Nicholas Orlin and Shawn Murphy jointly sued the city and up to five unknown police officers in January 2022, seeking damages for eye and facial injuries they sustained in those incidents while protesting against police brutality on May 30, 2020. Those payments were approved as part of the Denver City Council’s consent agenda on Monday afternoon.

Both men have also received payments from the city of Aurora in the same case, according to their attorneys.

An amended version of the complaint identified Aurora police officer Cory Budaj as the person who fired the projectile that injured Orlin and Aurora police sergeant Matthew Brukbacher as the one who fired the projectile at Murphy.

Orlin and Murphy did not know each other but were both near Lincoln Park at the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street that evening, according to the lawsuit.

Orlin was knocked unconscious by an unknown hard projectile after covering a tear gas canister with a traffic cone, according to the suit. A short time later, Murphy was shot in the face with a hard projectile after he kicked away a tear gas canister.

In both instances, officers did not issue warnings before firing, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Both men suffered from vision problems and facial disfigurement after the incidents.

The two settlement agreements with the city of Denver designated $210,000 for Orlin and $255,000 for Murphy.

Orlin already had been granted $100,000 through a settlement with Aurora. Murphy received $175,000 from that city, according to attorney Birk Baumgartner, adding up to total compensation of $310,000 and $430,000 for the two men, respectively.

The men were jointly represented by the Denver firms Baumgartner Law and Beem & Isely. The men have dismissed individual suits against the Aurora officers.

“I wouldn’t call it justice. I would say it is absolutely accountability,” attorney Danielle Beem said of the settlements Monday.

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Draft plans for Weir Gulch — which envision the acquisition of up to 70 residential properties — are now more than five years old. But they’ve attracted only limited public notice as city officials have discussed larger plans to revitalize the South Platte system.

City and federal officials emphasize that those plans are subject to change as they ramp up public outreach to impacted residents and get a clearer picture of what flood risk looks like in 2024 and beyond.

While some potentially affected residents in the Barnum and Barnum West neighborhoods told The Denver Post they were aware of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2019 study and property map, the risks and project recommendations were news to at least some who live a stone’s throw from Weir Gulch.

Miki Yang, who lives two doors down from the gulch on Perry Street, had no idea last week that her property was part of any federal environmental study or real estate plan. She has lived in her home for three years but has owned the property for over a decade, renting it out to others before moving in with her family.

“Kind of strange,” she said after learning from a reporter that her home was circled on the Army Corps map, recommended for acquisition. “I never heard about it.”

Improvements along Weir Gulch and Harvard Gulch are planned as part of a larger South Platte revitalization project that has won $350 million in federal funding for the city. The Post reported Sunday on the significant potential impact on the horizon as city officials, developers and nonprofits work on projects to improve the South Platte and build dense new neighborhoods alongside it.

Water-flow and habitat projects along the gulches, which travel through Denver neighborhoods on their way to the river, are still being solidified.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2019 published a report identifying roughly 70 residences — mainly in the Barnum neighborhoods — that may need to be acquired to make room for the expansion and improvement of Weir Gulch. The total value at the time was $23.1 million, the report says.

As for south Denver’s Harvard Gulch, the Army Corps determined that there was no economically feasible plan for acquiring structures. Instead, it recommended voluntary participation by some homeowners in flood-proofing measures, such as elevation improvements to their lots or having their basements filled in.

Reducing flooding during storms

Weir Gulch, a zig-zagging waterway, takes the form of a close-to-natural creek bed in some places. In other segments, it’s an open-air concrete basin or runs completely underground. It travels under roadways, park space with playgrounds and even some buildings as it ferries water from Lakewood to the Platte in the Sun Valley neighborhood.

Weir Gulch and the areas around it represent the largest unmitigated flood risk in the city, said Ashlee Grace, director of Denver’s Waterway Resiliency Program, an overall $550 million project.

“The intent is definitely to increase the conveyance capacity so (that) it keeps the flows in the channel, and not spilling into the community that surrounds it” after heavy rainfall, Grace said.

Despite that 2019 report, officials say it’s not a certainty that the city and its partners with the Mile High Flood District will need to acquire the homes identified by the Army Corps.

Design work is complete only for the portion of the Weir Gulch project in Sun Valley between where it meets the river and West Eighth Avenue, city officials say.

The city negotiated the purchases of five commercial properties last year to make that first phase possible, according to Nancy Kuhn, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. Of those parcels, two were vacant land and the others housed tenants including a construction company, a software firm, and a granite slab testing and storage business.

“Additional portions of Weir Gulch have not yet moved into the design phase, so it’s too early to know what, if any, property impacts there will be,” Kuhn wrote in an email last month.

In an emailed statement, Bert Matya, the project manager overseeing the South Platte River and tributaries work from the Army Corps’ side, also said that it was too early to specify property impacts beyond the Sun Valley section.

“The Corps looks forward to working alongside Denver to develop innovative approaches that deliver the intended benefits of the project to the community,” Matya said.

City-led outreach aimed at better determining the risk in those neighborhoods will begin in 2025, according to Kuhn, though she said the Mile High Flood District may start reaching out to people who live along the gulch sooner.

The study phase of the broader Waterway Resiliency Program dates back to the Obama administration, and the program has evolved over the more than 10 years since the Army Corps launched that assessment. It reached two major milestones in 2022, Grace said, when it was granted the $350 million in upfront federal money through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Denver became part of an Army Corps pilot program.

That pilot is aimed at overhauling how the U.S. government approaches massive infrastructure projects, with an aim of speeding up timelines and saving money. Part of that is accomplished by giving local governments more control.

“That puts Denver in the driver’s seat of project delivery and the Army Corps in the approve-review role, which is a complete role reversal,” Grace said.

Moving “would turn my life upside down”

In the Barnum West neighborhood, Caroline Cordova has had a portion of the concrete channel of Weir Gulch as a neighbor for 25 years. She knew her home on Quitman Street was on a map of potential acquisitions for the waterway project after attending some community meetings about it a few years ago, she said.

Her takeaway from those meetings was that officials hoped to avoid using eminent domain to acquire properties to make way for the work.

But Cordova has no interest in selling her home and moving. She said she’d never been affected by flooding even when the water was high in the channel next door. In the high-priced Denver housing market, she’s not even sure where she would go. Her house has tripled in value since she bought it.

“It would turn my life upside down if I had to move,” Cordova said.  “As far as I am concerned, I am there until the day I die.”

City Councilwoman Jamie Torres, who represents west Denver neighborhoods, said improving Weir Gulch is going to be a very challenging project that will require “potentially scary conversations.”

She emphasized that discussions about home acquisitions, should any be necessary, could still be years in the future.

But Torres has already advised one homeowner who lives near the gulch not to build an accessory dwelling unit on her property, at least not before the city has provided more clarity.

“I hate to think of my residents taking on additional real debt when we don’t exactly know what’s going to happen in this gulch area,” Torres said. “At the end of the entire process, though, we want to help create a much safer corridor. We want to help utilize this open space so it can be a better park system for residents (and) a better trail system for residents.

“So we’re just trying to make sure that we’re very honest and very careful about that conversation.”

Grace, from the city, said the city’s increased authority over how the project is run already is netting some benefits.

The section of the Weir Gulch that the city will get to work on next year in Sun Valley was eyed for a long box culvert in the 2019 study. Denver instead will build a bridge over an open channel at Decatur Street, a design change that Grace says will improve safety during high-water events and provide more accessible open space the rest of the time.

“One of the strengths Denver brings to the table is we know our community,” Grace said. “We’re in the midst of updating what was understood to be the conditions in 2019.”

Barnum and Barnum West have been identified by the city as neighborhoods vulnerable to economic displacement. After looking at the Army Corps’ map, Ean Thomas Tafoya couldn’t help but notice all the Latino last names listed on the properties identified for potential acquisition.

Tafoya is a former Denver mayoral candidate and the Colorado director of Green Latinos, which advocates for environmental justice issues. He also grew up in Barnum and remembers catching crawdads in Weir Gulch.

Tafoya said he supports projects that protect water quality and reduce flood risks. But he has seen Denver’s minority neighborhoods bear the brunt of the impacts of other large infrastructure projects, like the recent Interstate 70 expansion in northeast Denver.

He expressed hope that city leaders could find solutions that don’t uproot residents along Weir Gulch.

“In the middle of a housing crisis and a climate crisis, we think the solution is to displace historic Latino communities?” Tafoya asked.

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ATLANTA (AP) — From her earliest campaigns in California to her serving as President Joe Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris has honed an aggressive but calibrated approach to debates.

She tries to blend punch lines with details that build toward a broader narrative. She might shake her head to signal her disapproval while her opponent is speaking, counting on viewers to see her reaction on a split screen. And she has a go-to tactic to pivot debates back in her favor: saying she’s glad to answer a question as she gathers her thoughts to explain an evolving position or defend a past one.

