FEATURE: Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper held a webinar last week to address the current chaos caused by President Trump’s blitz on federal funding freezes. In his opening remarks, the Western Senator talked about the ‘anxiety’ the president’s executive orders are creating across the nation.
FEDERAL FUNDS: Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and attorneys general from seven other states are suing the U.S. Department of Education following the department’s abrupt decision to no longer fund grant programs that support teacher training programs, reports the Colorado Sun.
Weiser and the other attorneys general filed a lawsuit last week in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts against the department. They are seeking a temporary restraining order that would allow grant dollars to keep flowing to teacher training programs. You can read more at coloradosun.com
CORRECTION/UPDATE: Last week we reported the possible closure of the Delta Correctional Center due to a $1 billion dollar shortfall in the state’s budget. In the early rounds of the Joint Budget Committee session, Representative. Matt Soper told KVNF that the Colorado Department of Corrections was in favor of closing the level 1 facility west of Delta.
Following our reporting, KVNF was contacted by a spokesperson from the Department of Corrections to request a correction to Soper’s statements. In part, the DOC statement reads that “The Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) is not advocating for the closure of Delta Correctional Center, nor has the department recommended its closure.” The statement also noted that it will “ Relocate and expand the Beacon Program to Rifle this year and Delta Correctional Centers next year…. to enhance programming opportunities while meeting future bed space projections.”
You can find the full statement from the CDOC at KVNF Stories in the Story: Possible closure of the Delta Correctional Center
REGIONAL NEWS: Power companies have been blamed for sparking some catastrophic wildfires in our region. But should they be held responsible for that? Not if they’ve done everything they can to mitigate risks, according to several states in our region. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Hanna Merzbach explains.
