and the Community College of Denver, around 12:30 p.m. Friday afternoon. Protesters were warned they’d be arrested or ticketed if they stayed, but continued to link arms around the encampment and continue to promote their pro-Palestine demonstration.
KGNU’s Rossana Longo Better attended the rally, and spoke with both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel attendees.
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- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley One student protester named Sean – he didn’t want to share his last name – attended the protest to stand against CU’s funding of Israel’s murder of Palestinians.
“So basically we’re paying for a war to kill other people, and the protest is to say, we don’t want college campuses to be funding these wars,” said Sean. “We don’t want our government to be funding these corrupt wars and these fascist f**ks.”
He described police activity he’d witnessed just before talking to Rossana.
“These police were moving their vehicles and as they were moving their vehicles, hit a lady on, on foot with their vehicles and then proceeded to tackle. With like multiple police officers and arrest her and drag her to the thing for no apparent reason as as one of the other ladies is screaming and they don’t even think they were even part of the protest you know they were just walking by.”
Sean was very opposed to police presence on campus.
“This is not their property. This is a college campus property. We pay tuition to be here. We have every right to voice our freedom of speech and what we feel is right. We have not caused any harm or any call of violence towards any other person and this presence on this campus is incredibly uncalled for. Over, grossly, blown-up when it started out as a very peaceful campsite this morning where people locked arms and were doing nothing but peacefully protesting the unjustness of this nation.”
Sean says the police presence at college campus demonstrations like DUs is an example of corruption, and that it must stop.
“We, we’ve learned nothing from the BLM movement and these police are continuously being brutal, unjust, and unrealistic to the reality of what the protest is. And they should not be here, nor do they have the right to stifle a person’s freedom of speech. Now, if there is, if there is some sort of violence, if someone is threatening the building by throwing a brick through it or something, you know, that’s a different situation. But these people are peaceful and then they just came in here and started arresting ’em for no reason. And that’s uncalled for.”
Pro-Palestine protestors demonstrate at Tivoli Quad in Denver. Photo Courtesy of Rossana Longo Better.Rossana also spoke with Spencer Edris, a cybersecurity student at CU Denver. Edris is pro-Israel, and said he felt shut out by the protestors when he tried to express his opposing viewpoints.
“They’re just shutting me down. So it really seems like, uh, these people are just following like sheep, they don’t even care what they’re doing. They don’t even understand what they’re doing here. They’re just chanting,” said Edris. “I am pro-Israel, um, I have a lot of Jewish friends, I grew up with a lot of Jewish people, I’m not from Israel and I don’t stand for the IDF, but I know that the slaughter of innocent victims, and the war between these two people is just so long and it’s just needless. There’s just a lot of blood that’s needed and you shouldn’t support Hamas, because they literally said that they were going to do October 7th again and again and again, and their statement of their, like, for their whole, like, their constitution, it says that they want to destroy Israel. From the river of the sea, that means the destruction of Israel, the death of all Jewish people, and that’s been for decades.”
Another pro-Palestine demonstrator in attendance was Angela Davis – the infamous feminist political activist and academic. She spoke to the student protestors. Apologies that the audio quality isn’t the greatest – there was only one public recording online available online at the time of the newscast, courtesy of Denver/Boulder Jewish Voices for Peace and the Denver Branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
“I want to emphasize what this means for history,” said Davis. “As you imagine this period being narrated ten years, 20 years, 50 years from now, you will be the historical actors who made it possible for a breakthrough in the struggle against Zionism. I wanted you to know that, as a person who has been involved in the movement to develop solidarity with Palestine since, the 1960s, this is the moment we have all been waiting for.
As for me, unfortunately now deceased friend, June Jordan, constantly said when she was alive, she was a real pioneer in encouraging black solidarity with Palestine. She made the point that Palestine is a moral litmus test for struggles against justice This is a moment that marks a breakthrough in the effort to discredit Zionism, to challenge Zionism, to challenge Zionism effectively, and I have the feeling that we’re moving in the right, fair, direction. Because you, students, faculty, workers, liked you all over the country from, uh, From Columbia, to Brown, to NYU, I can’t even name all of the encampments that are calling for divestment on college and university campuses everywhere. But, I cannot tell you how you make me feel.
I have struggled for decades and decades. I realize that this is what we’ve been struggling for. And I stand here, not as an individual, but to bear witness for all of those who have been involved in this struggle. to generate solidarity with Palestine, justice for Palestine, freedom for Palestine. And Palestine can be free than the entire world can be free.”
KGNU will continue to keep you updated on the student arrests that occurred as a result of these demonstrations.
Pro-Palestine protestors gathered at Tivoli Quad in Denver on Friday, April 26. Dozens were arrested. Photo Courtesy of Rossana Longo Better.The post Angela Davis stood with pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Auraria campus over the weekend appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen: play_arrow04_29_24_am_headlinesKennedy Pickering Protest on CU Auraria campusPro-Palestinian demonstrators continued an encampment on the Auraria campus in Denver yesterday, but the campus remains open, according to Fox 31*.
Officials for the campus, shared by CU Denver, Metropolitan State University, and the Community College of Denver, said in a statement that they support the right to peacefully demonstrate in accordance with the law. The statement also said the encampment was still in front of the student union as of yesterday.
Forty-four people were arrested on the Auraria Campus Friday for violating a campus ban on camping.
On Saturday, veteran political activist Angela Davis told demonstrators that their actions made a breakthrough in Gaza possible. According to the Colorado Sun, Davis was at the Auraria campus after speaking at Colorado College the day before.
The demonstrators in Denver want the CU system to divest from corporations who are doing business in Israel, according to the CU Independent. They also want a meeting with Chancellor Michelle Marks.
The Denver demonstrations are among protests on university campuses nationwide, including some in California, Arizona, Missouri, Indiana, and New York.
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Read the CU Independent here
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Second paramedic in Elijah McClain case sentenced to 14 months of work releaseThe second of two paramedics convicted in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain has been sentenced to fourteen months of work release.
According to 9News, Former Aurora Fire Rescue paramedic Jeremy Cooper will begin serving his work release this June. At a hearing on Friday, he was also given four years of probation.
Cooper and former Aurora paramedic Peter Cichuniec were convicted together, with Cichuniec sentenced to five years in prison last month. The two of them injected a fatal dose of ketamine into Elijah McClain. McClain was walking home from a convenience store, but three police officers stopped him after someone called 911.
The officers forced him to the ground, and one put him in a carotid hold. He was handcuffed and restrained. After the paramedics arrived, he was injected with ketamine. His heart stopped, and he later died.
One of the three police officers was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault and received 14 months in jail. The two other officers were acquitted.
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Trial verdict clears Sheriff Deputy of murder charges in Christian Glass caseJurors found former Clear Creek County sheriff’s deputy Andrew Buen guilty of reckless endangerment last week during a trial over the killing of 22-year-old Christian Glass.
According to the Denver Post, reckless endangerment is a misdemeanor that usually results in a sentence of no more than 120 days in jail.
The jury deadlocked on second-degree murder charges. The jury foreperson says that only one juror opposed conviction on that charge and may have been biased in the former deputy’s favor.
The jury foreperson told 9Newsthat soon after deliberations began last week, most of the jurors wanted to convict Buen on the second-degree murder charge. It was the most serious charge against him, and the foreperson said bodycam video showed conclusively that he shot 22-year-old Christian Glass in June of 2022.
The holdout juror would not budge, and the foreperson said the juror may have had a bias they would not admit to.
Buen’s supervisor, Kyle Gould, was not at the scene on the night of the killing. But he live-streamed it and later pleaded guilty to failing to intervene in the use of excessive force. Gould was fined and sentenced to two years of probation and lost his police certification.
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Texas Uvalde mariachi band in BoulderAn award-winning high school mariachi band from Uvalde, Texas, wrapped up a six-day trip to Boulder County with a Skyline High School in Longmont concert yesterday.
The visit was the brainchild of Dr. Vicki Burrichter, the artistic director of Boulder Chorale, who was inspired to invite the group to Colorado after reading about them in Rolling Stone magazine.
The Boulder Concert Chorale performed with Los Coyotes, the Uvalde High Mariachi Band, at several concerts during the week. Tune in to the Morning Magazine tomorrow, to hear more about this tour which brought healing to two communities still reeling from mass shootings that took place just months apart.
Another possible wolf attackState wildlife officials are investigating another possible livestock killing by a wolf in Grand County.
The rancher whose calf was killed saw a wolf, according to 9News.
If it’s confirmed as a wolf attack, this latest incident will bring the number of young cattle killed by wolves in Grand and Jackson Counties in April to seven.
The string of killings has sparked controversy between ranchers who want the state to do something about the predators and those who want to protect the wolves.
Colorado lawmakers introduced 10 gray wolves last year. Colorado Parks and Wildlife have tracked more than one of the wolves in the areas where livestock have died.
The head of Parks and Wildlife, Jeff Davis, said last week that the state will not kill any wolves, as ranchers have requested.
Davis told the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association that the state is working to minimize conflicts. He indicated at the time that he thought the efforts had been working.
Read 9news here
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Read Colorado politics here
Boulder County wildfire mitigationBoulder County has released $2.4 million in grant money for wildfire mitigation projects.
According to a county press release, the funds, part of a new round of Strategic Fuels Mitigation Grants, are available for projects by local governments, fire protection agencies, and community organizations.
The current cycle runs through June 6th, with a new cycle beginning in the fall.
County officials call it an opportunity for communities and partners to improve wildfire protection.
Read and apply here
The post 44 arrested in Auraria Gaza protests, paramedic in Elijah McClain case gets 14 months work release appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, dozens of students were arrested at the Auraria campus in Denver over the weekend, while showing their solidarity with Palestine and protesting for an end to funding Israel’s efforts in Gaza. We have some student voices from both sides, as well as audio of a speech from the Angela Davis. Then, we’ll talk about whether our centralized power grid makes sense in a world of increasingly severe weather.
Listen: play_arrow*MorningMagazine_2024-04-29Jackie Sedley The post Dozens of students arrested at Auraria campus in Denver; recent outages draw attention to outdated Boulder power grid appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
In the weeks following an early April power outage, during which Xcel Energy cut power to over 55,000 customers across the Denver and Boulder metro areas, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has initiated an investigation into the utility company.
As part of this investigation, the PUC hosted a community feedback meeting, during which members reported significant losses, including tens of millions of dollars in business revenue. One Boulder pharmaceutical business said it several lost millions of dollars worth of product. People with disabilities reported that they had to rush to the hospital to power oxygen and temperature-regulating machines. Meanwhile, traffic lights caused a frenzy of accidents. Boulder’s community hospital reported they were overrun and had only a few hours’ notice.Leslie Glustrom, a longtime climate activist in Boulder and throughout Colorado who has also served as a PUC intervenor for many years, spoke at the meeting.KGNU’s Alexis Kenyon spoke with Glustrom, who says the recent outages underscore a critical question about the true costs associated with our current electric utility system. play_arrow*04_29_24_XCELAlexis Kenyon
The post With more outages on the horizon, does Boulder’s 20th Century power grid make sense for the next 100 years? appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Ginger Perry, a longtime KGNU DJ and contributor, speaks with Nona Gandelman. Gandelman, who started out as a booking agent, has worked as one of Boulder’s most legendary music concert promoters. Eventually forming Maven Productions, Gandelman brought acts like B.B. King, Phish, Buddy Guy, Joan Baez, Roseanne Barr, and Ani DiFranco to stages in Boulder.
Gandelman also served as Vice President of Communications and Marketing at the Jane Goodall Institute. Gandelman often traveled with Dr. Jane Goodall, including a trip to Africa, where Goodall shot her first film with Animal Planet: Return to Gombe. Gandelman is now Dr. Goodall’s book agent. play_arrowNona Gandelman worked with creatives like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Phish, Ani DiFranco and Jane Goodall to put Boulder’s art scene on the mapAlexis Kenyon Interview Transcript:Ginger Perry:* Good morning. This is Ginger Perry here with Nona Gandelman of Maven Productions. She’s been in the music business since the 70s, starting out as a local booking agent and moving on to national and international groups. She has done more than we can imagine. She’ll tell you about a number of her shows and her unusual shows.
She was also the general manager of the Boulder Theater in 1990 and 1991. She’s gone on to do some really interesting things. And she’s here in the studio with me now. Nona Gandelman’s company is Maven Productions. Good morning, Maven! Good morning, Maven Productions! (Laughter)
Nona Gandelman: That’s Right! I’m the Maven, all right. I’m the music Maven. Good morning, Ginger. It’s great to be here.
Ginger Perry: Good morning. We’re going to have a really good time.
Nona Gandelman: Yeah.
Ginger Perry: Now you started out, you talk about a change in career. You started out as a tennis person.
Nona Gandelman: Yes. Well, I’ve had many careers, but right at the beginning, when I first came to Colorado, I was coming off of being a full-time tennis pro in Connecticut. I came here and was offered the pro-ship at the Flatirons Country Club, which put in one or two courts. Now it’s a full-time golf club.
So I think I was there two summers, two seasons. And then my life changed.
But I actually had planned to be a teacher. I have a master’s in education, but as you know, my life took some twists and turns and led me in a different direction.
Ginger Perry: Yeah, I was just talking with my book club last night about what, how you changed your life story along the way, and you certainly did. Bam! So tell us how you went from tennis to music production.
Nona Gandelman: I had some friends here, and one of my really dear friends, surprisingly, told me she was going to be part of a rock and roll band, an all-female rock and roll band, which was unique in those days.
Ginger Perry: Raw honey, right?
Nona Gandelman: Raw honey. And the way we came up with the name, by the way, we were all sitting around at lunch and ‘What are we going to call the band? What are we going to call it? ‘
And we all looked down at this honey bottle, and it said, ‘raw honey,’ and it was like, that’s it. Perfect.
And so I was just friends with them. And then they got a gig at one of the hotels here in Boulder for terrible money. And I said to them, ‘Jeez, you guys should be making more money. You want me to talk to them?’
I didn’t know what I was doing. I went in. I talked to the guy, and I don’t know, I got twice the amount of money. And before I knew it, two months later, I was their manager. I mean, you know, they were desperate, and I didn’t mind switching gears and you know, the entertainment thing was very seductive.
Ginger Perry: And you created a whole job of becoming a booking agent, right?
Nona Gandelman: After that, there’s another whole story. That happened. Yeah.
After, I don’t know, some time traveling with them and getting convincing booking agents to book them, I found myself going down to this agency in Denver, which was the biggest one down there. And Alan, who was the owner of it, there were two other agents, Kathy and Kent. And I would go down there because I’m pitching my group, Raw Honey. And I would be sitting in the hallway eavesdropping on how they were selling the artists. So I was hearing them work as booking agents.
Ginger Perry: Talk about self-taught!
Nona Gandelman: Yeah, no, I totally was. Everything I’ve done has been sort of streetwise.
Yeah. And I listened, you know, this goes on for long periods of time. I go down there a lot. And then the next thing I know, Kent comes to me and says, you know, I’ve got some money, let’s start our own booking agency.
Ginger Perry: And then he dropped out, right?
Nona Gandelman: Yeah, so we started out, like, house on fire booking. We had a little office, I think. And, within months he tells me he’s going to drop out, and now I owe him the money that he used to start the agency. I had no choice if I wanted to keep doing it. So I came up with the money and became my own booking agent, and it was sink or swim.
Ginger Perry: And then you started to learn about venues and even create venues, right? Tell us all about that.
Nona Gandelman: After some time, I think I called myself Peak Productions. Very original name. And I was the only booking agent in Boulder.
So, a lot of the local bands were coming, and I was booking everybody from, you know, the Mother Folkers to Dusty Drapes, you name it.
All the locals to Rob from Rob’s Music had a band. I booked him a lot. Hot Rize. But later on I booked Hot Rize at another level, a national level. But at any rate, then this guy comes along, once again, these guys changed my life.
Hot Rize
Ginger Perry: These people just drop in your lap!
Nona Gandelman: I know! he comes along. He says, ‘You know, I’ve got all this money. I’m gonna start this big company at the Market Center in Denver, a brand new building. ‘I’d like to have a management company and a booking agency. How would you like to run the booking agency?’
I said, ‘Okay.’ And so became Panther Presentations and Leonine Productions.
Ginger Perry: Get the animals in there.
Nona Gandelman: Yeah. We were both Leos. So, and you know, as Leos, we wanted to tout our Leoism. And our company was hot. And it happened right at the beginning of the urban cowboy fad, which was huge. All the clubs in Colorado wanted country.
Yeah. We were both Leos. So, and you know, as Leos we wanted to tout our Leoism. And our company was hot. And it happened right at the beginning of the urban cowboy fad, which was huge. All the clubs in Colorado wanted country.
Ginger Perry: When was that about? Do you remember?
Nona Gandelman: Gosh. Early 80s? Whenever the movie came out. Yeah. Right. I have to look it up. 70s maybe.
Ginger Perry: Yeah.
Nona Gandelman: And we captured all these country groups coming in and out of town, you know, cover bands, not necessarily recording artists. And I was booking, at one point, I think, eight or nine clubs a week.
Ginger Perry: Oh my gosh.
Nona Gandelman: No, yeah, in Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and all over Colorado. I was at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood. I booked things up in Aspen. I booked things in Denver.
You name a club, I would go out and find them and they would work with me. And at one point we were so strong we were written up in Pollstar.
You name a club, I would go out and find them and they would work with me. And at one point we were so strong we were written up in Pollstar.
Ginger Perry: Wow.
Nona Gandelman: And I think, I don’t know. Immediately, somebody came and offered to buy our company, but we didn’t sell it.
Ginger Perry: And then you went into national acts from there.
Nona Gandelman: Well, that was by accident. That was…
Ginger Perry: Everything seems by accident!
Nona Gandelman: Okay, yeah! Here I am, I’m going to be a teacher. So far, I’m miles away from teaching, which was my love. Now my partner, Peter, comes to me and says, ‘Nona, I have a friend from high school. She’s a folk singer. She’s coming to Colorado. I guess she’s good. She’s recorded. And can you get a gig for her?’
So I go, I figure, okay. I find out her name. And I said, ‘That name’s very familiar,’ and I realized who she was, and I’ll spring that on you in a minute.
But I went to Tulagi’s, and I said to them, ‘You know, here’s this great singer-songwriter. You ought to book her.’
And they said, ‘We don’t know who she is. We’re not interested.’
So I said, ‘Would you give me a Monday night and let me do a show?’ And you charge me rent if you want?’
And they said ‘Yes.’
Well, the artist was Cris Williamson.
Ginger Perry: Oh.
Nona Gandelman: She was the co-founder of Olivia Records and had a huge career. Still does.
Ginger Perry: Women’s music.
Nona Gandelman: ‘Women’s music,’ they called it. She came to town, and we put the show on sale. We had a line from Tulagi’s door all the way up College Street and around the block. And I think we added a show. I think we added a late show.
Ginger Perry: You had no idea how popular she was.
Nona Gandelman: I knew she would do well, but not that well.
And the owners, they couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘Who is she? Who is she?’
I said, ‘Well, I, you know, well, if I explained it to you, I still don’t know if you’d understand who she is, but…”And, of course, she went on to sell lots of tickets all over the country, including here.
Ginger Perry: And did you continue to produce her?
Nona Gandelman: Oh, yeah, for years. Oh, yeah, years and years. 20,25 years. It started me on a course of doing all of the “women’s music” quote-unquote performers, and I used to be able to do shows with them at Macky.
I mean, it was a huge cultural event for women who were hungry to hear their music.
Ginger Perry: Really creating a community.
Nona Gandelman: Right. Gay or straight, it didn’t matter; they would come. It was oriented towards women, and many talents were popping up. Comedians like Kate Clinton and Marga Gomez, Lucie Blue Tremblay. I mean, I did everything, Holly Near.
Ginger Perry: all of it, Teresa Trull,
Nona Gandelman: Barbara Higbie, and Barb, of course, is Windham Hill. It was huge for years and years.
Ginger Perry: You created a niche.
Nona Gandelman: That’s right.
Ginger Perry: And tell us about how you got in a little trouble and the boycott happened.
Nona Gandelman: Oh, the boycott.
Ginger Perry: The boycott.
Nona Gandelman: The boycott. That was a dark moment.
I got a call from Redwood Records, Holly Near’s label, Jo-Lynne Worley, and Joni Shoemaker. They called me and said, ‘Nona, we’re getting reports that people are unhappy with you.’
And I said, ‘Well, why? The shows are doing great.’
Well, it was because some women felt that the shows should be restricted, which would mean women only. And that really put me through something. I had to think about that really long and hard because I understood the thinking and the desire to have a safe space, quote-unquote, or a space where everybody could be themselves and be very comfortable.
But as a promoter, I also felt my job was to develop the artists, and the music was certainly good enough and wonderful enough to appeal to everybody.
And so I wouldn’t; I said I wasn’t going to do that. I didn’t think a lot of men would want to be there with 2, 000 women anyway, hogging the men’s room and the women’s room.
Ginger Perry: How many would be there?
Nona Gandelman: Well, we would get some, you know, maybe if there were 2,000, there might be 20 guys. It increased as time went on. The audience was very mixed.
It was like with Ani DiFranco; used to be all women, and now it’s just everybody. Everybody’s coming. And so I was boycotted. A lot of people wouldn’t come to my shows for a while, and they even picketed, I think, outside the shows.
Ginger Perry: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well.
Nona Gandelman: But it really developed into major concert work and huge audiences. And I have to say thanks to a lot of the media people, the local media people, and I’ve gotta, I always give them a shout out because honestly, without their support, I don’t know if my. My little company, which now is, you know, Maven Productions, would have advanced so quickly, you know, Gil Asakawa, Leland Rucker, David Kirby, Justin Middleton, G. Brown.
You know, when I had more rock shows, they all were so supportive, you know.
Ginger Perry: That was print media.
Nona Gandelman: Print media, and they would, like, I would get a Friday mag, I would get a Westward cover, not a cover, but I would get a big article. They were just incredibly helpful to me. And, of course, KGNU was the bedrock of my promotions team, and KBCO, yeah, KUNM, KUNC.
Ginger Perry: Yeah, well, you were offering them something too, so it’s kind of a two-way street.
But yeah, you really are great for when you’re in the business and those people help you out. You can’t do it without that.
Nona Gandelman: And that’s how these artists developed. And that was my goal. That’s what I wanted for them.
Ginger Perry: Yeah. I wanted to back up and talk about venues. You told me that you create, you sort of created The Olympic.
Nona Gandelman: Oh yeah, I don’t, yeah. We’re going way back now to when Boulder was a very rich music environment.
We had The Blue Note. We had Freddi and Henchi’s venue. We had the Walrus. I mean, I don’t even remember some of the names, but there was so much live music. Boulders Coast opened on Baseline, I believe.
And there was a bowling alley in Boulder. It was called the Olympic Bowling Alley. And my partner then, from Denver, Peter and I, went up there. They had a little lounge.
Ginger Perry: Where was it?
Nona Gandelman: It was where Best Buy is now on 30th Street.
Oh. Best Buy is where the Olympic was.
Ginger Perry: Okay.
Nona Gandelman: And also the Hi-Lo, right, of course. Hi-Lo. Let’s not forget that. And I spoke to Mick, who was the owner of the Olympic. And to make a long story short, over time we convinced him to expand the lounge to 400 seats and make it a music venue, and that actually launched, my career as a promoter, a producer of events, rather than, you know, a booking agent.
And I started to book national acts in there.
Ginger Perry: And you started with Blues?
Nona Gandelman: No, I did everything. Everything. And also the Hi-Lo came to me, and he wanted me to book his club, so I had two Boulder venues I was booking all the time. It was really fun.
Ginger Perry: Amazing. So, then, but you did start doing the blues at one point? You even did like blues festivals and.
Nona Gandelman: Well, blues was very popular then.
It was really, and it was mainly the black blues artists, some of whom have gone. But I did everyone from Etta Jka
Etta James to B.B. King to Albert Collins to Buddy Guy to… I’m gonna throw in a couple of white blues artists, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks.
Robert Cray, who’s gonna be at Chautauqua. They just announced it. I think I did his first show here in Boulder at the Olympic.
Ginger Perry: You’ve got a couple of funny stories you tell me. Tell us about, was it the Buddy Guy one?
Nona Gandelman: Oh, and Mose Allison, who kept calling me and asking me out long after the… I was totally mystified by that. I have absolutely no idea, but he really persisted to ask me out months after I did a show with him.
And Albert too, Albert.
Ginger Perry: Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Hey, baby.
Nona Gandelman: ‘Hey, baby. I’m going to be a little late,”
I’m going, ‘Albert! The show started 30 minutes ago. Where are you?’
‘Oh, baby. I’m on my way. Don’t worry. I’m coming. I won’t let you down. I won’t let you down, Nona. I won’t.’
Ginger Perry: I’m sure you had some unusual situations.
Nona Gandelman: Buddy Guy was really the one that really. I’ve done many shows with him, but the one at Boulder’s Coast was the one when Buddy was completely drunk, stoned, whatever, could hardly move, could hardly talk. And the show was going to start. He was going to go on stage, you know, any minute. And, of course, it was packed.
So I just said, ‘Buddy, we’ll do it the hard way. Stand up.,’ and he stood up, and I put his arm around me. I was taller than by two inches.
So, I just sort of dragged him up on stage. The guitar was in the stand, And I stood him next to the mic. I said, ‘Hold on to this,’ and he’s holding on to the mic stand and I got his guitar and just put it on him.
I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Buddy Guy!’ And I guess the screaming and the clapping, he just sort of came to life and started playing. I don’t know how he did it.
I’ve done many shows with him, but the one at the Boulder’s Coast when Buddy was completely drunk, stoned, whatever, could hardly move. Could hardly talk. And the show was gonna start. He was gonna go on stage, you know, any minute. And, of course, it was packed.
So I just said, ‘Buddy, we’re going to do it the hard way. Stand up.’ and he stood up, and I put his arm around me. I was taller than by two inches.
So, I just sort of dragged him up on stage. The guitar was in the stand, you know, And I stood him next to the mic. I said, ‘Hold on to this,’ and he’s holding on to the mic stand and I got his guitar and just put it on him.
I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Buddy Guy!’ And I guess the screaming and the clapping, he just sort of came to life and started playing. I don’t know how he did it.
Ginger Perry: Well, you know, those performers. And then you had a cute one about B.B. King.
Nona Gandelman: Oh gosh. Yeah, I felt really grateful to get that show at the Boulder Theater.
Yeah, and because B.B. King didn’t do small venues, I think he had the date and such a beautiful venue. It still is an incredible venue.
And, so, of course, he’s elite. He’s an elite performer. One of the tops in the blues world. And he does his show packed to the gills. And it was very high security.
So, actually, at the time, I was managing the Boulder Theater.
I was just sort of patrolling around the stage area after the show, a little before all the people left. And some little boy, about 10, came up to me. And he said, ‘Please, can I see BB? Please, can I see BB?’ And he had, you know, a little paper, and he had a record or something he wanted autographed.
And I said, ‘Well, he really doesn’t want to see anyone. He’s really tired,’ and the little boy was so sad, and he was so excited.
So, I went down to the dressing room, and B.B. was just sitting there with Lucille, playing the guitar and resting. And I said, ‘There’s a little boy out here. I know you don’t want to see anyone, but would you let him in? Just this little one.’
And he said, ‘Okay.’
And you should have seen the look on the boy’s face when he walked into the dressing room. It was so precious. Oh, and BB was very sweet with him and gave him an autograph.
Ginger Perry: Humanizing him. Well, you also did a lot of international shows. You took a lot of chances. I mean your whole career, and you presented some people that nobody had heard of. Some were great successes, and I’m sure some were flops. But do you mind telling me about the Throat Singers? What was that?
Nona Gandelman: Oh, well, yes, I think what happened is after a while, after I tried Rock and roll and metal and things that I really couldn’t relate to personally.
Ginger Perry: Phish.
Nona Gandelman: Well, no Phish was really good. That was a little different story, but it did turn out that, I did bring, I was, I think, the first promoter to bring Phish into the market thanks to Don Strasberg, who was at CU at the time. He was a student.
And I don’t remember. Oh, he called me and he started talking, “You should do this. You should do that.” and I had the wisdom to listen to the young at that point. And I just, I researched it and I took a chance.
And, of course, Phish, Widespread Panic, and Blues Traveler. You know, Don’s an excellent producer and promoter, of course, but he was just a student. But I listened to him and I had great success with these.
I decided I really wanted to bring artists who were meaningful to me and who I thought would expand the community and enrich it culturally.
There were several groups that nobody had ever heard of. One of them was the Throat Singers of Tuva. I don’t remember where I saw the name, but I must have seen them coming in on tour because they’re Mongolian cowboys.
And they actually are Mongolian cowboys. They ride horses on the range in Mongolia. And they hear the sounds of nature, from water, to birds, to the horses, to other animals, to the wind.
And they learned how to sing in what they call double voice which is very hard to do and actually I think it dates back to way back to Days of Jesus, I think people were singing in double voice.
But at any rate, I decided I wanted to bring them to Boulder. So I did and nobody knew who they were, but the promotion was so extraordinary.
Ginger Perry: Again, the media helping you.
Nona Gandelman: Yeah, the media. All those people we mentioned got on board. It was so fascinating.
Ginger Perry: Where’d you bring them?
Nona Gandelman: To the Boulder Theater.
Ginger Perry: And how’d they do?
Nona Gandelman: They sold out.
Ginger Perry: Oh my gosh.
Nona Gandelman: And when they came out dressed in their garb, you know, people were just sort of, you know, and they said something, and then they started to sing. It was total silence in the theater and the look on people’s faces. It’s so extraordinary to hear it.
Ginger Perry: Yeah, that’s amazing. You said there were a couple of times when the Boulder Theater felt like church to you.
Nona Gandelman: This was one of those times. when it was so still. And people realized they were hearing something, you know, sacred. And actually, it is. It goes back to days of, you know, sacred practices.
Ginger Perry: And Joan Baez, one time, she even told you that it was like being in church.
Nona Gandelman: Yeah, of course. I had the good fortune of producing events with people I grew up with and loved. Joan was one of them, and Etta James was another.
And, you know, I was thrilled when I got my first show with Joan. I did many shows with her, but she only wanted to play the Paramount Theater, Macky, or 2000- and up-sized seat venues.
But I got to be, you know, developed a good relationship with her manager, who trusted me, and I finally convinced him to do one show at the Boulder Theater.
Ginger Perry: Oh, wow. And what’s the seating at the Boulder Theater?
Nona Gandelman: It was 840. Small for her.
Well, she came in either before or after an election. And this is, of course, Baez, and she’s, you know, who she is, and political.
Needless to say, it sold out in about a minute.
And she did the show, and throughout the whole show, I was so struck. Honest to God, it felt like, a church. The audience was, there was such reverence, attention, and presence during her show that when I went downstairs, I had already done a show with her at the Paramount, so it was not like my first show.