Tuesday’s presidential debate will put the Democratic vice president’s skills to a test unlike any she’s faced. Harris faces former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, who will participate in his seventh general election debate since 2016 for an event that will be seen by tens of millions of viewers just as early voting in November’s election starts around the country.

People who have competed against Harris and prepared her rivals say she brings a series of advantages to the matchup, including her prosecutorial background juxtaposed with Trump being the first U.S. president convicted of felony crimes. Still, Harris allies warn that Trump can be a challenging and unpredictable opponent who veers between policy critiques, personal attacks, and falsehoods or conspiracy theories.

“She can meet the moment,” said Marc Short, who led Republican Vice President Mike Pence’s debate preparation against Harris in the fall of 2020. “She has shown that in different environments. I would not underestimate that in any way.”

Julian Castro, a Democrat who ran for president against Harris in the 2020 primary, said Harris blended “knowledge, poise and the ability to explain things well” to stand out during crowded primary debates.

“Some candidates get too caught up with trying to be catchy, trying to go viral,” Castro said. “She’s found a very good balance.”

Balancing narrative and detail

A former Harris aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about her approach, said the vice president views the events like a jury trial she would have led when she was district attorney in San Francisco or querying a judicial nominee on Capitol Hill as a U.S. senator. The idea, the former aide said, has always been to win the debate on merit while leaving more casual or piecemeal viewers with key takeaways.

“She understands that debates are about the individual interactions themselves but also about a larger strategy of offering a vision for what your leadership and style looks like,” said Tim Hogan, who led Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s 2020 primary debate preparation.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a political communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said Harris makes deductive arguments but folds them into a broader narrative — the same way she would talk to jurors.

“She states a thesis and then follows with fact, fact, fact,” Jamieson said.

Jamieson pointed to the 2020 vice presidential debate in which Harris hammered Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy, and to her most memorable 2019 primary debate when she skewered Biden for how he had talked about race and institutional racism. She weaved her critique of Biden’s record with her own biography as a young, biracial student in the early era of school integration.

“That little girl was me,” Harris said in a widely circulated quip that punctuated her story about court-ordered busing that helped non-white students attend integrated schools.

“Most people who are good at the deductive argument aren’t good at wrapping that with an effective narrative,” Jamieson said. “She’s good at both.”

Landing memorable punches

Castro said Harris has a good feel for when to strike, a quality he traced to her trial experience. In 2019, as multiple Democratic candidates talked over one another, Harris sat back before getting moderators to recognize her.

“Hey, guys, you know what? America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table,” she said, taking control of the conversation and drawing applause.

When Harris faced Pence in 2020, it was a mostly civil, substantive debate. But she got in digs that framed Pence as a serial interrupter, as Trump had been in his first debate with Biden.

“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” she said at one point, with a stern look. At another: “If you don’t mind letting me finish, we can have a conversation.”

Finding traps in policy

Debates have sometimes put Harris on the defensive.

In the 2020 primary matches, Tulsi Gabbard, who this year has endorsed Trump, blitzed Harris over how aggressively she prosecuted nonviolent drug offenders as a district attorney.

That fall, Pence made Harris sometimes struggle to defend Biden’s positions. Now, her task will be to defend not just Biden’s record, but her own role in that record and what policies she would pursue as president.

Short, one of Pence’s top aides, noted that Republicans and the media have raised questions about more liberal positions Harris took in her 2020 primary campaign, especially on fracking, universal healthcare, reparations for slavery and how to treat migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally.

“We were surprised that she missed some opportunities (against Pence) when the conversation was centered around policy,” Short said.

Timing, silence and nonverbal communication

One of Harris’ earliest debate triumphs came in 2010 as she ran for California attorney general. Her opponent was asked about his plans to accept his public pension while still being paid a salary for a current public post.

“I earned it,” Republican Steve Cooley said of the so-called “double-dipping” practice.

Harris looked on silently, with a slightly amused look as Cooley explained himself. When moderators recognized her, she said just seven words – “Go for it, Steve. You earned it!” — in a serious tone but with a look that communicated her sarcasm. The exchange landed in her television ads within days.

“Kamala Harris is quite effective at nonverbal communication and knowing when not to speak,” Jamieson said.

The professor said Harris often will shake her head and, with other looks, telegraph her disapproval while her opponent is speaking. Then she smiles before retorting, or attacking, in a conversational tone.

“She defuses some of the argument that Trump makes that she is ‘a nasty woman,’ that she’s engaging in egregiously unfair behavior, because her nonverbal presentation is actually undercutting that line of attack,” Jamieson said.

Meeting a new challenge with Trump

For all of Harris’ debate experience, Tuesday is still a new and massive stage. Democrats who ordinarily tear into Trump instead appeared on Sunday’s news shows to make clear that Harris faced a big task ahead.

“It will take almost superhuman focus and discipline to deal with Donald Trump in a debate,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, yet another of Harris’ 2020 opponents, on CNN. “It’s no ordinary proposition, not because Donald Trump is a master of explaining policy ideas and how they’re going to make people better off. It’s because he’s a master of taking any form or format that is on television and turning it into a show that is all about him.”

Castro noted that Trump is “a nasty and crafty stage presence” who makes preparation difficult. And with ABC keeping the candidates’ microphones off when they are not speaking, Harris may not find it as easy to produce another viral moment that hinges on viewers having seen or heard Trump at his most outlandish.

“The best thing she can do,” Castro said, “is not get distracted by his antics.”

Voters in November will decide whether to ban the practice, along with the trapping of bobcats. That prospect has set off a deluge of competing claims about what will happen if big-cat hunting ceases.

People supporting the ban say that mountain lion populations are self-regulating and will stabilize at a level supported by their available habitat and food resources. Those opposed to Initiative 91, meanwhile, say a hunting ban would induce a rapid increase in the number of big cats, which in turn would pose a significant threat to deer and elk herds.

The truth is likely a mix of the two, according to studies and experts.

But beyond biology, the statewide ballot measure is asking Coloradans to consider deeper questions about the future of Colorado’s wildlife, both opponents and supporters said.

State wildlife managers now set hunting limits on the number of mountain lions that can be killed while still maintaining a lion population, said Samantha Miller, the manager of the Cats Aren’t Trophies campaign. The ballot initiative’s proponents want wildlife managers to focus instead on how to foster the best and healthiest population possible for the intrinsic value of having the animal roam the landscape.

“I think it’s a fundamentally different question that we’re asking,” Miller said.

Mountain lion hunters represent about 1% of the more than 200,000 big-game hunting licenses the state sells every year. But hunters opposed to the measure fear it’s the first step in a slippery slope toward banning all hunting.

“You start taking out pieces of the puzzle and soon you don’t have a puzzle,” said Dan Gates, executive director and co-founder of the Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Association. He’s a leader in a number of groups opposing the ban, including Colorado Wildlife Deserves Better, Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project and Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management.

Self-regulation or out-of-control growth?

The number of mountain lions in Colorado is difficult to determine because of their elusive and solitary nature. Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists estimate between 3,800 and 4,400 adult lions live in the state and say the population has grown since the species was classified as a big game species in 1965.

State biologists do not have an estimate for how many bobcats live in Colorado, but they believe the population is healthy and may be increasing in some areas.

Neither mountain lions nor bobcats are listed as federally threatened or endangered species. An estimated 20,000 to 40,000 mountain lions live in the U.S., as do more than 1.4 million bobcats.

“Both informal and recently collected empirical data suggest Colorado’s lion population is strong and lions are abundant in appropriate habitat,” states a Colorado Parks and Wildlife pamphlet on the species.

In the 2022-2023 hunting season — the most recent for which CPW data is publicly available — 2,599 people bought mountain lion hunting licenses and hunters killed 502 lions, making for a 19% success rate.

Those with opposing views of the ballot initiative posit different futures should mountain lion hunting be banned. But the truth is likely a mix of the two, said Jerry Apker, a retired CPW wildlife biologist who worked as the statewide carnivore biologist for 17 years before his 2017 retirement.

Populations would likely spike in the first years after hunting ends before increased mortality rates temper that growth, Apker said. Eventually, mountain lion populations tend to reach a stasis and fluctuate based on what food and habitat is available.

The felines have larger litters with higher survival rates when more resources are available, but in times of stress, they have smaller litters and more mortalities.

A cessation in hunting would also likely increase human interactions and conflicts with lions, he said. The most hunted lions are typically subadults and young adults — the same lions still working to establish home ranges. More young lions on the landscape means they will eventually be pushed to subprime habitats as well as more populated areas.

There’s no way of knowing how many mountain lions would live in Colorado should hunting stop — there’s never been a statewide research study done on the question, Apker said.

“I think the statements of doom and gloom that they’re going to take over are a convenient argument, but that’s not true,” he said.

Apker opposes the effort to ban mountain lion hunting, but he said other opponents’ argument that the ban would decimate elk and deer herds is far fetched. While predation might increase, the largest impacts to deer and elk populations would come from human alteration of the landscape. Less habitat, the degradation of existing habitat and brutal winters are significantly larger factors that determine population change.

California comparison

Colorado and other western states have enacted various levels of restrictions on mountain lion hunting.

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission earlier this year ended the state’s spring mountain lion season, instead restricting legal hunting to a single season that runs from November through March. The commission also banned hunters from using electronic recordings of other lions or distressed prey to lure mountain lions to an area.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission in July voted in favor of stricter limits and shorter seasons for cougar hunting. It acted on a petition filed by a number of local and national conservation and animal rights groups.

California voters in 1990 chose to ban mountain lion hunting in the state permanently, though hunting of the felines had not been permitted since 1972 — when then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a moratorium. California is the only state with a full ban on hunting pumas, and it officially states that its aim is to instead conserve the species “for their ecological and intrinsic values,” according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A study published in 2020 compared California’s lion population with those in 10 western states where hunting is legal, including Colorado. The authors found that California had similar cougar population densities and similar average deer densities as the other states.

California also had the third-lowest rate of cougar-human conflicts per capita, similar rates of cattle depredation and lower rates of sheep depredations.

“In sum, our analysis of the records obtained from state and federal wildlife agencies found no evidence that sport hunting of pumas has produced the management outcomes sought by wildlife managers aside from providing a sport hunting opportunity,” the authors wrote.

Charges of “ballot-box biology”

Proponents of the hunting ban say it is a way to address unethical hunting methods, like the use of dogs, and whether hunting is necessary to manage lion populations. Opponents say it is another example of “ballot-box biology” that lets the majority make decisions often left to wildlife managers.

Apker disagrees the initiative is “ballot-box biology” — he doesn’t think it’s about biology at all. Instead, the question is a broader referendum on hunting as a whole, he said.

“The bottom line is that there are people who think hunting is wrong,” said Apker, who has voiced his opposition to the ballot measure publicly.

Proponents of the ban say hunting for mountain lions is trophy hunting because hunters are allegedly seeking the thrill of the hunt as well as the skins and heads of lions — not the meat. The ballot measure, if passed, would ban trophy hunting, defined as hunting “practiced primarily for the display of an animal’s head, fur, or other body parts, rather than for utilization of the meat.”

Cougar hunters have said repeatedly that while they do often pose with their kill — just like elk and deer hunters — they also eat the meat and are not hunting solely for a trophy. Colorado law requires that mountain lion meat be prepared for consumption by hunters. Gates, from the hunters association, has made steaks, tacos and burritos from lion meat.

“Not only do people eat mountain lion, but they also cherish mountain lion,” he said.

But ballot initiative supporters express doubt — Miller, for one, says there’s no way to know whether meat is eaten. The campaign is not against hunting, she said, but opposes unethical hunting.

“There are plenty of other species to hunt that aren’t so problematic under hunting ethics,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project and a lifelong hunter, during a news conference last month in support of the ban.

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The bill was introduced in the U.S. House late last month. If passed, it would make it easier for states to cover treatment for drug abuse, like inpatient hospital stays or residential treatment, via Medicaid, in part by ensuring that the federal government will cover 90% of new costs in the first five years after a state adopts the program.

Under current law, Medicaid doesn’t cover drug treatment. States can request coverage via a waiver system, as Colorado did after Pettersen, then a state House member, passed a bill requiring it do so in 2018. Several states have pursued waivers, but many haven’t. The waiver process can be cumbersome and time-consuming, presenting a decisive — or convenient — barrier for states who may already be leery about drug treatment, said Rob Valuck, the head of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.

The bill would remove that barrier by allowing states to begin offering Medicaid-covered treatment without seeking a waiver.

Pettersen, a first-term Democrat running for reelection in the 7th Congressional District west of Denver and Colorado Springs, unveiled the measure in Denver on Thursday with her mother, who is in long-term recovery from heroin use. Valuck and Attorney General Phil Weiser were also among the attendees.

“My mom is an example of what’s possible when people struggling with substance use disorder have access to the resources and support they need, but I know she was one of the lucky ones,” Pettersen said in a statement. “Far too many people are left without care because of the stigma associated with addiction and the lack of funding and priorities at every level of government.”

