In The NoCo

People tend to trust local and state leaders more than federal lawmakers. A recent Gallup poll found that 59% of Americans have faith in state government yet only a third of respondents trust federal legislators. But, as we’ve learned time and again from our reporting at KUNC, transparency is a problem at all levels of government. For the last year, KUNC investigative reporter Scott Franz has been uncovering an example of this at the Colorado statehouse. His reporting highlighted how Democratic lawmakers have been using a secret voting system to decide which bills to consider. Those lawmakers now face a lawsuit. And the first hearing in that suit happened last week. Scott joins us to explain some of the twists and turns of it all — and what’s next.

There’s a long history of Americans taking to the streets to make their voices heard. To march, and to protest has come to define one of the more powerful ways people participate in our democracy. 

Recently a group of local immigration activists embarked on a long-distance march that mirrored the multi-day marches of the Civil Rights Movement. Members of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition walked for four days on a 60-mile journey that began at the Colorado State Capitol. They slept in churches along the way and talked with community members before ending the march in Greeley at the district office of Rep. Yadira Caraveo, Colorado’s first Latina member of Congress. 

Activists want Caraveo, and Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper, to sign onto what is known as the registry bill. The federal legislation would update a decades-old law, creating a pathway for citizenship for millions of immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than seven years.

We heard from one of the people who marched — Omar Gomez, a Boulder County resident from Mexico — and Raquel Lane-Arellano of the Immigrant Rights Coalition. She helped organize the march and offered support to activists along their route.

Longmont-based author and journalist Stephen Robert Miller is fascinated by climate disaster stories. He says they’re often teachable moments.

“There’s so much to be learned from looking in the past — environmental histories and instances of when people have tried to control nature and ultimately it's failed,” Miller says.

In his new book, “Over the Seawall,” Miller examines the deeper impacts of some of these failures. He investigates how governments and people are using infrastructure to slow or stop the effects or the symptoms of climate change. For example, giant concrete barriers in Japan meant to stop tsunamis — or dams and canals in Arizona meant to make a desert move-in ready for lots of people. Government policies created to manage the Colorado River and distribute water among its unquenchable stakeholders are another example. 

In other words, Miller says people are keen to adapt and that seems great, “but it can also be tricky if it causes us to rush into rash decisions,” he said. He joined host Erin O'Toole to talk about his new book and some of humanity’s attempts to adapt to climate change that have ended badly.

Musician Domi Edson’s move from Seattle to Colorado wasn’t fueled by the typical cliched reasons. She came for the jazz. “I had heard really good things about both the size and the quality of the jazz scene here,” Edson told In The NoCo’s Erin O’Toole. It is a scene defined by sense of place — Edson says the local jazz world has a quintessential “Colorado vibe.” 

“It’s just a very positive thing to be part of,” she said. Musicians challenge each other and clubs are committed to elevating local artists, she explained.

Edson is a bass player who heads her own jazz trio. Her latest project hits just right for this time of year — a collection of traditional Hanukkah songs reinterpreted in her signature jazz style. So, with Hanukkah beginning tonight at sundown, she joined us to talk about the genesis of this project and more.

You can hear the Domi Edson Trio perform an album release party Sunday, December 10 at The Muse in Lafayette. Find her newest album, A Jazzy Hanukkah, at domiedson.com.

Amid Israel’s intensifying military campaign in Gaza, more than 2,000 people gathered in Denver last week for the Jewish National Fund's annual Global Conference for Israel. The violence in Gaza follows an attack by Hamas militants in October that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel. Hamas took hundreds more hostage. Since then, Israel Defense Forces have killed more than 15,000 in Gaza and displaced roughly three-quarters of Gaza residents. 

As the conference got underway, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Colorado Convention Center to demand a ceasefire and call attention to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

“I've lost over 70 family members over the past two months in Gaza. I don't want my home to be destroyed,” said Abdullah Elagha, a Denver resident from Gaza.

Some Jews attending the conference felt vulnerable amid the protesters' shouts and the heightened reports of anti-Semitism nationwide. 

“We're under attack as Jews and as Zionists, and I think we're so lucky to have this conference as a time to support one another,” said Cheris Kline-Berlinberg of Denver.

Ian Sachs traveled from Arizona to attend the conference. He said the protesters didn’t bother him, that he felt safe, especially with the presence of Denver Police. Still, rising anti-Semitism is top of mind for him right now. 

“When it turns into Jews being targeted that aren't Israeli or have nothing to do with this, and I've got kids, and for me to have a military security guard at their Jewish day school … you know, my blood boils,” he said.

Outside the conference, many of the protesters also happened to be Jews with many of the protests organized in part, by the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. In the last few months,   it has grown from 10 people advocating for Palestinian freedom to 120 activists,  including 15 who were arrested on Sunday for blocking an intersection at Speer Boulevard and Champa Street. Across the country, more Jews are speaking out against the Israeli government and in support of a ceasefire. 

Protester Franny Alani from Denver says that was once taboo in many Jewish communities. “I went to a very conservative synagogue growing up, If you expressed, you know, any critique or dissonance around Zionism, you were immediately alienated, silenced,” she said.

In The NoCo producer Mickey Capper spoke with protesters and people attending the conference about how the conversation is shifting in the Jewish community, including protester Allie Cannington. (Mickey was surprised to recognize them from his Jewish Day School.) 

“It tears me up that supporting Palestine is equated to being anti-Semitic,” Cannington said. “It is critical that we show up, as Jews, that we communicate they're unapologetic, uncritical stand with Israel is wrong.”

