The True Story of Two Drifters Who Became Cannabis Pioneers
After the recent election, marijuana is now legal in some form in 25 states. Colorado, of course, was a trendsetter in this regard, legalizing pot for recreational use in 2014 with the passage of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘The debt that never dies’
Bill Daly knows how it feels to be haunted by debt collectors. “I got married, got divorced, we practically gave away the house,” he said. “I got the debt, and I finally gave up the ghost.” But debt...
View ArticleGREENE: The sad death of the happiest man in Denver
I’ve been struggling to write about Sylvester Tally for three weeks now. With each interview I’ve done since his Nov. 28th suicide, I’ve heard about the Tally I knew – the affable, inquisitive and...
View ArticleObama’s lasting legacies in the West
This story originally appeared in High Country News. Eight years ago, President-elect Barack Obama wanted Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to be his Interior secretary. David Hayes, who was leading Obama’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Griego: The undeniable promise of Sun Valley
The rare celebratory press conference was held earlier this month in Sun Valley, the tucked-away Westside Denver community whose poverty has long been hidden on the other side of railroad tracks, the...
View ArticleGreene: Mitch Morrissey leaves his fingerprint
It was a year ago this week, and noon hour at the Brown Palace. Members of Denver’s City Club lunched on pork loins with cherry demi glace, then greeted their speaker. With 12 months left of his 12...
View ArticleGriego: My cousin, the Trump supporter
My cousin J Cruz comes over. He drives up from south of Denver to help me install some window shades, by which I mean he comes over to install shades while I watch. He is prepared with the appropriate...
View ArticleDenver Sheriff’s Department is flailing, despite reform efforts
Fifteen months after Denver Mayor Michael Hancock appointed Sheriff Patrick Firman as a “change agent” to reform the city’s jails, deputies see conditions as unchanged or even deteriorating....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Veterans feel ripped off by Colorado for-profit college
Mark Glogouski has a bad heart. He relies on a pacemaker and defibrillator to keep it pumping. His doctors have repeatedly told him to avoid heavy labor if he wants to stay alive. So Glogouski, a...
View ArticleViolence is surging in Denver’s jails
Assaults among inmates in Denver’s jails have increased 784 percent since 2011 and spiked dramatically in the past two years, according to data obtained by The Colorado Independent. The data also...
View ArticleColorado’s Democratic Party is reshuffling: Will it feel the Bern?
A national group backed by Bernie Sanders and his supporters is making a push to shake up the Democratic Party in Colorado, one of the few swing states that went for Hillary Clinton in November. The...
View ArticleVideo: When boom times fail the bottom line
It’s a paradox: In a booming economy, why would there be cuts to schools and local fire districts across Colorado? When the governor released recommendations for next year’s state budget back in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Cory Gardner’s Yuma
YUMA, Colorado — If you want to see the American political divide up close, pull up a chair around noon to the bar of the Main Event, a restaurant in this tiny Eastern Plains town home to U.S. Sen....
View ArticleClik here to view.
When private pain becomes a community problem
On a brisk, sunny day in mid-October, I drove through the affluent suburbs of Craig, Colorado, to a cottage-style house, where I’d been invited to breakfast. Josh Flaharty, a dark-haired 29-year-old...
View ArticleQ&A: Why the Colorado health department says fracking’s risk to health is “low”
Three weeks ago, University of Colorado researchers published a study linking diagnoses of a certain kind of blood cancer to the likelihood of living within 10 miles of oil and gas operations. Last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The state tried to save one Colorado school before and failed. Now it is...
A neighborhood school serving mostly black and Latino students had been failing for too long. Despite an all-out effort to boost test scores — even the mayor tutored kids on the weekends — the needle...
View ArticleFive follow-up questions on the I-70 project through Elyria-Swansea
At a tumultuous meeting last month in north Denver’s Swansea neighborhood, an angry crowd shouted down the Colorado Department of Transportation’s executive director as he tried to explain its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A dark money lawsuit, a colorful cast of characters, and Colorado’s citizen...
It sounds like the beginning of a joke: A former GOP congressman, a Koch-connected talk radio host, a pastor who once conducted an exorcism of Barack Obama’s “demons,” and a...
View ArticleColorado just banned ‘free speech zones’ on campus. Here’s what that means.
Maybe you went to a candidate rally on a Colorado university campus this campaign season and spotted a sign with an arrow directing you to a designated “free speech area.” As of the fall semester, on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Four of Colorado’s top climate scientists on grief, activism and hope.
Science, they say, is a left-brained endeavor. But, in light of today’s People’s Climate March and last week’s March on Science, The Colorado Independent sought out some decidedly right-brained...
View Article