Good Colorado Sunday, friends.
It was a long week and I spent too much time hunched over my laptop. This weekend, I’ll be looking for a longer view. I have a few in mind — the drive east on Larimer County Road 74E from Red Feather Lakes, where geological time seems to unfold through the windshield, or maybe the weirdly pastoral run down Interstate 25 between Castle Rock and Monument, where were it not for the traffic, you could be convinced you were traveling through long-ago Colorado.
Some of these views are preserved because people are still using the land for farms and ranches. But in both locations, much of the vastness is protected by conservation easements, and for that, I am grateful. It means they will be free of development in perpetuity. At least in theory. This week’s cover story by Jerd Smith takes a look at the massive number of acres protected in Colorado and examines one case in which those charged with defending the view failed in their duties.
Dana Coffield
Editor
The Cover Story
Out of sight, out of mind
Upper Gulch Lake Road heads west as it bisects conservation easements for Greenland Ranch on the left and JA Ranch to the right. (Michael Ciaglo, Special to The Colorado Sun)In the late 1990s, fast-growing Colorado was watching its vast Western landscapes disappear beneath waves of new homes. Conservationists went to work to protect view corridors, mountainsides and historic ranches. Soon a nationally noted conservation easement program was created, granting landowners who agreed to forfeit future development rights on their land access to lucrative tax credits.
Since then the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars issuing the credits. Roughly 6% of the state’s total land mass has been protected.
But fast forward to 2025, and problems with protecting these spectacular parcels are starting to appear. Now conservationists are sounding the alarm, saying old easement agreements aren’t being honored and the state isn’t doing enough to hold those who violate them to account.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
^jerdsmith^1
The Colorado Lens
Visual journalists offer a unique point of view. These are our favorite recent images, pointing out the past, the future, the danger and just pointing.
Cleo Parker Robinson, founder, artistic director and choreographer of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, uses her phone to take a photo of herself in her debutante group photo Thursday as State Historical Fund Director Marcie Moore Gantz, left, points out other archival photos hanging in the Owl Club of Denver. The all-Black philanthropic social club was founded in 1941 and was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun) The Owl Club has presented a group of young women as debutantes every year since 1951. Cleo Parker Robinson, who went on to create Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, was presented in 1966. She is fourth from the left in the top row. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun) When the Professional Bull Riders rolled out of town, community leaders were left wondering what to do with the huge, Regional Tourism Act-funded PBR Sports Performance Center along Pueblo’s riverwalk. Joe Arrigo, Southern Colorado Science Center chair, hopes to transform it into the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America by the end of 2025. The plan crossed a major hurdle in February, when it received approval from the Colorado Economic Development Commission. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun) Elements of exhibits curated by Artisans of Florence are stored in igloos that once held munitions and chemical weapons at the PuebloPlex facility. The pieces are shipped to museums across North America for exhibition. Artisans of Florence is one of the partners in the proposed Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun) An avalanche Feb. 22 on Gravel Mountain near Grand Lake swept up four snowmobilers, all of whom escaped uninjured. A skier caught in a slide on Berthoud Pass that day did not survive. (Courtesy CAIC) State Rep. Jenny Willford, D-Northglenn, jokes with her colleagues on the Colorado House floor Feb. 21 at the Colorado Capitol in Denver. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)Eric Lubbers | CTO & Newsletter Wrangler
Flavor of the Week
All-you-can-eat Picasso smorgasbord for $8 or less
A detail from “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe,” a 1961 linocut by Pablo Picasso. It is one of a series inspired by the work of the same name by Édouard Manet.Local museums and the traveling exhibits they hire are a highly undervalued resource. And sometimes underpriced.
Take for example the Longmont Museum, where “A Graphic Journey: Prints by Pablo Picasso,” is on view through May 5. For $8 or less, you can wander among 60 original works, experience a stunning trip through Picasso’s artistic evolution and observe how he exploited and experimented with lithography and linocuts from 1923 to 1972.
The place isn’t busy, so you can linger as long as you like and imagine how he inked blocks, then pressed them to handmade papers to create voluptuous images from only a color or two.
Longmont Museum: 400 Quail Road, Longmont. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission $8 adults; $5 students and seniors.
Dana Coffield | Editor
SunLit: Sneak Peek
“Brittle Bones”: A TV reporter, an unearthed body, a cozy mystery
“‘For the record, we know nothing yet except that there is a body we are extracting from the basement.’”
— From “Brittle Bones”
EXCERPT: Author Paulla Hunter packs a lot into her first chapter of “Brittle Bones,” the third installment in her mystery series built around TV reporter Darcy Moreland. This winner of the Colorado Authors League award for cozy mystery not only introduces a body dug up from a basement, but revisits a paused love affair with the detective investigating the scene.
READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Lest you think the premise of finding a body buried in the basement stretches the bounds of reality, Hunter explains that her inspiration for this book came from a friend whose newly purchased house contained a corpse in the crawl space. She also got a helpful assist from a real-life crime scene investigator. Here’s a portion of her Q&A:
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Hunter: When I was at a writing conference at the Denver chapter of Rocky Mountains Fiction Writers, I went to a session that was given by a retired CSI, and he talked about the process of securing the scene and what possible information they can glean. He also said if we had any questions, feel free to email him. I asked him how he could determine the two bodies’ approximate dates of death. He was amazingly helpful. And I thank him in the book.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH PAULLA HUNTER
Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
Channeling Shel Silverstein, cartoonist Jim Morrissey captures the urgency of filling a massive Colorado budget deficit with all revenue possibilities on the table. (Jim Morrissey, Special to The Colorado Sun)? The firing ax that fell on U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service workers trimmed the already tiny staffs at Amache National Historical Site in Grenada and Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site near Eads. Kevin Simpson reports on the staff impacts and the worries of the volunteers who support the remote outposts that caretake particularly troublesome chapters of American history.
? Add to the list of losses caused by mass government agency firings ordered by the Trump White House the resignation of White River National Forest boss Scott Fitzwilliams. Jason Blevins reports on the departure that one Eagle County commissioner called a loss of skills and commitment that is not replaceable.
? In local political news, we’ve got two hats thrown into the ring for the Democratic primary for attorney general — so far. Boulder County DA Michael Dougherty went first. Then former House Speaker and labor union leader Crisanta Duran stepped up. State Rep. Briana Titone is the first to file for the treasurer’s race. And U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet maybe probably will join Attorney General Phil Weiser in the Democratic primary for governor. Jesse Paul expects more to follow.
? Last week’s hot-button bill is a measure to regulate “earned wage access” services, which allow people to draw on their paychecks before they’re actually paid. Democrats are divided, Brian Eason reports, because some see it as just another form of payday lending.
? Oh yeah. The state budget. This is still causing heartache for schools. Erica Breunlin reports on the budget scenarios rural school districts are running through, and the push by some other districts to just pull off the bandage already.
? Here’s an inconvenient truth: Colorado’s standing-dead forests now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb. (Thanks, beetles!) Tracy Ross reports on the problem.
? How much bang does Colorado get for tax bucks remitted to the federal government? John Ingold looked at the data and found out most of the time, we send in more money than we get back.
? Colorado’s next great ski area might be a really old ski area revived by a Summit County guy with a vision for a hill high above the Climax mine on Fremont Pass. Jason Blevins also has the deets on nearby Ski Cooper, where the price of weekday tickets has been slashed in half.
Dana Coffield | Editor
Thanks for being our loyal friends. We appreciate you so much and will see you here again next week.
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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