But I went downstairs to see how she was doing, and she said, ‘Nona, come in here.’ She said, ‘I haven’t felt that in, I don’t know how long.’
That was really special.
Ginger Perry: Oh, that’s so great.
Nona Gandelman: And I said, I told the manager, bolder audiences are fabulous.
Ginger Perry: Yeah. So, how many concerts and people do you think you did over all these years? Like decades, five, how many decades?
Nona Gandelman: Well, I started in the 70s and sort of started winding down around 2010ish.
I’ve done about 250 individual events, but many of those I’ve done many times. So I’ve done a lot of shows and events.
Ginger Perry: And now you’ve diversified. You also did comedy. Also, you did women’s self-help authors and all kinds of different things.
Nona Gandelman: Well, I started to diversify, especially when I was booking the Olympic all the time. I wanted to do some special things and I created a comedy night in Boulder, which Boulder didn’t have, I don’t think, up to that point. And that’s when I met Roseanne Barr.
We did many Monday night comedy nights with her. She also did a headline for a women’s festival I produced for the Hilton Harvest House on a Friday. What was it called? A FAC? Yeah, FAC. And I brought in Judy Tenuta, Sarah Bernhardt, Emo Phillips, and Louis Johnson.
So, I did a lot of comedy and started working with best-selling authors. At first, my colleague Jo-Lynne Worley asked me if I would do something for her, and she wrote a best-selling book, “The Dance of Anger.” So I brought her in. She was very successful, and then I just kept doing that.
Ginger Perry: Yeah, so then it actually led you to work with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, who you still represent.
Nona Gandelman: Well, that came from Tammy Simon, at Sounds True, and my friend Andrea Davis, a singer-songwriter in Boulder.
She was working at Sounds True and she said, ‘You know, there’s a cassette that Tammy has recorded that’s huge. You ought to check out this woman in Denver. Her name is Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.’
Tammy introduced me, and I persisted for months and months. Finally, Dr. Estes gave me a chance to do a couple of events for her, one in Birmingham, Alabama, and one in Boston. The rest is history. She’s been my client for 30 years.
Ginger Perry: Wow. And you’ve still produced her?
Nona Gandelman: Well, now I produce training for her in Loveland at Sunrise Ranch. But I did go on the road with her. We were in Canada, all over the United States, early on in the 90s when “Women Who Run With the Wolves” came out and was a huge success. Se had absolutely no help. Luckily for me, the timing was perfect, and with my broad skill set, I was able to step in and really help her out.
Ginger Perry: And somebody else you kind of created was Ani DeFranco, who, of course, is huge and now is on Broadway in Hadestown.
Nona Gandelman: Yeah, that’s a great story. I’ll tell it really quickly. As you can tell, I have a million stories. I know we could be here forever, but we have limited time. But it is sort of a funny story.
When I finally got a chance to produce Ani, the first show I did with her was at September School in the Art Building. There, she stood in front of about a hundred people, all seated on the floor at her feet.
She did two sets of music, and from there, she stuck with me all these years. She was, what, 19 or 20 years old? It’s very unusual for a successful performer to stick with a small independent promoter.
Ginger Perry: And then she sold out Red Rocks?
Nona Gandelman: I’ve done two shows with her at Red Rocks, all over New Mexico and Colorado, and two with Meow Wolf.
I mean, you name a venue, and she is still occasionally calling me to do something for her, and she’s what, 52, with two kids?
Ginger Perry: That’s great.
Nona Gandelman: And she’s on Broadway in Hadestown, and I’m gonna see that in May.
Ginger Perry: Oh, so terrific. Well, we’re kinda winding up, I wanted you to talk about your, recent work with the incredible Jane Goodall. You worked with her for 10 years, you were still working with her, you just celebrated her 90th birthday with 11 other people and had lunch with her alone, and obviously, you’re best of friends. Tell us a little bit about
Nona Gandelman: Oh, I don’t know the best of friends! I’m one of her one thousand best!
Ginger Perry: Yeah, right?
Nona Gandelman: But yeah, there are a lot of stories about that, and honestly, I know we don’t have time.
But I was lucky enough to produce a tour for her and co-produce it in, I guess, about 1997 or 8. And went on to get a job at the institute in the DC area and worked very closely with Jane for many years. I would like to be on the road with her and have many experiences traveling with her and getting to know her. When I left the institute, she enlisted me to continue working with her as her literary agent.
So that’s my job for her now. Thank goodness I’m still connected. And yes, I just saw her for one of her many celebrations of her 90th birthday. It’s still going on. I just heard Clint Eastwood showed up at one of her birthday celebrations.
And I did have lunch with her, and I could look at her face and remember… She asked me, ‘How long has it been?’ and I said, ‘I’ve been working with you for over 20 years.’
Ginger Perry: Well, you’ve had a long, illustrious career and contributed a lot to this area’s culture and beyond that. And so what now? I mean, you’re winding down your music business. You still have these other interests. What do you see ahead of you? A little retirement?
Nona Gandelman: Yeah. Well, I feel semi-retired, Ginger, because I only work, you know, 5 days a week, not 24/ 7, which I did for years and years.
I feel a lot of freedom, and I love that I still work with Dr. Clarissa Pincola Estes Reyes, Jane Goodall, and Ani when she needs me. Occasionally, I do other projects. So, you know, I feel very blessed and love the Boulder community. It was joyful and thrilling work, and I’m happy I had an opportunity to dedicate part of my life to that.
Ginger Perry: Yeah. We’re thankful,, too. This is Nona Gandelman. She had a company called Maven Productions for a long time and branched out into a lot of different areas, and what a life. I mean, the people she’s met, the stories she could tell—we could go on and on. And this is Ginger Perry. Thank you for listening, and thank you to Nona for being here with me today.
The post Nona Gandelman worked with creatives like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Phish, Ani DiFranco and Jane Goodall to put Boulder’s art scene on the map appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen play_arrow*CPW will protect Gray wolves and US 287 one of the deadliest roads in ColoradoKennedy Pickering 287 traffic study calls for improvementsA new study on traffic safety along U.S. 287 in Boulder County calls on officials to develop improvements that could reduce fatalities.
The study found that nearly a third of all fatal crashes in Boulder County in 2021 and 2022 were on HWY 287.
The Daily Camera says the study recommends the installation of a barrier between north and south bound lanes, from just north of Longmont, to the Boulder-Larimer County line. It recommends a second barrier from south of Longmont down to Arapahoe Road. Many of the fatal crashes, it says, involved drivers crossing the highway’s centerline.
The Longmont City Council voted unanimously to accept the findings of the study.
Read here
CPW will protect Gray wolvesState wildlife officials are rejecting pleas from a group of Colorado ranchers who are asking the state to kill two gray wolves suspected of killing livestock.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been inundated with requests from ranchers all over the western slope. The requests to kill the wolves come after seven cattle were killed over three days in Grand and Jackson Counties earlier this month.
The ranchers believe two out of the ten collared wolves re-introduced into Colorado last year are responsible for the cow and calf deaths.
Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis said that the wolves suspected in the killings are about to reproduce and that killing the male would be irresponsible management.
In a statement, WildEarth Guardians commented, “Colorado has eleven known wolves right now and some 2.8 million cows. We are sympathetic to the livestock owners’, but that’s why there is a robust compensation program. We ought to be celebrating the fact that these wolves are denning and hopefully going to have pups. This is what Colorado voters wanted and what restoration looks like.”
A rancher’ group called the Middle Park Stockgrowers said they are disappointed and discouraged by the decision not to kill the wolves. They have vowed to continue their efforts.
Read here
Green energy building rules lawsuitA group representing Colorado commercial real estate owners and developers is suing the state and the City of Denver over new “green energy” rules.
According to the Denver Post, the lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver.
It asks that new city and state environmental regulations be thrown out because they illegally go beyond federal guidelines by requiring expensive renovations to reduce carbon emissions.
A spokesperson for Conservation Colorado called the lawsuit a baseless attack on innovative programs that address pollution from big buildings.
Read here
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Buen trial closing argumentsThe fate of a former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s deputy charged in the shooting death of Christian Glass is now in the hands of a jury.
Both the prosecution and defense made their closing arguments yesterday in the second-degree murder trial of Andrew Buen.
Buen is also charged with official misconduct and reckless endangerment in the shooting death of 22-year-old Christian Glass. Buen has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Glass was returning from a trip to Moab in June 2022 when his car got stuck on a rock in Silver Plume. He called 911 for help. Prosecutors say he was having a mental health crisis as then-Deputy Buen and other officers arrived. Buen’s defense attorneys said that, in reality, Glass was drunk or on drugs.
Buen spent about an hour trying to persuade Glass to leave his car. When that failed, a bodycam video showed Buen broke the car’s window and ended up shooting Glass five times. Before Buen broke the window, he was in conversation with supervisor Kyle Gould, who was not at the scene but was watching a live-streamed video. Gould pled guilty in November and can no longer be in law enforcement or security in Colorado, among other penalties.
9News says that the deciding factor for the jury will be whether Buen was justified in using force to get Glass out of his car.
Read here
Colorado gets solar grantsThe Biden administration has granted $156 million each to the Colorado Energy Office and Oweesta, a tribal-based nonprofit in Longmont. The funding aims to assist low- and moderate-income families in installing rooftop solar panels.
This allocation is part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “solar for all” competition, which designated $7 billion for sixty applicants to enhance solar access.
According to Colorado Newsline, Colorado will utilize its funding to facilitate the installation of solar power in single- and multi-family homes as well as community solar projects. Energy Office Executive Director Will Toor stated that expanding access to rooftop solar will aid the state in achieving its clean energy objectives, reducing energy costs, and promoting the broader use of solar energy.
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Community wildfire protection plan webinarBoulder County will host a webinar next month to review its Community Wildfire Protection Plan updates.
The plan, which hasn’t been updated since 2011, identifies ways to reduce the risk of wildfire. According to Colorado Hometown Weekly, the new version is expected to be completed this year.
The Community Wildfire Protection Plan webinar is scheduled for May 23rd.
Read here
Webinar info
The post CPW will protect Gray wolves and US 287 one of the deadliest roads in Colorado appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, we’ll talk about “cowboy up culture” and how it’s led to high suicide rates in rural Colorado. After that, Chris Moore shares his weekly commentary, Make Them Hear You. We’ll wrap up with herbalist Brigitte Mars and her regular Wednesday feature, Naturally.
Listen: play_arrow*04_24_2024 MorningMagKennedy Pickering The post Why do ag workers see such high rates of suicide? appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Colorado has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. The suicide rate for people working in the agriculture industry is 3.5 times higher than other professionals nationally. In Colorado specifically, farmers and ranchers are dying at higher rates than the general population.
There’s many reasons why this reality exists, and there’s also some measures in the works to address them. Colorado Sun co-founder and reporter Jennifer Brown took a deep dive into this mental health crisis, and joined KGNU’s Jackie Sedley to talk about what she found.
- play_arrow04_24_2024 MorningMagJackie Sedley The post What is “cowboy up” culture, and how does it connect to high suicide rates? appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, we’ll hear about a documentary making its way to Boulder tomorrow about the U.S.-led nuclear bombings in Hiroshima. Then, a lab accident has revealed an amazing superpower of queen bees … that, and more on This Week in Water. We’ll wrap up with our Listener Comment Line.
Listen: play_arrow*MorningMagazine_2024-04-23Jackie Sedley The post Hear Hiroshima survivors’ stories tomorrow at Naropa appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Back in the late 80s, KGNU cut its teeth with the stories of the Rocky Flats – which is still a very prominent topic on our airwaves. This week, another nuclear disaster takes center stage in Boulder – the atomic bombs detonated by the United States over Hiroshima in 1945.
Naropa University is hosting a film screening of The Vow From Hiroshima tomorrow, April 24th, in honor of Earth Justice Day – an annual event at the university dedicated to conversations about environmental and social justice on campus and beyond.
KGNU’s Jackie Sedley spoke with Mitchie Takeuchi, producer and co-writer of the film, about her connection to Hiroshima and what she hopes audiences take away from her work.
“I grew up in Hiroshima,” said Takeuchi. “My grandparents and my mother survived the atomic bombing on August 6th, 1945. And, uh, my grandfather at that time was the head of the Red Cross Hospital, which he was transferred from Tokyo to found in Hiroshima in 1937. So, he experienced the atomic bombing at the Red Cross Hospital…So, even though I didn’t really hear anything about their personal experience from them, I am directly related as a second-generation hibakusha – survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.”
Listen:
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Screening details:
What: The Vow From Hiroshima screening and discussion with producer and co-writer Mitchie Takeuchi.
Where: Naropa University’s Performing Arts Center.
When: Wednesday, April 24 at 12 p.m.
The Vow From Hiroshima will also be airing on Rocky Mountain PBS KRMA World & KRMZ World on Sunday, May 26th, at 5 p.m. MDT., and Thursday, May 30th, at 3 a.m. MDT and 9 a.m. MDT.
Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: 8:10 on listener-supported KGNU. You’re listening to The Morning Magazine. I’m Jackie Sedley.
Back in the late 80s, KGNU cut its teeth with stories of Rocky Flats, which is still a very prominent topic on our airwaves. A couple of weeks ago, we had community activists and members of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center updating us on the current nuclear waste conditions of Rocky Flats.
This week, another nuclear disaster takes center stage in Boulder – the atomic bombs detonated by the United States over Hiroshima in 1945. Naropa University is hosting a film screening of The Vow from Hiroshima tomorrow, in honor of Earth Justice Day, an annual event at the university dedicated to conversations about environmental and social justice on campus and beyond.
In studio with us this morning is Mitchie Takeuchi, producer and co-writer of the film The Vow from Hiroshima. Mitchie, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Mitchie Takeuchi: Thank you so much for your introduction, and I’m so happy to be in this beautiful Boulder, Colorado on Earth Day week. Thank you.
Sedley: We’re happy to have you.
So, so before we get into the details of the film, I wanted to ask about your personal connection to Hiroshima, since I know there’s some background there.
Takeuchi: Mm hmm. Okay. Um, I grew up in Hiroshima. Well, my grandparents and my mother survived the atomic bombing on August 6th, 1945. And, uh, my grandfather at that time was the head of the Red Cross Hospital, which he was transferred from Tokyo to found in Hiroshima in 1937.
So, he experienced the atomic bombing at the Red Cross Hospital, and, you know, I have all these memories that I have heard, but, uh, and then my mother, who is, who was his daughter, actually went in to look for [her] father two days later from northern part of Hiroshima into the central part of Hiroshima and then she found the, um, seriously injured own father at the hospital and she ended up staying there for several days to take care of him so that he could give directives to the medical staff then. So, uh, she experienced the atomic bomb, uh, radiation. So, even though I didn’t really hear anything about their personal experience from them, I am directly related as a second-generation hibakusha, survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
Sedley: I, I can’t help but be struck by the fact that, that nobody in your family talked to you about this. I, I know that you said before we got on air that your family members have really remained mostly silent and that you weren’t really conscious of the atomic bombing despite growing up there. Is there a culture of silence around the catastrophe? And can you speak on that?
Takeuchi: Yes. Well, in general, in Japan, there is a cultural. Uh, cultural, um, factor that, um, here in Japan, in Japan, people don’t like to complain. So that, uh, a lot of atomic survivors, atomic bomb survivors, who were so thankful about surviving, and they had to face the rebuilding of their lives immediately, I think they really focused on rebuilding, and did not want to dwell on what has happened to them. So there is a certain kind of pride and cultural virtue. There is one, that is one factor, right? And then, when it comes to atomic bombing experience, because at the beginning nobody knew how destructive that impact of a nuclear weapon was, really, because it was a first use, right? But because of the radiation impact, there was stigma.
Attached to being the survival of the atomic bombing, which was the concern for the future, well, impact of the, uh, impact on the health of the survivors, and also, uh, future, future impact for that, uh, second and third generation, um, people. So that, often, people. The surviving family did not want to discuss it because that could be, um, that could be, they could be possibly, uh, discriminating, discriminated for jobs or even like a marriage.
Because of the, uh, you know, possibility of having the, um, unhealthy children and so on, therefore, people felt that they did not want to share it. with outside people. So there is two layers for the reason.
Sedley: So then what led you to gain exposure to the history if you didn’t know about it until, how, how recently would you say you were exposed to it?
Takeuchi: Yes, yes. That’s an excellent question. Well, even though I was so close to the, um, experience of the impact of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima, right? As I said, I was so eager to live my own life. And then, you know, I really wanted to come to the United States to study psychology and so forth and so on. And I did that.
And then I have been living in New York City for decades and having this independent sort of you know, work oriented life until maybe two, uh, 13, 14 years ago, I really met by a group of American educators who would, uh, one, Kathleen Sullivan, who actually have a strong tie in this community, and also, uh, Robert Kronquist, uh, who is an amazing educator in New York, and, uh, They created this program called Hibakusha Stories, which is to invite the Hibakusha A-bomb survivors to New York City and visit high schools so the high school students have the experience, uh, hearing about the first hand, uh, uh, testimony.
But anyway, I met this group of people by pure accident as a pinch hitter, uh, interpreter, volunteer interpreter, and even without knowing what that was all about. And I was shocked to see, wow, there was this American educators bringing in this hibakusha people to all these places. And I was, uh, wow. And, uh, I was kind of shocked to see it, because I’d never seen anything like that in New York, in my circle.
Then, it kind of really moved me, and then I was thinking, “Gosh, all these people are really trying to spread the words, right? So that we can get rid of nuclear weapons, right? And me, coming from the family who survived, who actually suffered so much from the atomic bomb, I’m not doing anything.” And that really raised red flag.
And that was the beginning how I got involved.
Sedley: Mm. Okay, so now about your involvement, about The Vow from Hiroshima, your film, it follows the story of a, of a survivor, right? Tell us, tell us a bit about her.
Takeuchi: Oh, Setsuko?
Sedley: Mm-Hmm.
Takeuchi: So I met Setsuko Thurlow, this amazing campaigner social worker activist who actually made the acceptance speech of ICAN – International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons – won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and she was a part of this program and, uh, I met her through that. And then we actually went to the same girl school. in Hiroshima, and that really made us feel very close. And, uh, she started to stay in my apartment whenever she came to New York City, and we got bonded, and then I really learned so much from her, what she has been doing and why.
Sedley: So the film follows, follows her story as well as activism and some of the historic negotiations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. I also read, uh, in the online description of the film, that you created it in part because you wanted “to share what really happened under the mushroom cloud.” So I wanted to ask you in the last minute or so here: having been in relationship with survivors and, and making this documentary, what are some of the important lessons you feel we need to understand as a community, particularly in the, in the Western world?
Takeuchi: I really feel that, um, I really feel that, uh, people really don’t know what happened under the mushroom cloud. And it’s important to, I really want to share the story and inspire people, American people, because I know once they know, they are going to wonder and they’re going to take actions. And I’m really hopeful and I’m so happy to share this film at Naropa University tomorrow.
Sedley: Mitchie Takeuchi, producer and co-writer of The Vow from Hiroshima, thank you so much for speaking with us this morning.
Takeuchi: Thank you so much.
You can watch The Vow from Hiroshima at Naropa University’s Performing Arts Center tomorrow, April 24th, at 12 p.m. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Mitchie . It will also be airing on Rocky Mountain PBS on Sunday, May 26th at 5 p.m. Mountain Time.
The post Her family lived through the Hiroshima bombing, but a culture of silence kept Mitchie Takeuchi in the dark. Her new film spotlights the stories of survivors appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen: play_arrow04_23_24_am_headlinesJackie Sedley Colorado Gun Bills Advance*State lawmakers have passed a series of gun bills, with one of them having received final approval from the state Senate.
House Bill 1174 passed the State Senate on a 20-14 vote yesterday, and needs only the signature of Governor Jared Polis to become law.
The new law would require in-person training and live-fire exercises for anyone applying for a concealed-carry permit in Colorado. It would also require eight hours of coursework followed by a test, according to the Denver Post.
The State Senate also passed House bill 1338 which says anyone leaving a gun in a vehicle must keep it in a “locked, hard-sided container.”
The bill is expected to go next to a negotiating committee where they will discuss increased criminal penalties.
Three additional gun bills also cleared the State House late Saturday night, and are headed to the State Senate. The three Democratic-backed bills passed in spite of the objections of state Republicans.
House Bill 1270 makes liability insurance mandatory for gun owners, and also requires insurance companies to offer firearm liability. The policies would be to cover any injuries that come from a weapon accidentally discharging.
House Bill 1353 would require Colorado firearms dealers to have a permit, to follow sales regulations, provide annual training to employees, and to report any suspicious activities. Violators could be fined up to $250,000 and face felony charges.
The third proposed bill, HB 1349, would create an 11% excise tax on most firearm and ammunition sales. Revenue from the tax could go to crime victim services and shooting range safety programs, according to Colorado Politics.
Each of the three proposed bills were criticized by House Republicans, who said they would be in violation of the second amendment. But supporters counter that they would improve public safety.
Read here
Read more here
Safe Injection Sites Postponed Indefinitely
The state senate has also indefinitely postponed a bill that would have created so-called “safe injection sites” in Colorado.
Under the proposed House Bill 1028, people would have been able to bring controlled substances to the safe injection site location, and use them under the supervision of medical providers.
The authorization of such sites would have been left to local governments. The measure is similar to one that failed in the same committee last year.
Read more
Boulder Gas Ban UpdateThe Boulder City Council has rescheduled a hearing to discuss the city’s new energy code.
The city originally planned the hearing for last week. They postponed it to discuss the impact of Xcel Energy’s planned power shutdown two weeks ago. The city plans to implement their ban on gas in new residential buildings and most commercial buildings starting July 1st.
In the aftermath of the Xcel shutdown, some say that reducing the use of gas and increasing the reliance on electricity may not be a good idea, according to Boulder Reporting Lab.
The city’s sustainability senior manager, Carolyn Elam, told them that electricity powers all appliances, whether gas or electric. And gas outages, she said, can be more difficult to resolve. That said, she added that Xcel’s planned outage underscores the need for a new energy code. The new code will lead to more energy-efficient buildings, which would be a benefit during any future planned outages. The city has rescheduled the hearing to discuss the policy next month.
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RTD Expands SecurityThe Regional Transportation District or RTD is expanding its policing and security to around-the-clock coverage.
The added full-time coverage comes as an effort to increase personal safety of RTD employees and customers. 178 RTD passengers reported an assault or injury in 2021 and early 2022 according to 9News. The Chief of RTD police said the introduction of an overnight team has been a priority for RTD police dependent on their hiring success.
The department currently has 61 certified Transit Police officers. They plan to almost double that number by year end. They say they also plan to also hire six mental health clinicians and five homeless outreach coordinators.
According to a press release, RTDs expanded 24/7 police and security patrols will begin May 5th.
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Gray Wolf DeathThe body of a gray wolf was found in Elbert County, southeast of Denver, earlier this month.
State Wildlife officials said that because gray wolves are on the endangered species list, the death is under investigation.
They also said that genetic testing confirmed it was a gray wolf from the Great Lakes wolf population, and is not one of the gray wolves released into Western Colorado late last year. All ten of those wolves were collared.
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The post Colorado gun bills advance; Safe injection sites postponed indefinitely appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On today’s Morning Magazine, we will be talking about this past Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of the Columbine School shooting. You’ll hear from a parent who lost his child in that shooting, and how he’s fighting to get gun laws reformed. Then, you’ll hear about the Colorado State Senate’s recent vote against a constitutional amendment related to child sexual abuse. As well as the continuing uptick of abortions happening in Colorado, as neighboring states continue to enact strict laws.
Listen: play_arrow*MorningMagazine_2024-04-22Kennedy Pickering The post Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of the Columbine School shooting, we hear from a parent about gun laws since then appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen: play_arrow*04_22_24_am_headlinesKennedy Pickering Boulder road construction projectsIn the Boulder area today, two major road construction projects commence.
One, part of the 30th Street Corridor Multimodal Improvement Project, is located within the city between Colorado and Arapahoe Avenues.
Travelers in the area should anticipate delays. Detours will be available, and according to a city press release, access to surrounding neighborhoods and businesses, including Scott Carpenter Park, will remain accessible.
Expected to span about a year, the 30th Street Corridor Multimodal Improvement Project entails the construction of sidewalk-level, protected bike lanes, widened sidewalks, new landscaping, and improved transit stops.
The second construction project, also commencing today, is situated outside Boulder and will entail daytime closures throughout the week.
95th Street will be inaccessible to all travelers between Valmont and Lookout roads from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., today through Friday. As per a Boulder County press release, this marks the commencement of Phase 1 of a complete reconstruction project. Detour routes will be clearly marked.
The scope of work includes widening the road’s shoulders and implementing drainage enhancements.
The progress of all work is contingent upon weather conditions.
Xcel Exec appears Before Boulder City CouncilXcel Energy stands by its decision to disconnect electricity for approximately 55,000 customers in the Boulder area ahead of a severe windstorm two weeks ago.
Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Colorado, informed the Boulder City Council last week about the escalating risk of wildfires due to persistent high winds and dry weather conditions.
While addressing the council, Kenney acknowledged that Xcel could have improved its communication regarding the power shutoff plans to the public. The Daily Camera reported his remarks.
Some customers experienced power outages lasting up to three days, leading to significant criticism of Xcel. The company now faces an investigation by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, which commenced last week.
Kenney mentioned that the accuracy of online outage maps could have been enhanced.
As part of its response, Xcel is donating $50,000 to Community Food Share, a Louisville food bank that suffered losses of around a thousand pounds of food due to the power outage.
Read here
Read from the Daily Camera
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Read from Boulder reporting lab
Colorado will find new immigrant studentsThe State of Colorado is set to allocate $24 million to public school districts and charter schools affected by the influx of immigrant students into their systems.
Governor Jared Polis signed the $24 million one-time funding bipartisan House bill last week.
According to the Denver Post, thousands of new students have enrolled in Denver Public Schools in recent months, surpassing the deadline for per-pupil funding to Colorado school districts.
Denver School District officials informed the Post that they anticipate receiving between three and five million dollars from the new bill.
A sponsor of the bill stated that state lawmakers have a responsibility to ensure that all individuals entering public schools in Colorado receive an education.
The funding is slated to be distributed before the conclusion of the current school year.
Read here
Boulder officials agree to pay Deaf woman from whom Boulder police took childrenThe City of Boulder will pay $75,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by a deaf woman.
The City Council unanimously approved the payment to Joslyn Montoya last week, with one council member absent.
Montoya sued the city under the Americans with Disabilities Act after a dispute with police two years ago resulted in her two children being taken from her for one night, according to the Daily Camera.
The city has also agreed to require the police department to improve its services for interpreting hearing-impaired people.
Read here
Oganizers cancel Ride the RockiesOrganizers have canceled this summer’s annual Ride the Rockies Bicycle Tour through the Rocky Mountain due to lack of interest.
The non-competitive, fully supported tour has been a fixture for thousands of cyclists since 1986.
The Denver Post, citing the Tour website, says that those who have registered for this year’s event will be refunded.
It isn’t known yet whether Ride the Rockies will be back next year.
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The post Xcel Exec appears before Boulder City Council, Boulder Road construction projects, Colorado funds new immigrant students appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Department of Ethnic Studies (DES) at CU Boulder. The Department came into being as a result of student organizing – what’s come to be known as a cross-cultural social justice movement that included a student rally, a mass student protest, and a hunger strike that lasted 6 days. These actions resulted in the signing of the “Declaration of Diversity” on April 25, 1994, by the President of the CU System.
To commemorate the anniversary of both the hunger strike movement and DES, CU will host events this coming Sunday and Monday. KGNU’s Jackie Sedley was joined by two individuals who shared the history behind it all, as well as details on the upcoming events:
CU Boulder alum and Ethnic Studies undergraduate major, as well as current Boulder County Commissioner, Marta Loachamin; and Mateo Vela, an educator in Denver Public Schools, as well as a community organizer and artist.
- play_arrowUntitledJackie Sedley Event details:
Sunday, April 21, 2024: A Community Celebration, Ethnic Studies’ 30th Anniversary.
- Kicks off with breakfast at 9:30 a.m.
- Panels until 6 p.m., followed by dinner and reception.
- At Abrams Lounge (C4C).
Monday, April 22, 2024: DES Symposium.
- 1 p.m.-5p.m.
- At the Center for British & Irish Studies Room, on the 5th floor of the Norlin Library – Room M549 – at 1720 Pleasant St. in Boulder.
