QUIDNUNC: Fort Collins acts on the end of conservatism in Colorado

QUID HAS HEARD that the moaning you hear is coming from what’s left of the Republican Party in Colorado. Seems the rapidly evaporating GOP is red-faced about the bluing of Fort Collins. Seriously. Fort Collins. That city’s council this week took it upon themselves to outlaw oil companies from fracking within Fort Collins City limits. Yes, the former Republican stronghold, a place where those in pick-em-up trucks once sported multiple Bush-Cheney stickers above the dangling trailer hitch testicles used to be a prime place to sneer at tree-hugging Boulderites to the south, where fracking is legal. What’s worse, this once righty-tighty community is doing battle against Colorado’s liberal Democrat Gov. John Hickenlooper, who says he’ll sue extreme-left cities like Fort Collins from keeping frackers at bay. Next up: Colorado Springs is expected to open a homeless shelter to gay, illegal immigrants with an atheist bent to work in city-subsidized legal-pot shops. Welcome to the new Colorado.

AND QUID HAS HEARD that RTD officials are much more confident in their future Aurora light-rail service than they are their current bus offerings. Seems that when the whole RTD and political world descended on central Aurora last week to celebrate the miraculous ground-breaking of the I-225 FasTracks light-rail line, RTD hoo-haws were handing out vouchers for free rides on a train that won’t run for at least three years. They’re that confident they’ll keep everything on track this time. And after patting each other on the back and rubbing elbows with folks who just can’t say enough good about mass transit and how important it is to a city like Aurora, they all climbed back in their cars and went on with their lives, even though Aurora’s biggest RTD bus station was just a few steps away. It must be transit for other masses.

AND QUID HAS HEARD that in another part of Aurora’s bureaucratic world, the University of Colorado folks have done it again in creating an unwieldy and unintelligible collection of letters to represent something equally as labyrinthine. From the people who brought you The University of Colorado Denver in Aurora Anschutz Medical Campus Cancer Center and Parking Palooza, they offer the state, “University of Colorado Health,” proudly branded as UCHealth. What is it? It’s what you call what used to be the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center but what is now the University of Colorado Hospital after it eats giant hospitals in Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Laramie, Wyoming. Yeah, they have a hospital there. So even though UCDIAAMCCCPP marketing types like to refer to the former University of Colorado Health Sciences Center as UCH, that’s not to be confused with UCHealth, which is not pronounced “uch-elth” or “uck-health” or “you-chealth.” In fact, Quid recommends you not say it at all since history would show that it won’t remain whatever it is for very long.

AND THAT’S ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS.