Marianne Goodland Posts

Gov. John Hickenlooper used his annual State of the State speech last Thursday to chide lawmakers for failing to compromise last session on the state’s most pressing issues: the state’s budget, which he believes will have to be cut in 2016-17, changes to a hospital provider fee that could free up $1 billion over five years for transportation and education, and reforms to a state construction defects law that developers say prevents them from building affordable condominiums.

The most recent battle in the conservative attack on teachers’ unions erupted in Loveland’s Thompson School District. The fight comes in the wake of similar — and perhaps politically connected — squabbles in Jefferson County and Douglas County where conservative board members have tried to bulldoze the unions — and in JeffCo may get recalled instead.

As expected, today, the Obama administration announced the release of final rules creating the Clean Power Plan. In announcing the CPP, President Barack Obama said this generation is the first “to feel climate change – and the last that can do something about it.”