The post Do you know the history of CU’s Ethnic Studies Department? appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Listen: Download Audio Accused King Soopers Mass Shooter in Court Today The alleged gunman behind the mass shooting at the King Soopers grocery store on Table Mesa in Boulder is due in court today. The Arvada man accused of the […]
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Photo via Flickr A century ago Folsom Field opened its gates for the first time. Take a trip through its long history of expansion and renovation with Jimmie Searfoss on this week’s episode of Sports Talk. Listen: Download Audio
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Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Listen: First day of school for Boulder Valley schools Many Boulder Valley School District students start their school year today. Commuters should expect traffic and pedestrians around schools this morning, this afternoon, and throughout the school year. Two new programs […]
Olga Gonzalez is the Executive Director of Cultivando, a women-run community resource for Latinx folks across Colorado. by Jackie Sedley. Cultivando is a Latinx community resource based in Adams County, perhaps best known for its independent air monitoring around the […]
Currently, the cost difference of installing a heat pump instead of a centrally ducted AC system is about $1,800 for an average Colorado home. With a much higher rate of efficiency at a fraction of the carbon footprint, Federal, state, […]
Listen: Download Audio Lewis Coal Mine Fire Mitigation Authorities will soon begin an effort at what they’re calling a “proactive effort to reduce the potential” for a surface fire in open space south of Boulder. The Colorado Division of Reclamation, […]
Underground Music Showcase is Denver’s longest and largest music festival, featuring nearly 150 bands performing over three days on S. Broadway. Recorded live at Mutiny Information Cafe and hosted by Colorado youth, Underground at the Showcase features interviews with festival […]
You’ve probably heard awareness campaigns about online scams targeting seniors – but what those aimed at teenagers? As teens and tweens grow up in digital spaces and join social media platforms, scammers are finding a new, younger audience. KGNU’s Emily […]
Colorado To Launch Statewide E-Bike Rebate Lottery Colorado is launching its statewide e-bike rebate program this week. Eligible residents can begin the application process through the Colorado Energy Office’s website from 9 am this Wednesday to 1 pm next Monday. […]
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Ethiopians make up one of the largest immigrant populations in Colorado. An estimated 30,000 people who were either born in Ethiopia or are of Ethiopian descent live in the Denver Metro area. Saturday marked the first time since the start […]
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Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
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Listen: Download Audio Potential Gas Leak Closes Boulder Justice Center The Boulder County Sheriff’s Department evacuated its staff from the Criminal Justice Center Building on Wednesday evening after deputies detected a strong natural gas smell. After an investigation, the Boulder […]
On today’s A Public Affair, News Director Shannon Young takes us to the Sun Valley Neighborhood of Denver, near the intersection of West 8th Street and Federal Boulevard. There she meets with Lucha Martinez de Luna, Director of the Chicano/Chicana/Chicanx […]
Photo by Jackie Sedley. Erin Agee is a Boulder-based enforcement attorney and Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution Specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency—but that’s not all! She’s also a poet. Her book, Let Us Be So Familiar, is a collection […]
Listen: Download Audio Colorado Air Quality Permit for Suncor Shot Down by EPA The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered Colorado air quality regulators to revise an air quality permit for Suncor Energy’s refinery in Commerce City. This decision, viewed […]
Earlier this month, the College Board sent out Advanced Placement scores to hundreds of thousands of students across the country. These scores reflected on their academic performances back in May, and determine whether or not the sleepless nights of […]
Listen: Download Audio Space Force to Stay in Colorado Springs The U.S. Space Command will remain headquartered in Colorado Springs. That decision was announced by the Biden administration yesterday, reversing a decision made in the final days of the Trump […]
Manuel and Patricia Oliver in front of their gun violence prevention tour bus. Photo by Maeve Conran. Different Organizations Tackle Gun Violence Prevention from Different Angles Gun violence in Colorado recently hit a 40-year high according to data from the […]
Listen: Download Audio Denver Housing Authority Announces Hotel Purchase The Denver Housing Authority’s board of commissioners has approved the purchase of another hotel that will be turned into supportive housing. The 194-unit Best Western Central Park hotel is at 4595 […]
The City of Boulder and the University of Colorado Boulder are partnering to co-host an immigration informational session on adjusting immigration status and where to seek financial assistance in the midst of uncertainty. KGNU’s Ivonne Olivas has more. Listen: Download […]
Image from Wikimedia Commons. Every goal scored so far in this World Cup has come from a Coloradan. Listen all about the United States’ progress in the tournament, and the contributions from the local players on this week’s Sports Talk […]
Photo by Por Jaijongkit. Between them, Radio Nibbles host John Lehndorff and his guest, food critic Clay Fong of 5280 magazine, have reviewed more than 1,000 restaurants. They shared news about restaurant closings – including Ash’Kara – and restaurants opening […]
Listen: Download Audio Lowline Wildfire Reaches Over 700 Acres Gunnison County is holding its mandatory evacuation order for Mill Creek residents near the Lowline Wildfire Thursday. Local and federal ground crews and helicopters are battling the forest blaze between Gunnison […]
Photo by Jinx Wilson. FAN EXPO Denver is a 3-day celebration of all things fandom and pop culture that offers exciting family-friendly attractions, events, and world-renowned celebrities. From July 4-7, pop culture enthusiasts gathered in Denver for the premiere event […]
Photo by Margarita Marushevska on Unsplash A recent Russian bombing of a Ukrainian dam and a massive heat wave sweeping across Europe have complicated the already difficult wartime conditions in Ukraine. Sunflower Seeds Ukraine, a Boulder-based non-profit, is hosting its […]
Listen: Download Audio State Approves Funding For Denver Affordable and Homeless Housing The City and County of Denver is now eligible for funding towards the construction of thousands of affordable housing units. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs’ Division of […]
The July selection for the Radio Bookclub is Rocky Mountain High: Boom and Bust in the New Wild West by Boulder author Finn Murphy. The book tells Finn’s own story of trying to capitalize on the recent hemp growing revolution […]
Photo by Alexis Kenyon. For this week’s “Naturally,” herbalist Brigitte Mars share the benefits of being stung by nettles and how they just might be the new Botox. Listen: Download audio
Photo credit: Esther Hz, Celestial Beings, 18 x 20 inches, multi-media, agriCULTURE, Summer 2023. Image courtesy of the artist and BMoCA. The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art has brought together Boulder County farmers with local, internationally recognized artists for its […]
Photo by Jackie Sedley. KGNU’s Climate and Environment Reporter and Report for America’s Jackie Sedley, alongside Sam Fuqua hosted a call-in show to discuss the complicated, turbulent issues surrounding Boulder Municipal Airport. Bri Leighman, a member of the community working […]
It’s been nearly a year since women-led protests erupted in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini. As part of international solidarity actions connected to the protests, a group of Iranians, Iranian-Americans and supporters in Boulder created an affinity group […]
Listen: Download Audio Defunct CollegeAmerica Students in Colorado Awarded $130M in Federal Student Loan Relief The federal government has agreed to offer $130 million in student-loan relief to 7,400 students who attended the Colorado campuses of the now defunct CollegeAmerica. […]
Allen Ginsberg (left) with Peter Orlovsky In 1974, the late Allen Ginsberg co-founded Naropa University’s poetry department. As a tireless promoter of fellow Beat Generation writers, Ginsberg named the school in commemoration of one of his close friends: the Jack […]
Listen: Download Audio Homelessness Census Shows Increase Across Denver The number of people experiencing homelessness in Denver is up by more than 31% this year over last year. That’s according to a new survey by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. […]
In our Connections show today we hear about the latest finding from The Colorado Health Foundation Poll: Pulse survey that exposes how 40% of Coloradans say they are “just getting by financially, “including more than one in ten describing themselves […]
This Summer of 2023, Media Gardens collaborated with Denver Public School’s Career and College Success Launch Program to teach interns to produce essential music and news content for KGNU Community Radio. One of the primary tasks for the interns was […]
One of the few wild mustang herds that have been rewilded to graze fire-prone Northern California. Photo by Michelle Gough The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is sterilizing hundreds of wild horses in Colorado’s Piceance Basin. The area has become […]
Durante la reciente conferencia Psychedelic Science 2023, representantes de varias comunidades indígenas interrrumpieron el evento en protesta de la legislación llamada Natural Medicine Health Act of 2022. Kuthoomi Castro, indígena mestizo Kichwa Dos Espíritus, nacido y criado en Ecuador, y […]
Listen: Download Audio Unhoused Group Challenges Johnston’s Emergency Declaration A Denver rights organization run by unhoused people is warning that Mayor Mike Johnston’s declared state of emergency could be used to further marginalize people living on the streets. In a […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Rachel Steele purchased a home near the airport a few years ago. She fears that changes to the airport will cost her her home. Photo by Jackie Sedley. The future of the Boulder Municipal Airport is up in the air, […]
Listen: Download Audio Millennium Hotel Gunman Faces New Charges A gunman charged in February for a shooting at Boulder’s Millennium Harvest House faces new charges related to a Lafayette homicide earlier that month. 45-year-old Antonio Lucero allegedly fled the scene […]
The bee huts on Capella Ranch. Photo by Por Jaijongkit. Boulder County is known as a place where one can find all sorts of alternative therapies. An eager audience seeking health and wellness can find everything from salt spas to […]
Photo by Jack Armstrong. The Regional Transportation District–or RTD–is offering free rides on all buses and light rails this month and the next. The so-called “Zero Fare for Better Air” program aims to improve the notoriously bad quality air in […]
Listen: Download Audio Fines for Unsafe Driving on I-70 Mountain Express Lanes Begins Friday The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) will no longer be issuing warnings for drivers who use I-70 mountain express lanes unsafely. Beginning Friday, drivers who use […]
Listen: Download Audio Denver Mayor Declares State of Emergency on Homelessness Denver’s new mayor, Mike Johnston, has declared a state of emergency on homelessness and set a goal to house 1,000 unsheltered people by the end of 2023. This declaration […]
Boulder has swapped out whackers and herbicide for goats as a form of weed control at Harlow Platts Community Park. The herd of goats were available for a Meet and Bleat event this past Saturday, and residents were able to […]
Listen: Download Audio Border Wall Settlement There’s been a settlement in lawsuits brought by a coalition of 18 states, including Colorado, against the administration of ex-president Donald Trump. The coalition of states sued twice, in 2019 and 2020, alleging that […]
In emergency situations, we know to call 911 for help. Those who respond first are often paramedics and firefighters. And they see all kinds of situations that many of us are unprepared to handle, much less respond to. But what […]
Listen: Download Audio New Denver Mayor Takes Office Today Former state senator Mike Johnston will be sworn in as Denver’s 46th Mayor this morning. Johnston went through two rounds of voting; first in a crowded field of 17 candidates, then […]
Photo by Kira Zizzo. Today was Tube to Work Day, when roughly 200 participants commuted to work by tubing down Boulder Creek. There was a wide showcase of diverse outfits, ranging from business casual to Barbie attire. 25% of every […]
Listen: Download Audio Marshall Fire Victims File Group Lawsuit Against Xcel Another lawsuit stemming from the Marshall Mesa Fire has been filed against Xcel Energy. In this latest filing almost 250 plaintiffs are seeking compensation for damages caused when one […]
Ryan Balciar performs maintenance on an e-bike brought to his shop. Photo by Jackie Sedley. The city has opened an online application window for e-bike vouchers following Denver’s huge success with a similar program. These vouchers will cover some or […]
Photo by Alexis Kenyon. On this week’s Radio Nibbles, John Lehndorff welcomed Jim Smailer, one of the first local chefs to practice farm-to-table restaurant cooking during his years at the Boulder Cork. They talked about cooking with squash blossoms, the […]
Listen: Download audio Boulder’s Environmental/Nature/Outdoors Film Festival Director Richard Paradise gives a sneak peak for what’s in store for this year’s showings. Among the films at the festival is Oliver Stone’s “Nuclear Now,” which re-examines the arguments for nuclear energy […]
Listen: Download Audio Colorado Lawmakers Propose U.S. Bill For Farmer, Rancher Mental Health Colorado lawmakers introduced a federal bill to help farmers and ranchers have easier access to mental health care. Democratic Representatives Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen co-sponsored the […]
Destination Freedom Black Radio Days broadcasted live from the Boulder studio with their radio play “The Difference.” The show explores racial tensions lurking beneath the workplace and dives into the fear that motivates modern white supremacist ideology. Cast members are […]
Listen: Download Audio Xcel Sued by Over 150 Insurance Companies Over Cause of Marshall Fire Over 150 insurance companies and two survivors of the Marshall fire have now filed lawsuits against Xcel Energy. They are accusing the utility company of […]
Associate Director of Transportation Fuels & Technology Carrie Atiyeh from the Colorado Energy Office joined us in the studio to tell us everything we need to know about Colorado’s new electric vehicle (EV) tax credit. Up to $5,000 in state […]
Listen: Download Audio Xcel Energy Named in Marshall Mesa Fire Lawsuit A new lawsuit stemming from the Boulder County Sheriff’s report on the December 2021 Marshall Mesa Fire, has been filed against Xcel Energy. Filed Monday in Boulder County District […]
Summer festivals are in full swing across Denver. If you were anywhere near History Colorado yesterday – perhaps among the throngs of cyclists riding the car-free “Viva Denver Streets,” or within the crowds at the Denver Art Museum’s free admission […]
Listen: Download Audio Nationwide Heat Wave Comes to Colorado High temperatures affecting most of the nation are blowing into Colorado, bringing highs into the 90s through most of the week. Rains are forecast to return by Friday, bringing the temperatures […]
Our Guest this morning is Sam Adams, sportswriter-turned-stand-up comedian, keynote speaker, book author, actor, and master of ceremonies. Sam performed his first standup comedy set in 2000, only a few months after his return from reporting on track and field […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
The Grateful Dead have been playing at Folsom Field since the 70’s, and for the last time, the remaining members of the band took the stage in Boulder earlier this week. Take a dive into what it meant to the […]
Listen: Download Audio Federal Judge Recommends Rio Grande Settlement To SCOTUS A federal judge is recommending that the U.S. Supreme Court approve a water sharing settlement proposed last month. The settlement would recognize the use of a water gauging station […]
Image courtesy of Melissa Sevigny. Photo by Kevin Schindler. Science journalist Melissa Sevigny’s retraces the journey of Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter as they survey the full plant ecology of the treacherous Colorado River. The full story is captured in […]
Photo courtesy of Carly Silberman from Growing Gardens. Freshly picked strawberries and fava beans were on the menu July 6 for Kitchen Table Talk, KGNU’s monthly one-hour call-in show. Hosts John Lehndorff of Radio Nibbles and chef Dan Asher of […]
KGNU’s Joe Richey interviewed journalist, activist and artist Sonali Kolhatkar. Her new book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice. Listen in on their discussion about how broadcast media needs to change and the power of […]
Listen: Download Audio Boulder e-Bike Voucher Applications to Open This Week The City of Boulder is launching the first wave of applications for its highly anticipated e-bike voucher program today. Two types of vouchers are available, as of 9 a.m. […]
With all the rain and hail coming on the heels of a hard winter, your garden may be having a tough time. We bring in a panel of expert gardeners into the studio to talk about current gardening conditions and […]
Photo by Gary Yost on Unsplash KGNU’s Benita Lee sat down with environmental journalist Steven Hawley to discuss his new book Cracked: the Future of Dams, in a Hot, Chaotic World. Listen: Download audio
Listen: Download Audio I-70 Construction Begins A major reconstruction project along Interstate 70 is getting underway this week, and isn’t expected to be finished until 2028. The $700 million project, from west of Evergreen to eastern Idaho Springs, aims to […]
KGNU’s Young Adult Book Reviewer Phoebe Donovan speaks with Meg Eden Kuyatt, author of the new book; Good Different. Listen: (Download Audio)
History books often glaze over the period in Europe just after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the rise of the feudal states. The so-called Dark Ages existed in the shadows of their better documented historical book ends. […]
This week on the Morning Magazine, we’ll share what we’ve been reading this summer. Today, we feature an interview summer intern Por Jaijongkit did with award winning author, Ruta Sepetys. Her famous titles include historical fiction novels Between Shades of […]
Photo courtesy of Emiliano Aguilar Emiliano Aguilar, an assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, in Colorado for the Center for the American West History Workshop, discusses the significance of Immigrant Heritage Month and the complexities of […]
Image courtesy of Longmont Meals on Wheels. For “Radio Nibbles,” host John Lehndorff talks regional food insecurity with Lark Rambo and Katie Wiser. Lark is the Executive Director of Coal Creek Meals on Wheels, and Katie is Development & Communications […]
Listen: Download Audio Highway 36 Crash Blocks Traffic Traffic is back to normal on Highway 36 this morning, after a multi-vehicle accident brought the eastbound lanes to a standstill yesterday afternoon. The crash involved an RTD bus and three cars, […]
On this “Bike to Work Day” Stew Sallo wheels by the KGNU studio in Boulder to give us a preview of his new book, The Deadhead Cyclist: Life Lessons on Two Wheels to the Tunes of the Grateful Dead. Listen: […]
Listen: Download Audio Health Officials Monitoring Plague Activity in Southwest Colorado The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is partnering with the Montezuma County Public Health Department to investigate and monitor cases of plague in southwest Colorado. One […]
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash The state of Colorado has appointed its first, full time Commissioner to the Upper Colorado River Commission. The commissioner is expected to take a lead role in upcoming negotiations around the Colorado River and its water uses. […]
Photo courtesy of Girl Scouts of Colorado. Laurie McGraw joined us for “A Public Affair.” McGraw hosts the podcast Inspiring Women, hoping to provide other women with the insight and inspiration needed in their careers. On the air, she shared […]
Campeón climático Rafael Salgado, director ejecutivo de Calwood Educational Center nos habla sobre las precauciones que hay que tomar cuando vamos acampar en nuestros bosques. Mientras que Cristina Ramirez, especialista en educación y divulgación de Keep it Clean Partnerships parte […]
Listen: Download Audio New Police Video on Jor’Dell Richardson Killing Aurora police have released five new videos of the police killing of fourteen-year-old Jor’Dell Richardson that occurred on June 1. The videos, made public yesterday, show events from several different […]
Listen: Download Audio Judge Rules DPS Must Release Recording of Closed Board Meeting A Denver District Court Judge has ordered the school board of Denver Public Schools to release the entire recording of a closed door meeting in which they […]
Listen: Download Audio Boulder Rally to Mark Roe V. Wade’s Overturning Abortion rights advocates in Boulder will gather at the Central Park Bandshell Saturday to increase awareness about the ongoing fight for reproductive care in the United States. It’s one […]
Colorado just seems to keep winning. Recap all the championships here on this week’s edition of Sports Talk. Listen: Download audio
A series of massive earthquakes tore through a region along Turkey’s shared border with Syria in February of this year. The largest of them occurred on February 6th. It was the second most powerful earthquake in Turkey’s recorded history. The […]
Colorado’s very wet spring is producing bumper crops of veggies, greens, herbs and fruits. For the first Radio Nibbles of the summer, John Lehndorff talks with Darren Cook of Boulder Fermentation Supply about how to preserve, pickle and save the […]
The June selection for the Radio Bookclub is Sister Liberty by Colorado author Greg Hill. This is Greg’s third visit to the Radio Bookclub and this time he talks about his new novel Sister Liberty, which tells the tale of […]
Listen: Download Audio Polis Seeks Authority to Pardon Psychedelic Drug Crimes Denver is hosting the Psychedelic Science conference this week, bringing together celebrities and well-known supporters of alternative medicine, from author Michael Pollan to former football star Aaron Rodgers. Also […]
What do our new state end-of-life options organization, equitable access to choices, abortion, conscientious objection and medical tourism have in common? They are all pieces of the complicated terrain we face nationally as we move into Generation Two of allowing […]
Photo by Alexis Kenyon via DALL·E 2 People attending loud concerts or listening to music on their earbuds this summer should be aware— about 1.1 billion young adults worldwide are at risk of hearing loss according to the World Health […]
Listen: Download Audio Colorado AG Files Charges Against Six in Ballot Signature Fraud Six people are facing charges for allegedly forging petition signatures and information to influence last year’s Republican primary ballot for the 7th Congressional District. According to the […]
Smoke from the Calwood Fire in Boulder County on October 17, 2020. Photo by Malachi Brooks on Unsplash. Climate disaster zones may not be at the top of your list of destinations this summer, but you can let a book […]
Listen: Download Audio Colorado Employment Holds Steady The unemployment rate in Colorado held at 2.8 percent from April to May. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment says the number of people without jobs during that period was about 90,000, […]
Photo from Wikimedia Creative Commons Boulder City Council members discussed the future of the city’s Police Oversight Panel, or POP, again during the Thursday, June 15 meeting. The conversation comes on the heels of last month’s vote to remove Lisa […]
Listen: Download Audio Suspect in Club Q Mass Shooting Expected to Plead Guilty The suspect in last year’s mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs is expected to plead guilty at a hearing later this month. That’s according to […]
Listen: Download Audio Boulder City Council to Consider Changing Single-Family Zoning Laws Boulder City Council members are considering changes to zoning laws that could allow for more duplexes and triplexes. The City Council meets tonight. The ordinance under discussion mirrors […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Pictured above are a several IS machine sections (mould side) moving the molten glass bottles from the mould via the “take-outs” and “sweep-outs” to the machine conveyor. The photo shows 3 quad IS sections moulding the bottles and moving them to […]
Photo courtesy of Canva Download Audio On this week’s “Naturally,” herbalist Brigitte Mars explores natural stroke healing methods to implement before and after medical help arrives.