Pettersen previewed the bill to The Denver Post last summer as she began working to take substance use policies passed in Colorado — ranging from Medicaid coverage to overdose antidote access — to the federal level. Her efforts come amid a national overdose crisis fueled by the synthetic opioid fentanyl. More than 107,000 Americans fatally overdosed last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That represented a 3% decline from 2022’s death toll, though it is still high enough to register as one of the worst overdose years in American history.

Her public unveiling of the bill — at a Denver facility where her mother once received treatment — came a few days after Aug. 31’s Overdose Awareness Day. Fatal overdoses increased slightly in Colorado last year but hit a record high in Denver, according to the city’s overdose dashboard. Denver activists held an Overdose Grief Day on Aug. 31 to call for additional action from city officials to address the crisis.

Valuck said it would be difficult to pass substantive drug policy through this current Congress — especially given that Democrats, like Pettersen, are in the minority in the House. But he argued that it was “unconscionably bizarre” for Medicaid not to cover drug abuse treatment, and he said that allowing it to do so will save states money in criminal justice and health care costs.

“Those are the two ways people end up getting care if you don’t pay for treatment: They go to the emergency room or they go to jail,” he said. “That’s the de facto treatment system if you don’t cover it under Medicaid. ”

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Passed as House Bill 1003 during the legislature’s special session last month, the law extends in perpetuity an exemption that was set to expire in tax year 2027. Personal property used to generate income for a business is typically taxed, though several exemptions exist.

This law extends the exemption that applies to agricultural equipment used on a farm or ranch to equipment used in controlled environmental agricultural facilities.

Nonpartisan legislative analysts did not have an estimate of how many facilities or how much money would be affected by the exemption.

“Colorado is proud to put food on tables across the state and around the world, and the success of our agricultural businesses and entrepreneurs is a key part of that,” Polis said in a news release after signing the bill into law during a ceremony at an Aurora greenhouse. “Today we are breaking down barriers and cutting taxes for Colorado greenhouses, helping to keep more money in the pockets of the hardworking Coloradans who help strengthen our economy.”

The measure was one of two bills to become law from the recently concluded special session on property taxes. The other, House Bill 1001, cut state assessment rates and was the lynchpin of a deal that stopped two ballot initiatives that would have forced deeper property tax cuts.

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The suit, which names Gov. Jared Polis and state Treasurer Dave Young, was filed in Denver District Court by several mostly rural counties on the Western Slope, plus metro Denver’s Douglas County. They allege that a bill passed by the legislature earlier this year would “substantially deplete” — if not zero out — a portion of severance tax revenue that’s intended “to offset the impact” of oil and gas extraction.

That bill, the bipartisan House Bill 1413, took $25 million in severance tax funds and directed them to the general fund, which is the state’s primary spending account. It was one of a handful of transfers that aided in balancing the budget.

The counties — Mesa, Douglas, Garfield, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose and Rio Blanco — are asking a Denver judge to rule that the transfer was illegal and to prohibit transfers in the future that would “deplete” the fund.

At a county commission meeting at the end of August, Mesa commissioners accused the legislature of taking the money to balance the state budget, and Commissioner Janet Rowland said it was an “insult to injury.”

The counties said in their suit that they have used the money for transportation, public health, and senior and animal welfare services. The distributions made up between 0.6% (in Montrose County’s case) and 3.65% (for Montezuma County) of the their 2023 expenditures.

“As a result of depletion of the (fund), the (counties) and their communities will be deprived of critical funds on which they have come to heavily rely, and on which they intended to rely moving forward for established and new service programs alike,” the counties’ lawyers wrote in the suit.

According to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs website, $25 million is available for local governments in the Energy/Mineral Impact Assistance Fund Grant program; that’s the account from which legislative staff recommended lawmakers transfer the money. Applications for those grants opened July 1.

A spokeswoman for the department was unable to provide comment Thursday.

The legislature has moved severance tax dollars into its general fund before, as Republican lawmakers who opposed the transfer noted during floor debates in the spring. Staff for the Joint Budget Committee, a group of six lawmakers tasked with creating the state’s budget and guiding fiscal policy, recommended the $25 million transfer in March.

Spokespeople for Polis and Young did not provide comment Thursday. A message left for Rep. Shannon Bird, who chairs the powerful Joint Budget Committee and co-sponsored the bill, was not returned.

Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who also co-sponsored the bill, said he needed to double-check the details of the various funds’ background and details before commenting specifically.

But he said the transfers were necessary.

“None of us on the (Joint Budget Committee) were happy about that, at all,” he said. “It’s just — we got some surprises thrown at us at the very end of the session, and we had to balance that budget.”

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The legislature passed House Bill 1001 last week during its second property tax-focused special session in the past year. Polis called lawmakers back to the Capitol in mid-August to ratify the deal his office and legislative leaders had struck with Advance Colorado, a conservative advocacy group, and Colorado Concern, a business organization backing Advance Colorado’s ballot measures.

The deal called for additional property tax cuts, on top of larger reductions passed in May, in exchange for Advance Colorado removing two ballot measures that would have cut taxes more steeply and capped property tax growth more stringently for local governments and districts.

“With this final piece, I think we have the predictability and stability we need to save homeowners money and do budgeting for schools and make sure we do not have the resurgence of the negative factor,” Polis said. He was referring to the budgeting mechanism that had chronically underfunded state schools for years, but which state officials ended in this fiscal year’s budget.

Polis had previously said he would not sign the bill into law until the two ballot measures — initiatives 50 and 108 — were formally pulled from the ballot. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Wednesday morning that both had been withdrawn.

The deal also included a promise from Advance Colorado not to pursue additional property tax-cutting measures for at least six years. No statutory requirement underpins that promise, but House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat and one of HB-1001’s sponsors, expressed hope during Wednesday’s ceremony that “this is the end of our conversations about property tax for at least the next six years.”

“It is unfortunate that we had to play defense — that we had to come forward and provide yet additional relief — because wealthy interests in this state continue to bring forward ballot measures that would ultimately undermine the stability of our communities,” imperil school funding and put budgets for local services like fire departments at risk, she said. Those risks elevated frustrations that had been prominent within her caucus last month.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican and another sponsor, called the legislation passed this year “the largest property tax cut in Colorado’s history,” though the impact of the special session bill is smaller than a companion bill passed by lawmakers in the spring.

“When you combine what’s going to happen with 2025, with 2026, it’s nearly $2.4 billion,” she said.

The bill signed Wednesday initially adds roughly $254 million in additional cuts to the $1.3 billion worth of reductions approved in May. The bulk of the latest cuts will benefit commercial property, according to an analysis by the Colorado Fiscal Institute, a progressive think tank.

Polis said those reductions should benefit commercial tenants — who, he said, typically foot the bill for increased property taxes.

For homeowners, the measure is expected to clip between $60 and $80 from a typical property tax bill in the 2025 tax year, plus roughly $179 the following year. That’s on top of an average $400 in savings from the measure passed in May.

For supporters in the legislature, the compromise meant accepting relatively modest additional tax relief in exchange for neutralizing two ballot measures that Democrats said would have “catastrophic” and “draconian” effects on state and local budgets.

“I believe today marks the culmination of at least six years’ worth of work,” said Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and another architect of the deal. He was referring to the work undertaken to repeal the Gallagher Amendment in 2020 — and then grapple with the loss of that law’s tax-stabilizing protection for homeowners.

Twenty-two legislators out of 100 voted against the deal during its journey through the Capitol last week. Most were Democrats frustrated that it was negotiated behind closed doors with deep-pocketed conservative and business groups.

Critics repeatedly likened the situation to negotiating with hostage-takers, and some Democrats spent last week referring to Advance Colorado’s president, Michael Fields, as “Gov. Fields.”

Several legislators told The Denver Post last week that they doubted the armistice would last. That feeling was in part rooted in a lack of trust between the initiatives’ backers and legislators, many of whom thought that the measure passed in May was already a compromise.

On Wednesday, the deal’s architects struck a more optimistic tune. Polis said he hoped the deal would provide property tax stability for a generation, and his office — in its release announcing the bill-signing — heralded that “the property tax wars are over.”

Kirkmeyer thanked Advance Colorado and the initiatives’ proponents and said that though there had been “trust issues,” the proponents had kept their word.

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Eric Joss, the Libertarian nominee in the 8th Congressional District, announced the armistice with Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans during a press conference Tuesday night. Evans, a freshman legislator from Fort Lupton, signed a “pledge of liberty” to secure Joss’ support.

The pledge includes promises to oppose “military adventurism” while supporting a peaceful end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and “fundamental reform” of the U.S. Department of Education, among other issues.