Both inside and outside the conference, we heard people express that they want everyone —Jews and Palestinians —in Israel, Gaza, and beyond, to be safe. But it was difficult for them to agree on what safety looks like.

“I am an American Jew, but Israel is still my home,” said Kline-Berlinberg. “Right now there's a lot of anti-Semitism in the world — and in Israel, we can be safe.”

In Cannington’s eyes, it’s impossible to justify the loss of life in the name of Israel’s security and safety. “There is no way that our safety can be sustained if it comes at the expense of other people. We can't use our fear as a catalyst to murder other people.”

We unpacked some of these perspectives with Ira Chernus, professor emeritus of religious studies at University of Colorado Boulder. He has been speaking out against the Israeli government's actions since Israel’s occupation of Palestine began in 1967. He shared with In The NoCo how the conversation about Israeli policies within American Jewish communities has changed over the decades.

The trauma of domestic violence is a scar that survivors carry with them for many years — and often silently. A recent report from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office tells us that more people in Colorado are enduring this kind of abuse, and not surviving it. 

It shows the number of domestic violence deaths in 2022 was roughly 1.5 times higher in comparison to the last seven years. A lot of factors seem to be intensifying this crisis. For one, in Colorado, as in many other states, a lack of affordable housing makes it especially difficult to escape an abuser. 

Firearms also play a major role. More than 80 percent of domestic violence deaths were the result of gun injuries. This tracks with recent research from Stanford University showing people who have a gun in the home face a much higher likelihood of dying from homicides, a risk of so-called second-hand gun ownership. 

“When we think about the second-hand risks of gun ownership, we're really talking about a population that is predominantly female,” said David Studdert, the lead researcher at Stanford. Studdert’s research was focused in California, though the threats of second-hand gun ownership can be observed in many other places, like Colorado. 

Given the holiday season is in full swing, we want to keep this issue front and center — because for people in domestic violence situations, this time of year can mean more time at home and more exposure to abusers.

Dani Souza, outreach coordinator for A Woman's Place, Weld County's only domestic violence shelter, sat down with In The NoCo’s Erin O’Toole to discuss what she’s seeing.

RESOURCES: If you or someone you know is seeking help with a domestic violence situation, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 800-799-SAFE (7233); and A Woman's Place has guidance for creating a safety plan here.    

The sugar beet industry began in Colorado right around 1900. Today it's only a small part of the state's economy, but through the early part of the 20th century, beets were the most significant agricultural product grown here. They were so important to the economy that people  referred to sugar beets as 'white gold.' During this time, thousands of Hispanic and Mexican people came to Northern Colorado to work in the beet fields. Many of them eventually settled in Fort Collins - predominantly in what would come to be called the Tres Colonias – three neighborhoods that surrounded the Great Western Sugar Company.

Betty Aragon-Mitotes is something of an expert on the legacy of the families who settled in this area. She has been a longtime community leader, advocating for Hispanic and Latino communities. She co-founded a cultural center spotlighting the Tres Colonias neighborhoods, and is the founder and president of the nonprofit Mujeres de Colores, which educates and provides support to working-class and low-income families. 

This October, she was awarded the 2023 Polly Baca Raíces Fuertes Community Leader Award from Rep. Joe Neguse in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. She sat down with host Erin O'Toole to share more about this piece of Northern Colorado history.

Betty mentioned the Posada Christmas program, which is seeking donations of new, unwrapped toys, coats, hats, gloves and mittens. The event will take place Dec. 16, 2023.

Hollywood has long depicted Native Americans in the most problematic of ways. American Westerns are some of the biggest offenders. Their portrayals of Indigenous people as savagaes has only deepened the intergenerational trauma Native people face. But these portrayals and the film industry more broadly are changing, somewhat. 

“Killers of the Flower Moon” tells the story of a massacre that Osage people in Oklahoma faced in the 1920s. Its lead female character - Lily Gladstone who plays Molly Burkhart - is Blackfeet and Nez Perce. Her casting in the role is a huge deviation from what we normally see in popular films. A recent analysis by USC Annenberg found that Native women are nearly nonexistent in Hollywood movies. 

Still, representation is but one piece of this, and some Osage people who saw the film had mixed reactions. KUNC reporter Emma VandenEinde spoke with Osage citizens in Colorado to learn more. She joined the show to discuss some of her recent reporting.

During Jim Crow and even after those laws were overturned in the 1960s, green book sites were safe havens — places where Black Americans could stop when they were traveling without fear of discrimination or violence. The sites bear the namesake of what’s known as the Green Book. It contained listings for hotels, restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores and more. Terri Gentry says her grandparents never left home without that book. 

“We were traveling around the country, we were out exploring. We wanted to go see family members,” she said. “We felt like as citizens and with the National Park Service, we wanted to start engaging in different places and spaces around the country, but we had to navigate it very differently.”

Gentry is with History Colorado. She and her team are working to register green book sites throughout the state and add to the list of 160 places so far. She sat down with In The NoCo’s Robyn Vincent to discuss Colorado’s recent past — and the ways that this history has touched her personally.

Colorado’s wine producing roots trace back to the 1800s, when Italian miners brought wine culture to the state. The grape-growing industry would later become a casualty of Prohibition, when grape vines were torn from the earth at the government’s behest. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that wine started to make a comeback in the state. 

Today, wine culture in Colorado is having a moment. A recent Colorado State University study suggests Colorado’s wine country could keep expanding into new parts of the state. KUNC’s Rae Solomon recently sorted through the grapes and vines of it all. She tells us more, just in time for your holiday menu planning.