Listen: Download Audio Nuggets Victory Parade Planned for Thursday Morning The Denver Nuggets will celebrate their 2023 Championship title with a parade Thursday morning. The parade will begin at 10AM at Union Station and will proceed down 17th Street to […]
Listen: Download Audio Nuggets Win The Nuggets won this year’s NBA crown by knocking off the Miami Heat last night, in Game Five of their best-of-seven series. Final score: Nuggets 94, the Heat, 89. Last night’s celebrations following the win […]
This morning’s guest is Oriana Ledesma, who identifies as a queer, Filipino, American, veteran, woman, and filmmaker with brown skin whose work brings humanity to people subjected to social marginalization. Ledesma is the associate producer of the upcoming film Conte: […]
D.H. Peligro, Jello Biafra.RIP IT UP, ISSUE 73, 1 AUGUST 1983, PAGE 16 This fourth and final episode of From The Archives to the Air features two interviews. We hear from Jello Biafra, a native of Boulder (“Born, raised, […]
The Richardson family addresses a crowd outside the Aurora Municipal Building following the killing of their son, Jor’Dell. Photo courtesy of Kira Zizzo Download Audio Aurora Police are once again facing community calls for accountability after killing a 14 year-old […]
Photo By Wallpaper Flame There hasn’t been a greyhound race in Colorado since 2008, but that hasn’t stopped Coloradans from gambling on out-of-state races. Since the ban in 2014, Coloradans have placed almost $23 million on out-of-state greyhound races, which […]
Listen: Download Audio Boulder Officials Announce Causes Of Marshall Fire Boulder County officials announced the results of the almost 17-month-long investigation into the cause behind the Marshall Fire. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Department investigation has concluded that the devastating fire […]
(Motus Theater monologists Armando Peniche and Victor Galvan at the Buell Media Center) The state legislature passed a measure this session to prohibit state and local governments within Colorado from participating in the immigrant detention industry as a business partner […]
Listen: Download Audio Boulder Sheriff to Announce Marshall Fire Findings Boulder County officials are expected to announce their findings regarding the cause of the Marshall Fire in a 10am news conference today. The investigation has taken almost 17 months. Boulder […]
Photo by Alexis Kenyon On this week’s “Naturally,” herbalist talks about the plethora of common flowers that you didn’t know you could eat/use to make tea/floral essence water. Listen: Download Audio
Listen: Download Audio Mike Johnston is Denver’s New Mayor and Other City Council Election News Former state senator Mike Johnston is Denver’s new mayor, beating out opponent Kelly Brough with 54% of votes. Brough conceded at 10 PM with Johnston […]
Activists across the country rallied this past weekend, to draw attention to gun violence in the United States. In Colorado, Governor Jared Polis signed a bill requiring all firearms in the state to be serialized — in effect, banning otherwise […]
(Download Audio) Election Day In Denver Today is municipal runoff election day in Denver as voters decide between mayoral candidates Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough, and some districts elect their city council representatives. Ballots are due in secure drop boxes, […]
Listen: Download Audio Anti-Opioid Addiction Drugmaker To Pay $102.5M Settlement Colorado will receive millions of dollars more from another drug company, the result of a class action lawsuit filed by 42 states. The latest disbursement amounts to about $2.5 million […]
Listen: Download Audio Boulder Officials Declare June 2023 Gun Violence Awareness and Prevention Month Today, people observing the second annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day are wearing orange to honor survivors and victims of gun violence. In a press release […]
Immigrant rights groups are organizing to put public pressure on Governor Jared Polis to sign House Bill 1100. It would prohibit state and local governance from renewing or agreeing with ICE, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency to house […]
KGNU’s studio was perfumed with saffron this a.m. when chef Dakota Soifer arrived with warm breakfast paella in hand to join John Lehndorff for Radio Nibbles. They discussed the recent first paella in space, upcoming farm dinners, dining on The […]
Listen: Download Audio Opponents Urge Against BLM Conservation Proposal The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, is under attack by western lawmakers after introducing its Conservation and Landscape Health Rule to the public in Denver last week. The BLM oversees […]
Listen: Download Audio Residents Express Backlash Against Upcoming Homeless Day Services Center in Boulder Condominium Complex Residents at a condominium complex in Boulder spoke out against the upcoming opening of a new homeless day services center. The center, located […]
Lisa Armao is a retired Montessori teacher and after a 30-year career teaching, she created a nonprofit called the Early Childhood Service Corps. It’s a program that recruits older adults to work in preschools across Colorado. Since its inception and […]
Image created by Alexis Kenyon via Dall-E This month, with wildfire smoke blanketing the Front Range, Denver and surrounding areas have had some of the worst air quality in the world. And while the air has cleared, even on good […]
This month the lower basin states on the Colorado River announced an agreement to cut their use of the river’s water by about 13% over the next three years. The deal avoids federal intervention for now and offers a short-term […]
The May selection for the Radio Bookclub is To Die Beautiful, by Boulder author Buzzy Jackson. The novel is a fictionalized retelling of the true story of Hannie Schaft, a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II. She became known […]
Decades have passed since the last major overhaul of immigration laws in the United States. In that time, children have themselves become parents, without a path to citizenship in the country they grew up in. The Deferred Action for Childhood […]
In this episode of It’s The Economy, KGNU’s host Liz Lane presents an interview done in early March by Rossana Longo-Better with Denver Post award-winning journalist, Saja Hindi, to mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Birmingham. In the […]
Before and after Photos courtesy of John Lehndorff of the Voodoo Donuts building at 3210 Arapahoe Ave On today’s Radio Nibbles Food News Update, John Lehndorff weighs in on a quintessential Boulder code-violation moment, when the much-anticipated Voodoo Doughnut, 3210 Arapahoe […]
Saturday, May 20 is World Bird Migratory Day. Environment for the Americas is a nonprofit that works to conserve bird populations through education and community outreach, will facilitate over 700 World Bird Migratory Day events across the Western Hemisphere. Boulder’s […]
Image of John Trudell, via John Trudell Archives From the Archives to the Air, Part 3 In this third installment of KGNU’s From The Archives to The Air, we hear from three prominent figures in 20th Century Indigenous Peoples culture: […]
Image via Briscoe Center for American History, Austin, Texas Weatherby Gallery From KGNU’s Archives to the Air, Part 2 Produced By John Kelin and Alexis Kenyon From KGNU Archival Audio On this second episode of From the Archives to the […]
One of Boulder’s most iconic architectural landmarks – the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse – celebrates its 25th anniversary this month. The Museum of Boulder has an exhibit up to mark the occasion and the teahouse itself will be organizing some special […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Peter Underhill, longtime owner of Dot’s Diner passed away earlier this month from a rare and aggressive form of cancer at age 59. (image Courtesy photo/Megan Yalkut) On today’s Radio Nibbles host and Boulder Weekly food columnist, John Lehndorff tells […]
Alpine natural rind cheese, via Loveland-based Colorado Farmhouse Cheese Instagram. Spring was in the air and taste buds for the May edition of Kitchen Table Talk, KGNU’s monthly hour-long food show. Co-hosts John Lehndorff and chef Dan Asher of River […]
Lawmakers passed, and Governor Jared Polis signed into law, at least four major pieces of gun safety legislation this session. New laws include raising the minimum age to buy a firearm to twenty-one, and an Extreme Risk Protection Order, or […]
In the aftermath of the Marshall Fire, an outpouring of donations flooded to victims who lost everything to the largest wildfire in Colorado history. The Community Foundation, a Boulder nonprofit, took up the reigns for collecting these donations which amounted […]
Boulder officials, with the help of contractors, are out to prove that when a commercial building meets its end of life, many parts of that structure don’t necessarily have to go to the landfill graveyard. They instead can be reincarnated […]
La captura de carbono es un proceso por el cual se retira el dióxido de carbono de la atmósfera. Hay varias técnicas de captura de carbono, como la reforestación y la agricultura de conservación. El Fondo para la Agricultura y […]
The Palestinian city of Nablus is one of Boulder’s sister cities. The Museum of Boulder is hosting a celebration of Palestinian culture this Saturday. KGNU’s Elena Klaver spoke with festival organizer Julia Halaby about what’s planned for this year’s event. […]
Food inflation has been a reality for anyone buying groceries in the past couple of years, but it disproportionately affects those with lower incomes. With the pandemic public health emergency declaration officially ending Thursday, many emergency programs put in place […]
This morning’s guest is Tamil Maldonado, chief operating officer and founder of the Raíces Brewing Company, which recently was awarded the Best Brewery “Por y Para La Raza” in Denver by Westword. Maldonado shares her vision to create a cultural […]
Image created by Alexis Kenyon with help from Dall-E 3 years into the pandemic, school attendance rates are still at record lows across the country. In Colorado, according to the Department of Education, 1 in 3 students are chronically absent […]
On May 4, flanked by state legislators and a dozen Native Americans, Governor Jared Polis signed legislation to protect Indigenous rights in Colorado. One piece of legislation enshrines the federal Indian Child Welfare Act as Colorado state law. When it […]
May 5th marks a national day of awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). The date comes with Indigenous-led efforts to raise public awareness around high rates of violence committed against Indigenous women and girls…and the lack of prosecution, […]
Image Courtesy of Boulder County Farmer’s Market On today’s edition of A Public Affair, host Benita Lee speaks with Dr. Kevin McSweeney, a veterinarian and longtime dairy farmer, who owns and operates Five Freedoms Dairy. After years of working on […]
Colorado has seen a 72% decline in the western bumble bee, according to a recent study from the National Academy of Sciences. Advocacy groups have been lobbying lawmakers for years to increase legal protections for bees and other animals that […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
The state legislature is in the final days of the session and the pressure is on to tie up loose ends and pass pending bills. One bill that passed Saturday attempts to address poor air quality along the Front Range. SB […]
Cancer is a diagnosis no one wants to be on the receiving end of, but it is a leading cause of death in this country. However, sharing the experience with others going through the same life and death fight can […]
On this Public Media Giving Day, KGNU News Volunteer John Kelin and News Producer Alexis Kenyon dug into the station’s archives and put together this first of four archive specials. Listen: (Download Audio)
In Colorado, when we look up at the rocky mountains, it’s difficult to imagine how much those snowy white peaks mean to the rest of the world. But for more than a hundred years, millions of people have relied on […]
How much should you really tip when you dine out? What’s fair to you and the server? Radio Nibbles host John Lehndorff talked with writer Kate Jonuska about her recent Boulder Weekly feature on the highly contentious issue of tipping and […]
The April selection for the Radio Bookclub is Go As A River, by Colorado author Shelley Read. This novel introduces readers to Victoria Nash who is just a teenager in the 1940s, but she runs the household on her family’s […]
IMAGE BY Alexis Kenyon via DALL-E Many of us assume everyone has access to the Internet. In light of the last few years of global pandemic, however, we observed headlines about the unconnected and the issues that were created in […]
What happens when baby birds aren’t successful in their initial attempts to fly? They may end up with Donna Nespoli, a bird rehabilitation expert and founder of Colorado Native Bird Care and Conservation. KGNU’s Benita Lee spoke with her about […]
Dandelions, despite being extremely difficult to get rid of, are great for the soil and they’re one of the first foods for the bees in the springtime. Along with being 100% edible for human consumption, gardeners can use dandelions in […]
(Photo: Trevor McCarthy who works at Safeway in North Longmont speaks to AG Weiser during the meeting in Longmont on Tuesday April 25, 2023. Credit: Maeve Conran) Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser has been visiting communities around Colorado who could […]
How much did the labor battles of Colorado coal workers contribute to the legal gains of the New Deal Era? Perhaps more than you think. A new book out from the University of Colorado Press details how a labor movement […]
Photo: Dr. Richard Reading with Mongolian butterfly researchers, Dr. Gantigmaa Chuluunbaatar and PhD student Bayarmaa Duinkherjav Pollinators play a key role in ecosystems around the world, but are under stress due to a number of factors. One of the nation’s […]
The Colorado Senate yesterday passed a bill that calls for standards for compost labels and prohibits marketing look-alike compostable products. This comes after the Federal Trade Commission announced last week that they are cracking down on so-called greenwashing practices. KGNU’s […]
Image Courtesy Of Sustainable Resilient Longmont This year Longmont will host its 9th Annual Sustainable Resilient Longmont Earth Day Event. There will be upcycled arts and crafts, food trucks, dozens of educational booths, and even goats at Timberline School in […]
Photo via Wikimedia Commons of Emma Bates It feels like everything is going on in the sports world when it comes to Colorado. So why try to cover just one thing? This week Jimmie speeds through the highlights starting with […]
Residents of Boulder County and its mountain districts need to be aware of the area’s fire risks. Property maintenance tips, structure hardening best practices and knowing when and how to evacuate can all involve a learning curve that not everyone […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Naropa University is hosting Earth Justice Week this week, with a special line up today. KGNU’s Shannon Young spoke with Michael Bauer, Director of Naropa’s Joanna Macy Center for Resilience and Regeneration and organic gardener and vegan chef, Dr. Ietef […]
High school seniors are in the final stretch of the school year. For many, that means preparing to take finals or make last minute scholarship applications. But for seniors and juniors alike, it means prom season. While the rite of […]
The Fiske Planetarium at CU Boulder will celebrate Astronomy Day with family-friendly activities on April 15 from 1 to 4 PM and 6 to 10 pm to explore space by looking through telescopes and by launching model rockets and playing […]
Photo via Kriste People’s Instagram Black folks have always had a special connection to the land and outdoor spaces. However, due to racial terror, economic status, and/or access, many Black people have avoided engaging in outdoor recreational activities. Thoroughly cognizant […]
On Radio Nibbles, host John John Lehndorff talked with Ashwin Ramdas of DeliverZero, a growing local service designed to package food at restaurants and supermarkets in reusable, returnable containers. Ramdas described how easy it is for cafes and markets to […]
At Thursday’s Boulder City Council meeting, city staff announced the location of a new day shelter for those experiencing homelessness. The announcement comes after months of debate and a spike in unhoused families and individuals in Boulder. Shay Castle of […]
Photo By Jeffrey Beall via Flicker On this week’s Sports Talk, the mascot for the Colorado Rockies, a purple dinosaur known as Dinger, was tackled during a game at Coors Field on Monday. Who did it? We still don’t know. […]
The earth’s climate patterns are changing due to human activity and accumulated gasses released into the atmosphere. While many trace the start of the warming trend back to the Industrial Revolution, the extraction and burning of fossil fuels in the […]
