A two-tiered system of justice? Karman Line Annexation Update: water buy-ups and local democracy in action.
A two-tiered system of justice?
The Gazette's David Migoya has done remarkable work in our state. If you have ever asked yourself if there is a reporter that I greatly respect and admire (given my repeated jabs at the press in Colorado) this is one.
He has done yeoman's work in the last couple of years on accountability for the judicial system in Colorado, breaking stories on the scandal involving our state supreme court, judges not filing the required financial disclosures (and no one in the judicial branch seeming to care), and now we have another one to add.**
The lengthy story below (if you don't have time today, put the link aside and revisit it this weekend when you've the time) details a curious aspect of our judicial system I was unaware of: if you have the money and it's a civil matter, you can rent a judge to get your case heard quickly (and more often than not, quietly).
This raises quite a few questions, and the article below does a great job of exploring many of them; e.g. the apparent lack of oversight in the pay-for-play justice system by the chief justice of our state's supreme court being one example.
Worth a read.
**I'd like to mention that while Migoya does work like this, other outlets either pay little attention to the judiciary or they do like CPR and do puff profile pieces of our state's chief justice where the focus is on her sexuality and ethnicity not her, you know, job and stuff.
Karman Line Annexation Update
Colorado Springs City Council voted a bit back to do a flagpole annexation out east, an annexation named the Karman Line Annexation.
I have watched and written about this story because it not only involves water use, and water taken up from the Lower Arkansas River Valley, but also because it is a great example of democracy in action.
The reason for the latter is that no sooner had the Springs' City Council approved the annexation (over the protests of both farmers from the Lower Arkansas and also from Springs' residents), than residents opposed to the annexation gathered signatures and put that decision on the ballot.
Per the article linked first below, that special election is up this June. Residents will get a chance to either ratify or reject the Council's decision.
Whether you are in Ag or not, we all eat. It is high time that urban areas manage their water use better, and that we all show some respect for those that grow our food. You can start that by contacting anyone you know who is a Springs resident to tell them to vote no on the annexation.
As a help and if you really want to stay up to date, I included a link to the FB group for the people who collected signatures to get the measure on the ballot below the story. Following that group will get updates if you'd want them.
https://www.cpr.org/2025/04/08/special-election-to-vote-on-colorado-springs-annexation/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1540310923326151/
Related:
More democracy in action as Denver's flavored nicotine ban goes to the ballot after city council votes it in.
https://www.denver7.com/news/front-range/denver/denver-voters-to-decide-whether-to-keep-or-overturn-the-citys-flavored-tobacco-ban-after-successful-petition
Weirdly the boundary between the atmosphere and space is also called the Karman Line. So when I saw your headline my first thought was "is there anything the state legislature won't leave alone?"