Evans said he signed the pledge after some changes were made, including removing language calling for the abolishment of U.S. intelligence services.

“Eric and I are united in our determination to rein in the size, scope, cost and corruption of government,” Evans said in a statement. “Beating big government starts with defeating” U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the Democrat who currently holds the seat.

Last summer, the state Libertarian Party agreed not to run candidates against Republicans in contested races if the state Republican Party backed “liberty-leaning candidates.” That deal came after the previous race for the 8th Congressional District turned on a tight margin: Caraveo won the seat in 2022, beating Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer by 1,632 votes in the first election to represent the newly created district.

In that race, the Libertarian candidate, Richard Ward, garnered more than 9,200 votes.

On Tuesday night, Joss criticized Caraveo as a “rubber-stamp” on President Joe Biden’s agenda. During her nearly two years in Congress, Caraveo has pursued a moderate path and is one of the most moderate House members, according to the accountability and transparency website GovTrack.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Caraveo campaign manager Mary Alice Blackstock accused Evans and Joss of making a “backroom deal.” Blackstock said Caraveo’s record “speaks for itself. Come November, voters will decide between a Congresswoman who has delivered real results and a political opportunist siding with the extremes.”

Colorado Secretary of State spokesman Jack Todd said Joss had not formally pulled his name from the ballot as of Wednesday morning. The deadline to do so is Friday.

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WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris is using a New Hampshire campaign stop on Wednesday to propose an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses — presenting a pro-entrepreneur plan that may soften her previous calls for wealthy Americans and large corporations to pay higher taxes.

She wants to expand from $5,000 to $50,000 tax incentives for small business startup expenses, with the goal of eventually spurring 25 million new small business applications over four years. Harris is making the announcement while visiting the Portsmouth area, across the Piscataqua River from Maine.

New Hampshire has been reliably blue in recent presidential elections, but the trip could also have some benefit across state lines since Maine splits its electoral votes, allowing candidates to win some without carrying the full state. Still, it marks a rare deviation from Harris spending most of her time visiting a tight group of Midwest and Sun Belt battlegrounds likely to decide November’s election.

Since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris, the vice president has focused on the “ blue wall ” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that have been the centerpiece of successful Democratic campaigns.

She’s also frequently visited Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, all of which Biden narrowly won in 2020, and North Carolina, which she’s still hoping to flip from Republican former President Donald Trump.

Wednesday’s stop comes after Harris marked Labor Day with Monday rallies in Detroit and Pittsburgh and before she heads back to Pittsburgh on Friday — marking her 10th visit to Pennsylvania in 2024. By contrast, Wednesday is her first visit to New Hampshire in years.

Trump has called for lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% — a break with Biden who in his budget proposal in March suggested setting the corporate tax rate at 28%. Harris has released relatively few major policy proposals in the roughly six weeks since taking over the top of the Democratic ticket, but has not suggested she’s planning to deviate greatly from his administration on tax policy.

The small business plan Harris is presenting Wednesday has lots of facets that many in the business community would like. But that contrasts another proposal Harris unveiled last month, where she promised to help fight inflation by working to combat “price gouging” from food producers that she suggests have driven grocery store prices up unnecessarily.

Harris has built her campaign around calls to grow and strengthen the nation’s middle class — and suggested that rich Americans and large corporations should “pay their fair share” in higher taxes.

Biden, who similarly built his campaign around promoting the middle class, won New Hampshire by 7 percentage points in 2020, but Trump came much closer to winning it against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Still, the Harris campaign notes that it has 17 field offices operating in coordination with the state Democratic party across New Hampshire, compared to one for Trump’s campaign.

Some of the state’s Democrats were angry that Biden directed the Democratic National Committee to make South Carolina the first state to vote in the party’s presidential primary this year — displacing Iowa’s caucus and a first-in-the-nation primary New Hampshire held for more than a century.

Despite that, New Hampshire pressed ahead with an unsanctioned primary. Though Biden didn’t campaign in it, or appear on the ballot, he still easily won via a write-in drive.

Trump is nonetheless hoping to use what happened to his advantage, posting on his social media account that Harris “sees there are problems for her campaign in New Hampshire because of the fact that they disrespected it in their primary and never showed up.”

“Additionally, the cost of living in New Hampshire is through the roof, their energy bills are some of highest in the country, and their housing market is the most unaffordable in history,” the former president wrote. “I protected New Hampshire’s First-In-The-Nation Primary and ALWAYS will.”

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