With the Spring comes tax season, if you haven’t already completed your paperwork you may find a few surprises this year as pandemic expansions to certain tax credits have expired and TABOR (Tax Payer Bill of Rights) checks have the […]
Today’s A Public Affair features an hour-long discussion with a panel of Colorado-based reproductive rights experts to examine the two contradictory legal rulings on mifepristone issued on Friday afternoon and how that may shape the future of access to medication […]
Image courtesy of the University of Colorado, Boulder The 75th edition of the Conference on World Affairs opens tomorrow on the CU Boulder campus. The conference is an annual gathering of academics, experts, policymakers, and community members. Hannah Wood, interim […]
Our guest this morning is Monica King a Somatic Psychotherapist specializing in trauma and resilience from Naropa University. She learned from several indigenous traditions of healing from Mexico to Africa, blending both Western mental health perspectives and ancient healing modalities. […]
Iranian Nobel Laureate, former judge, and longtime human rights attorney Dr. Shirin Ebadi was in Boulder Friday to talk about the situation in Iran and to screen a documentary. The film, “Until We Are Free” is based on Dr. Ebadi’s […]
Photo by Shay Daly of CSU Stadium Mile High is no longer the home of the Colorado State High School Football Championship game. Canvas Stadium will now host what is the biggest High School football game of the year. KGNU’s […]
Image by Stephen R. Jones of Townsendia Hookeria also known as the Easter Daisy with bee On April’s Nature Almanac, Colorado native Easter Daisies bloom among the 60 million-year-old shale rock formations of Boulder’s Six Mile Fold. Steve Jones and […]
On the first anniversary of Kitchen Table Talk, KGNU’s monthly hour-long food program. John Lehndorff (Radio Nibbles) and chef Dan Asher (River & Woods, Ash’Kara) welcomed Mark Guttridge from Ollin Farms and Seleyn DeYarus, founder of the Regenerative Rising organization. […]
KGNU YA Book Reviewer, Phoebe Donovan spoke with YA author, Anna Rose Johnson, about her book, “A Star That Always Stays.” KGNU Young Adult book reviewer Phoebe Donovan interviews author Anna Rose Johnson about her debut novel The Star That […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
The results from Denver’s local election are still being tallied, but what’s come in thus far is at least painting a general picture of what’s ahead. The field of 16 mayoral candidates is narrowing down to three top candidates; two […]
Dementia is a neurological condition that disproportionately affects older patients. And as baby boomers age, a greater portion of the U.S. population is at risk than in past generations. But the subject is often taboo, leaving families isolated as the […]
BOCO International Flamenco Festival se inagura éste 4 de abril con la presencia del director, bailarín y coreógrafo del flamenco de renombre mundial Antonio Canales. Canales conocido por su espectáculo “Torero” fue nominado a un premio Emmy en 1995 y […]
Bohemian waxwings eating berries. Photo by Chris Petrizzo Bohemian Waxwings are wandering the front range in high numbers this winter, due to an “incursion” that led them to leave their homes in Canada and Alaska. Scott Severs and Ruth Carol […]
On the Feb. 2 Kitchen Table Talk, co-hosts John Lehndorff and Boulder chef Dan Asher (Ask’Kara and River & Woods) welcomed chef Edwin Zoe (Zoe Ma Ma, Dragonfly Noodle) and chef Eric Skokan (Bramble & Hare, Black Cat Farm) to […]
On this week’s Sports Talk, Jimmie celebrates the national Women In Sports Day that took place this week. Among the leaders is Shannan Lane, the first female to coach a male high school basketball team in the state. Listen: Download […]
CU Boulder yesterday hosted the grand opening of the Center for African and African American Studies – known as the CAAAS (pronounced “the cause”) for short. It’s the first initiative to center and focus Black and African diaspora students at […]
Image by Alexis Kenyon via DALL-E About 150 Broomfield residents are joining together to create Broomfield’s first Solar Co-op. The members of this Co-op will vote next week to choose a collective-wide installer. KGNU’s Alexis Kenyon spoke with Tanner Simeon-Cox– […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
As part of New Vista High School’s workshops, taught by community teachers and experts, students work with KGNU Media Gardens trainers to learn essential audio production techniques and produce short podcasts on topics of their interest. Students are also encouraged […]
Art by Alexis Kenyon via DALL-E Atlas Kleinman, a Colorado high school student who recently created a compendium of poems, reflects on his ideas of the future, relationships, and gender through the lens of trans and queer identities. Atlas expands on […]
By now you’ve probably heard about the passage of Proposition 122 in Colorado. Also called the Natural Medicine Health Act, the initiative passed by 53% of the vote last November and decriminalized certain psychedelic plants and fungi. In addition to […]
KGNU Young Adult book reviewer Phoebe Donovan is back – this time with an in-studio interview. Ellen O’Clover and Jessie Weaver are both Colorado based authors of young adult fiction. Their books – Seven Percent of Ro Devereux and Live […]
Wheat Ridge Theatre Company is back in their brand new space. They are premiering their production of the classic romance Cyrano de Bergerac February 3 – 19. KGNU’s Veronica Straight-Lingo had a chance to speak with Director Melissa Taylor about […]
In this movie review segment, KGNU’s Veronica Straight-Lingo speaks with Boulder Weekly Film Correspondent Michael J. Casey about films. In this segment, Casey previews the films to catch during the Spring 2023 semester at the International Film Series on the University of […]
The Community College of Aurora is bringing back their production of “HeLa” by Lauren Gunderson and Geetha Reddy from January 26 – 28. “HeLa” explores the complicated history of Henrietta Lacks, and her immortal cells which were harvested without her […]
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mile High Blaze (@milehighblaze) The Mile High Blaze of the WFA has been winning since its inception in 2013. On this episode with Jimmie Searfoss, we dive into […]
On Radio Nibbles, host John Lehndorff welcomed author Gil Asakawa who has just published “Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! The Tasty History of Japanese Food in America.” They discussed the rise of ramen in Colorado, Pelican Pete’s memories and the best thing Gil has […]
About 50 to 70 Boulder community members gathered at the Boulder Chamber of Commerce yesterday morning to discuss another group of about 50 to 70 Boulder residents. The individuals not in the room but at the center of the discussion […]
In our studios of KGNU on Connections Call-in Show, we hear from Beth Eldridge, a victim and Marshall Fire Recovery Navigator, an elder victim Elsie Chavez, who lived in a mobile home in old Superior, accompanied by her son Arthur […]
We’ll be talking about dogs this morning on A Public Affair and taking your calls. Our guest is Marc Bekoff, author of over 30 books and professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at CU-Boulder. His books include Canine Confidential: […]
What are the environmental implications of a global population that keeps expanding year after year? Can the planet handle the pressures of humanities demand for resources? And why have we – as supposedly intelligent homo sapiens, been unable to halt […]
El Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos anunció un programa nacional de 228 millones de dólares para combatir y recuperarse de incendios forestales, 7 millones de ellos han sido asignados a Colorado, pero para la comisionada Marta Loachamin no […]
Yesterday marked the start of the Year of The Rabbit across East Asian and diaspora communities worldwide. In Denver, festivities kicked off Saturday with a community fair and packed performance of dancers, musicians and acrobats at George Washington High School. […]
Art by Alexis Kenyon via DALL-E University Of Colorado Boulder Communications Professor Karen Lee Ashcraft’s new book, Wronged and Dangerous,Viral Masculinity and The Populous Pandemic, analyzes the impact of what she calls “aggrieved masculinity” in all parts of society. From […]
Boulder City Council voted to delay the approval of two new appointees to the Police Oversight Panel last night. This is the second time Boulder’s city council has punted the vote. Concerns over the new nominees being biased against police […]
On today’s A Public Affair, News Director Shannon Young speaks with Katherine Corcoran, former Associated Press Mexico bureau chief and author of the recently published book, In The Mouth of the Wolf: a murder, a cover-up and the true cost of […]
We are impressed when local restaurants last two or five years. On today’s Radio Nibbles, John Lehndorff and Shannon Young celebrate eateries that have gone the distance including Ras Kassa’s Ethiopian Restaurant (35 years), Boulder’s original Walnut Cafe (40 years), […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
On today’s A Public Affair, KGNU’s Sam Fuqua talks with artist Joel Haertling about his exhibit at Canyon Gallery in the downtown branch of the Boulder Public Library. It’s a testament to Joel‘s passion for collecting and his appreciation for […]
Colorado has been the scene of several notorious mass shootings. But suicides are by far the leading cause of gun deaths here. In 2021, Colorado voters approved the creation of a new office within the state’s Department of Public Health […]
The nation’s best tastes are in Boulder County The Good Food Awards are the Oscars of American food and drink. On Radio Nibbles, Jimmie Searfoss and John Lehndorff discuss the national finalists for the 3rd annual awards in our own […]
This week on Sports Talk, KGNU’s Jimmie Searfoss reviews the career of one of the best lacrosse coaches of all time Bill Tierney. His accolades while at the University of Denver and Princeton have made him a legend in the […]
This year four out of five Americans are eligible for Affordable Care Act health coverage for $10 or less a month thanks to increased subsidies in this year’s Inflation Reduction act. About 11 million people have already signed up for […]
Black Talk is a one-hour monthly show bringing us news and more from NAACP Boulder County and beyond. Hosted by Michele Simpson, it airs on KGNU on the second Thursday at 8:32 AM, just after the BBC News headlines. Find […]
On today’s show, we talk about the ongoing struggle between Colorado regulatory agencies, the federal government, and Suncor refinery, the state’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases that’s in a mostly Latino residential North Denver community. The Environmental Protection Agency announced […]
Denver’s City Council unanimously passed a new measure last night to increase worker protections against wage theft. News Director Shannon Young got the details from Pamela Reséndiz Trujano, Executive Director of Colorado Jobs with Justice. Listen: (Download Audio)
Our Guest this morning is an award-winning playwright, musician, composer, educator, and social activist Thomas J García. Known as the flame keeper of the Chicano – Latino culture in Denver, Garcia is the executive artistic director of Su Teatro Performing […]
By early summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the Biden administration’s plan for student debt relief. In the meantime, federal student loan repayments have been paused until 60 days after the court’s ruling. This measure would offer $10,000 […]
On this week’s Sport’s Talk, since the Supreme Court legalized sports betting in 2019, the industry has taken the nation by storm. Since 2020, Colorado citizens have wagered around $9 billion on sports, one of the highest in the nation. […]
For the January 2023 edition of Kitchen Table Talk, hosts John Lehndorff and Daniel Asher speak with Jodie Pompa and Katie Corr of Slow Food Boulder County. Listen: (Download Audio)
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Art by Alexis Kenyon vis DALL-E Most Americans have felt the costs of inflation in recent years. High gas prices and the cost of food have piled upon skyrocketing housing costs and healthcare bills. While inflation has impacted the entire […]
The University of Colorado Boulder is hosting an event tonight to raise awareness about the ongoing popular uprising in Iran. Widespread protests began after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September. Iranian morality police had arrested Amini in Tehran […]
Administrators at Denver Public Schools have been considering a number of school closures, citing low enrollment numbers. Earlier this month, the district’s school board voted against closing 10 DPS schools, but another school – separate from those ten – still […]
On Today’s A Public Affair, KGNU News Director Shannon Young speaks with award-winning author Anand Giridharadas about his new book, The Persuaders; At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy. Giridharadas is on-air political analyst for […]
The November selection for the Radio Bookclub is Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge, by Ted Conover. In May 2017, best-selling author and immersive journalist Ted Conover went to Colorado to explore firsthand a rural way of life that […]
Authorities in Colorado Springs released further details about Saturday night’s armed attack on Club Q. Alexis Kenyon has more. Listen: (Download Audio) Among the new details released in Monday afternoon’s media briefing were the names of those killed when a […]
For some insights and answers, we revisit a conversation from 2016 between Dr. Janis Bohan and Dr. Glenda Russell, who has spent more than two decades doing research, writing, consulting, and therapy around precisely these questions. Alongside this 2016 interview, […]
As Colorado processes yet another mass shooting, KGNU News Director Shannon Young talks with someone who has lived experience with the sudden death of a loved one. Phil Calitre created a foundation in honor of his daughter Cara who died […]
The Latino Chamber of Commerce played an important role during the COVID pandemic and actively help with applications to access federal loans or other supports for undocumented business owners. During that time, the Latino Chamber expanded virtual services outside Boulder […]
On today’s edition of A Public Affair, News Director Shannon Young speaks with Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo. The women are co-hosts of the “Boom! Lawyered” podcast and senior editors at Rewire News Group. The discussion ranges from […]
The Denver Public Schools Board of Education will vote tonight on whether to close five schools with fewer than 215 students. The proposal comes after years of declining enrollment and an earlier announcement that the district would close 10 DPS […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
America Recycles Week kicked off Monday and runs through November 18th. This year’s week of awareness comes on the heels of electoral wins for a nationwide smattering of ballot initiatives on recycling. One of those successful initiatives was Denver’s Ordinance […]
Our Guest this morning is Frank Archuleta, community historian, and racial justice activist. Archuleta received the International Human Rights Award in 2021 from Boulder County United Nations Association of America. The Collective Community Arts Center in Lafayette shows an exhibit […]
If you get a divorce in Colorado and there’s conflict over child custody, Colorado family court gives couples two options. First, you can take a court-appointed and, often, court-funded child family investigator or CFI to look into your cases. Or, […]
Dr. Glenda Russell, psychologist, writer, and activist returns to speak with Eric L. Sawyer. Eric and Glenda discuss his life coming out at CU in the 1970s, the activities of ACT UP NY and the fear, misinformation and discrimination faced […]
Mother-ship Boulder presents a unique art, poetry, and jazz event with three remarkable women artists. The exhibit 3 Muses Of Arts will take place at 3450 Penrose Place today Friday, November 11th. KGNU’s, Rossana Longo-Better spoke with artists Topaz Hooper, Radna […]
November 11th is Veteran’s Day, a federal holiday set aside to honor military veterans of the United States Armed Forces. Many combat veterans still struggle with the trauma of their war experiences. There’s a large sculpture project taking shape in […]
The first half of A Public Affair for November 9, 2022 features Longmont-based author Jon Bassoff and Loveland-based musician Wendy Woo. Bassoff recently released his latest book, Beneath Cruel Waters and childhood friend Woo created music inspired by the […]
Black Talk is a one-hour monthly show bringing us news and more from NAACP Boulder County and beyond. Hosted by Michele Simpson, it airs on KGNU on the second Thursday at 8:32 AM, just after the BBC News headlines. Find […]
