Aurora, and all of Colorado, face unprecedented challenges this year as economic pressures on middle- and lower-income residents increase and a Trump administration unwelcome by the state and the city brings endless uncertainty.
State lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis in their state-of-the-state events and missives have spot-on targeted key issues that must be addressed in this General Assembly session.
Polis has taken to calling the Centennial State the “Free” State of Colorado.
It is.
Colorado stands out among almost all others in offering its residents rights and freedoms being eliminated by misguided or miscreant federal and state lawmakers in other places.
Colorado relishes the right bestowed on all residents to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions in consultation with their physicians.
The state is proud of locally directed school systems that teach history as it occurred and not as political leaders would rather students believe.
Children in Colorado are free to question anything they want, even their own sexuality.
It’s not by accident. Colorado has long been a place where elected government leaders use “personal liberties” as a touchstone, rather than populism.
Colorado was an early state in granting voting rights to women. It was Colorado Republican legislators and a Republican governor that made this the first state to legalize abortion.
Polis is right to point out Colorado’s “Free” state philosophy as a new Trump administration and subservient House and Senate caucus members make good on threats to undermine the rights of Americans, and Colorado residents.
Aurora is home to tens of thousands of immigrants, many of whom are DACA recipients. Many are bestowed temporary protective status or given a “time out,” making them “legal.” But they are rightfully scared and in danger.
Polis and state Democratic leaders have agreed that any and all assistance, including that from federal immigration and other agencies, will be welcome in identifying any criminals, including those people who are undocumented immigrants.
We caution Polis, as well as state and local lawmakers, however, in ensuring that any assistance given to federal officials be linked directly to crimes and victims, and that any cooperation between local or state police and federal officials be regularly monitored to ensure only actual suspects of crimes be identified to ICE or other federal officials.
The concern that anti-immigrant sentiment could lead to false reporting simply to trigger deportation is real. More real is the fear that threats of “mass deportation” and cooperative state and local authorities creates in the immigrant community, leading to crime and all kinds of human suffering.
The Sentinel also applauds any initiative by Polis and state lawmakers to make good on promises to unravel the knot that has become the Regional Transportation District and other mass-transit disappointments.
It doesn’t take a traffic engineer to see that what is essentially the same metro highway system built in the 1970s to handle 1970s-level traffic is woefully inadequate in a metroplex that has grown from about 700,000 people to more than 2 million.
We have created a state requiring automobile commutes in a city choked by those commuters. Meanwhile trains and buses run nearly empty, or chronically late, or not at all, at an enormous $1.2 billion annual public expense.
Since RTD administrators and board members cannot create a system that makes riding it practical for at least most people who live here, it’s past time for state lawmakers and the Polis administration to step in with workable solutions.
Likewise, Colorado lawmakers have for decades chased their political tails in trying to solve the exasperating “construction defect” quagmire.
This perennial problem began during past construction booms, primarily in the 1980s, when metro land was relatively cheap and condos and townhomes were fast and easy to build — and fill. Ill-suited or incompetent local-government building departments allowed for all kinds of shoddy construction, some of it resulting in ruinously expensive foundation or structural problems. Even the Aurora fire department and other government structures have been stricken by shoddy builders and construction companies.
As victimized homeowners began to sue, state lawmakers came to corrupt builders’ rescue, making equitable and class-action lawsuits nearly impossible.
Pressured by increasing horror stories of homeowners losing everything to the scandal, the pendulum swung the other way, protecting the ability of homeowners to let the courts decide construction defect cases.
For years since, builders and developers have blamed that change in state law for their resistance to build condos and townhomes, far more affordable than single family homes and shutting out an entire generation from entry-level home ownership.
Critics of the developer and builder complaints point instead to simple market forces. Single family homes are just more profitable and more popular, they say.
We hope Polis and both the House and Senate unravel the reality and facts behind the problem. If it calls for tax incentives to lure developers to the condo table, provide them. If the problem is unavailable or unaffordable insurance, the state should step in to underwrite realistic policies, contingent on providing them only in towns and governments with adequate and accountable building inspection programs.
But it would be unconscionable to gamble the life savings of residents on nothing but the good will of developers and builders. The courts stand ready to remedy all kinds of warranty and guarantee disputes across the state. Home-builder warranties should not be an exception.