Host Elise Matatall hears about barriers and opportunities for LGBTQ older adults navigating hospice and end-of-life care from the brilliant, heart-open professor Dr. Carey Candrian. Follow Carey on Twitter @CandrianCarey. Find out more about some of the resources shared by […]
Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are back on the case in this 23rd novel, RACING THE LIGHT, by Robert Crais whose thrillers have been translated into 42 languages. Adele Schumacher isn’t a typical worried mom. […]
In today’s Kitchen Table Talk, Chef Daniel Asher, from River and Woods and guests Marissa Pulaski, with Drylands Agroecology Research, Azuraye Wycoff, with Yellow Barn Farm, and Mark Guttridge, with Ollin Farms talk about local food and the need for […]
Many cities across the country – but especially in the Front Range – are experiencing a housing crisis, with costs far outpacing the wage hikes. One of the effects has been an increase in homelessness. At the same time, some […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
By John Kelin Nov. 1 2022 Resources to help people in the ongoing recovery from the Marshall Mesa Fire have been centralized in a brand-new location. The Marshall Fire Recovery Center in Louisville launched with a ribbon-cutting on a suite […]
There’s a big effort underway this election cycle to reach underrepresented voters – both with multilingual ballots and with in-person outreach efforts to university students. Data shows that young people are among the least likely to turn out in elections. […]
During the October, 31, 2022 edition of A Public Affair this morning, host Rossana Longo Better speaks with Boulder County Commissioner Marta Loachamin and Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick about the integrity of our elections, our local ballot […]
KGNU Media Gardens facilitated two Youth Podcasting Workshops during the summer of 2022 for youth ages 11 to 16 years old. The participants had the opportunity to access the KGNU Boulder Station’s conference room and studios to learn how to […]
A new, inclusive Dance studio recently opened up in Boulder. Mi Chantli a movement and arts sanctuary, will host Baile de Calacas to honor El Dia De Los Muertos. Rossana Longo-Better spoke to the creators of Mi Chantli Mario Olvera, […]
You are listening to the Morning Magazine on KGNU. I’m your host, Jack Armstrong. Coloradans will vote on the decriminalization of the use, possession, and growth of natural medicines commonly known as magic mushrooms in the upcoming November ballot. KGNU’s […]
In this week’s episode of Sports Talk with Jimmie, he takes us on a trip back to the 90’s when the all-women baseball team, The Colorado Silver Bullets. Listen: (Download Audio)
Holiday celebrations can produce a lot of trash. Think gift wrapping on Christmas or those plastic Easter eggs or balloons on Valentines Day. The aftermath of the next annual celebration heading to a landfill near you is Halloween. From plastic candy […]
State Ballot Proposition 121 asks Colorado voters if they would like to decrease the state income tax rate. Supporters say the cut will put money into people’s pockets. Opponents say the tax decrease is actually a tax increase for most […]
The October selection for the Radio Bookclub is Less is Lost, by Pulitizer prize-winning writer Andrew Sean Greer. The novel marks the return of the beloved Arthur Less, whose life is going surprisingly well. But nothing lasts: the death of […]
A few years ago, Boulder adopted changes intended to make it easier for citizens to petition questions onto the ballot. That system initially caused some confusion and some challenges. On Today’s A Public Affair, KGNU’s Sam Fuqua talks with Eric […]
On November’s ballot, Boulder County voters will weigh in on who should serve as their region’s Regional Transportation District Board director. On today’s A Public Affair, KGNU News Director Shannon Young hosts a candidate forum with three candidates running for […]
RIVER OF THE GODS by bestselling historian Candice Millard is her fourth book. Known for her meticulously researched books, her newest is an adventure tale that takes place in uncharted territory in Africa in the mid-1800s. For millennia the location […]
One of the statewide measures on Colorado ballots is Proposition 123. It calls for the allocation of 0.1 percent of state tax revenue to fund the construction of affordable housing units. Proponents say this measure will provide overdue relief while […]
Black Talk is a one-hour monthly show bringing us news and more from NAACP Boulder County and beyond. Hosted by Michele Simpson, it airs on KGNU on the second Thursday at 8:32 AM, just after the BBC News headlines. Find […]
On this week’s regional sports newscast, Sport’s Talk host Jimmie Searfoss talks about Denver’s Chatfield High School’s historic women’s flag football championship. Chatfield High School is one of 25 schools selected by the Denver Broncos to take part in a […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
Cantautora mexicana-estadounidense Renee Goust tocó en el Festival del Sol en Chautauqua y reformula la música latina tradicional para que sea más inclusiva. Renee creció en la frontera y escribe canciones bilingües sobre igualdad de género, la experiencia LGTBQIA+ y […]
Every election season, political strategists talk about wooing swing voters, while one of the biggest voting blocks often goes overlooked, new voters. Julia Hunt is a senior at Fairview High School who knows a little something about mobilizing new voters. […]
Some of the stars of the Spanish art form known as flamenco are in Denver this week to give a series of intensive workshops capped by a music and dance performance on Saturday at the Newman Center for the […]
Plans are in the works to open an arts academy for under-served youth in Northeast Denver. The Radical Arts Academy will launch in 2024 and it will start with first and second grade and keep on growing every year. […]
Local award-winning travel writer Sandra Bornstein takes us on a trip around the best places for food, drinks, music, entertainment, sports, creation, culture, history, and activities by season in her new book 100 Things To Do In Boulder Before […]
Our guests this morning are poet Norma Johnson and human rights advocate Dr. Renee Fajardo to talk about the long-awaited return of the Corn Mothers 2022: Inspiring Women of the Southwest History Colorado exhibit. The exhibit features artistic photographs and […]
Photo Credit: Feminis Collective Las Tesis The only support center for sexual assault victims in Boulder County will host its 50th-anniversary fundraiser next week. Boulder created what has become MESA, Moving to End Sexual Assault, in response to a high-profile […]
Richard Osman is an author, a well-known television personality and comedian in the UK. His newest book is The Bullet That Missed in the popular “Thursday Murder Club” series that has already sold in the millions. A quartet of […]
Bears are fattening up for their winter hibernation. Ruth Carol Cushman ventures into Bear Canyon, on the lookout for signs of bears. (photo credit: Glenn Cushman) Listen: (Download Audio)
The Black Lives Matters demonstrations that erupted nationwide in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 did more than occupy space on the streets. They created a discourse and a reckoning that forced […]
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
(Photo credit: Dre Erwin Photography licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.) One of the more lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is how it has impacted youth mental health. From extended isolation to canceled rights of […]
The Annexation of CU South [Download Audio] Watch debate here. CU South Boulder is a 308-acre parcel of land at the southernmost city limit of Boulder. The former gravel mine has been undeveloped for over 20 years now. The […]
A team of Harvest of All First Nations, a group focused on Indigenous-led reparations, rematriation & Earth-based Decolonization for the benefit of BIPOC peoples for cultural enrichment and health equity, in collaboration with the Foundation for Leaders Organizing for Water […]
When most people think about college recruiting, they imagine coaches from top-tier teams scouring the nation for the best of the best. Today, the recruitment industry has transformed that narrative. This industry, which brings in tens of millions of dollars […]
Colorado has the highest recidivism rate in the country. For the past decade, about 50% of inmates released from the state’s prison return within three years. A recent ProPublica investigation has uncovered that the state’s halfway houses may be a […]
(Photo credit: Venkat2336, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons) Look in the garbage in any city or town, and chances are, plastics make up a big part of what is in the waste. Some of that is due to people […]
Despite a staggeringly high 50% rate of teen pregnancy, youth involved in Colorado’s child welfare system have little to no education about contraception or safe sex until after they have become sexually active. That’s according to a new study from […]
After a COVID-related break, Boulder has reinstated a requirement that food businesses report what they’re doing to comply with the city’s Zero Waste ordinance. Restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops and almost all other businesses involved with food are supposed to […]
CU Boulder will host a campus sexual misconduct town hall from 4-5:30 PM today. The event will discuss the recently announced CU Boulder Sexual Misconduct Task force and answer questions about how misconduct is addressed on campus. KGNU’s Claire Purnell […]
The September selection for the Radio Bookclub is Something New Under the Sun, by Alexandra Kleeman. tells the story of Patrick Hamlin, a novelist who has come to Los Angeles to oversee the film adaptation of one of his books. […]
The Latino Chamber of Commerce of Boulder County will host a big “Fiesta and Food Trucks” event to celebrate the growing diverse cultures of the Hispanic and Latinx communities in Boulder County, this Saturday at Roosevelt Park in Longmont. KGNU’s […]
In this week’s edition of Sports Talk, KGNU’s Jimmie Searfoss explores not your fathers base ball, or even his father. Colorado is home to a vintage base ball league that plays the game by 1890’s rules. Take a deep dive […]
Listen: (Download Audio) The men and women who have bravely served our country as members of the U.S. Armed Forces account for about nineteen million people which is less than 10% of our country’s population but have fought and provided safety […]
On today’s Radio Nibbles, host John Lehndorff spoke with Ileana Barbu to discuss the Annual Romanian Festival Sunday, Sept. 25th at Belmar Plaza in Lakewood. More information on the festival here. Listen: (Download Audio)
Home from School: The Children of Carlisle is a documentary film that retells the story of a delegation of tribal elders and youth from the Wind River Reservation who traveled to the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, to retrieve […]
The Boulder Valley School District released data on in and out-of-school suspensions. An analysis of that data by Boulder Reporting Lab shows that Latino students are suspended at triple the rate of their white counterparts. Disciplinary actions like suspensions […]
Comic conventions are a subculture of their own and now there’s a new book out documenting its past and present. Mathew Klickstein is the author of See You at San Diego; an Oral History of Comic-Con, Fandom and the Triumph of […]
Dr. Glenda Russell interviews Greg Bourke. He and his husband, Michael DeLeon were among the plaintiffs in the marriage equality suit that went from Kentucky to the US Supreme Court. Greg pushed for ten years to get the US Boy […]
The Environmental Protection Agency – or EPA – has issued a final determination to downgrade air quality in the Denver Metro and Northern Front Range area to “severe” non-attainment for ground level ozone. The area was one of five nationwide […]
Colorado Chautauqua is proud to present the second annual free and bilingual Festival Del Sol (formerly Celebración de la Comunidad) on Sunday, September 18th! Enjoy live music, food trucks, outdoor beer/wine garden, traditional dance, games, children’s activities, photo booth, and […]
El Centro Amistad women’s summit, known as Cumbre de Mujeres, this year opened with a youth summit or Cumbre Juvenil with 175 middle and high school students to explore their identities, empower themselves and offer an altar as an ofrenda […]
Crested Butte Film Festival, the award-winning international film festival is taking place September 21- 25, in Crested Butte, CO. The festival includes over 80 films, shown in person and virtually, and features narrative, documentary, outdoor adventure, children’s, and short films. It […]
Did you know that Denver has its very own circus ensemble? The Circus Foundry is a small contemporary circus group made up of members who have performed in other troupes around the world, but who call Denver home. The […]
Our Guest this morning is Katrina Miller, director of the documentary This Is NOT Who We Are, which explores racial equity and inclusion. Storyteller and visual artist who creates films and video content to come to terms with issues of […]
On this week’s edition of Radio Nibbles, host John Lehndorff speaks with Blair Norman, president of Community Fruit Rescue. Listen: (Download Audio)
Bi-weekly updates on what's happening in the world of cannabis with marijuana reporter Leland Rucker.
KGNU Media Gardens facilitated two Youth Podcasting Workshops during the summer of 2022 for youth ages 11 to 16 years old. The participants had the opportunity to access the KGNU Boulder Station’s conference room and studios to learn how to […]
On today’s A Public Affair, News Director Shannon Young speaks with author Cornelia Maude Spelman. Her latest book is called Missing. It’s a memoir steeped in 20th century family history. Spelman is also the author of the How I […]
Boulder City Council’s conversations about creating a new day for those experiencing homelessness have exposed how divided people in Boulder continue to be when it comes to the causes of and solutions to homelessness. KGNU’s Alexis Kenyon reports. Listen: (Download […]
The Boulder B-Cycle e-bike share program is experiencing record levels of ridership and the heavy use has been making the bikes harder to find at stations around town. News Director Shannon Young spoke with Boulder B-Cycle General Manager Kevin Crouse […]
Award-winning journalist, author and professor Linda Villarosa will be in town this afternoon for a speaking engagement at her alma mater; CU Boulder. Villarosa will present her latest book, Under The Skin; The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives […]
Motus Theater monologists have been busy this summer and have prepared special events for the month of September to provoke community conversation about issues of human rights in collaboration with Edica Pacha. A set of 12 large murals with explanatory […]
In this week’s edition of Sports Talk, KGNU’s Jimmie Searfoss tells about the extreme and quickly growing world of ultramarathons. Listen: (Download Audio)
A mix of magic, theater and STEM education is coming to the Dairy Arts Center this weekend with a performance by Mario the Maker Magician. Veteran magic performer David Blaine calls Mario “the best kids magician in the world.” But […]
Black Talk is a one-hour monthly show bringing us news and more from NAACP Boulder County and beyond. Hosted by Michele Simpson, it airs on KGNU on the second Thursday at 8:32 AM, just after the BBC News headlines. Find […]
The cannabis industry and its fans have a reputation for being treehuggers and earth lovers. Despite its green image, legal marijuana has a massive waste problem, but the industry’s unique passion for the environment may motivate cannabis businesses to inspire […]
The Front Range urban corridor is likely to experience record-breaking September temperatures today and tomorrow. Three elementary schools in the Denver Public Schools system will not open today and another 30 schools will release students early because of the lack of […]
Water issues are complicated. Unfortunately, most water-related coverage is equally complicated, often boring and full of jargon only water buffs understand. Let’s simplify things a bit. Here’s a super quick explanation of the water term “aquatic nuisance species (ANS)” from […]
Dr. Janis Bohan was a member of the OutSources collective who was a thoughtful contributor to a wide range of topics. Her intelligence, breadth and insight served with humor and cultural humility were helpful to us all. Longtime collective members […]
In this editon of our quarterly Conflict Resolution series, Sam Fuqua and former state Senator Linda Newell discuss conflicts at youth sports between parents, coaches, and referees. These conflicts have been a source of a shortage of referees and officials, […]
In this week’s edition of Sports Talk, KGNU’s Jimmie Searfoss tells about CU Boulder’s first football game of the year against TCU. Before the game starts, they will honor Cliff Branch a late Buff’s legend who was inducted into the NFL Hall […]