It’s all blight ... if you’re clever enough. Only a tiny percentage of Ag land is lost to solar. Alfonsina y el mar. A bonus: I HAVE seen a crocus, but no rosebuds.
It’s all blight ... if you’re clever enough
I had a friend (a Catholic) who once quipped that you can do anything you want in the Catholic church as long as you can find the right priest.
I’ve thought about that quote in a variety of contexts because it’s pretty applicable. It certainly is in the Denverite article linked first below. That article details how the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA) will be investigating the potential new location of the new Bronco’s stadium for evidence of blight.
Why you ask? A quote from the article details the reason:
“The study could mark another significant step in the area’s redevelopment. It could eventually lead to the establishment of an urban renewal plan. That could allow DURA to use several development powers in the area, including:”
--”Granting tax subsidies to developers to pay for construction.”
--”Using eminent domain to force current property owners to sell their land to make way for the stadium and adjoining development.”
I.e. by getting the right priest to sign off on the appropriate characterization, you can do what you’d like.
You can take from some to give to the poor, struggling Denver Bronco’s and their owners.
You can force people to sell their land, because nothing says “public benefit” like a new stadium when the current one is far from being beyond repair.
If you would like an example from my neck of the woods (Sterling Urban Renewal Authority’s effort to extend their district and offer more tax breaks to developers), I have a picture gallery in an earlier newsletter linked second below. These photos detail the horrors that we driving down Main St. in Sterling must witness; they show the gauntlet we must run daily.
I’ll leave it to you to look through the gallery, but in brief, blight is in the eye of the beholder. As such, if the money gets high enough, anything at all qualifies!
Care to bet as to whether the new location for the stadium gets blighted?
https://denverite.com/2026/02/24/broncos-new-stadium-blight-burnham-yard/
Related:
An earlier newsletter on the ways that the Broncos can claim to not use public money . . . but still use public money.
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/broncos-and-public-money-the-lefty?utm_source=publication-search
Only a tiny percentage of Ag land is lost to solar.
The Sun article linked at bottom profiles a study by the Colorado Solar and Storage Association** which shows that, while Colorado is losing farmland, solar arrays have only taken up 1% of that land. This puts it behind (per the study), farmland lost to suburban growth.
I didn't read deeply into the study, so I will stipulate to their numbers. That is, I doubt they're playing games. Maybe the percentage is higher (2%, 4%), but the broad strokes strike me as pretty likely even if the precise number is not 1%.
Beyond the number and its low value, however, I can't help but think that perhaps the study's purpose (as well as that of the article?) is to confound you.
The reason I say this is illustrated by the following non-contiguous quotes (copied here with links intact):
"Nevertheless, when solar developers have turned up in rural counties with plans for utility-scale solar farms, covering hundreds of acres, there has been concern and pushback."
"Prompted by the local pushback, the legislature passed a bill in 2024 directing the Colorado Energy Office and the Department of Natural Resources to evaluate local government permitting processes. An early draft of the bill included moving permitting of solar projects to the state. The Colorado Energy Office surveyed solar developers and some county and municipal officials about the impact of local rules and concluded that 'procedural hurdles, community opposition, land use concerns, and regulatory gaps can impact projects.'”
"The survey, released in October, listed nine solar projects that had been rejected or withdrawn and the complex regulatory situation in Colorado remains, Will Toor, the Colorado Energy Office executive director, said. 'I think the highly variable policies that you see across the state that we saw in that report remain,' Toor said. 'I believe that there’s still a wide variation across the state.'”
A report, profiled in a friendly newspaper, to tell us all how little land is taken by solar while at the same time talking about those pesky locals and their opposition.
Whether or not 1%, 10%, 0.5% of the land is taken by solar is a distraction. It's a distraction from what is the more important question.
Who decides whether there will be solar and where?
Just like it would not be appropriate for a rural county on the Eastern Plains to step in on the decision of whether or not Ag land along I-25 needed to stay as Ag land, it is not appropriate for Polis et. al. to tell the people living on the Plains what they need to do with their Ag land.
The decision regarding the particulars of renewable installations belongs to the property owner and government closest to the people who will live with it.
**A solar trade group which is headed by former Democrat politico KC Becker.
https://coloradosun.com/2026/02/24/solar-agricultural-land-colorado-study-cossa/
Alfonsina y el mar
That time of the week again. This is the last post of the week and thus time for something for fun.
A few weeks back, it was Curtis May. Today I’m going to hit you with a Spanish song.
The first link below is to a song I picked up somehow on YouTube. I know enough Spanish to understand bits of the song here and there. I don’t know enough cultural nuance to say I have more than just a tiny understanding of the meaning of the song.
But no matter. Like with all good art, you will find a meaning for yourself in it the second you stop trying to force your brain to find “THE” meaning in it.
It’s a beautiful song and I enjoy it is what I’m trying to say.
If you’d like to learn more about the singer, I put a link to her Wikipedia page second below. I will leave it to you to read up, but it’s worth passing on that she comes from Argentina.
Listen to her song a time or two with an ear for her accent. Then listen to a singer from Mexico with an ear for that accent.
Just like there are different accents in English, you will find them in Spanish and the Argentinian (and far South American) is an interesting one.
That’s it for today. Have fun searching out your own new poems.
See you back at it on Sunday!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes_Sosa
I haven’t seen a crocus or a rosebud, or a robin on the wing…
I don’t grow any roses, so that middle one is true. I haven’t seen a rosebud. I have seen the other two, however.
True to their reputation—that they’re one of the first up in Spring—my crocus are starting to bloom. You can see a sampling in the pictures below.
There’s also a picture that’s mostly just dirt. That’s because this is a patch of tulips and hyacinth (non-grape, I have plenty of grape hyacinth around). First year to grow regular hyacinth here and I’m excited. You can see the very beginnings of them popping out of the ground.
This is in my pollinator yard which is becoming something of a crazy quilt of plants; I have one of everything in there, and as I experiment more with plant divisions and layering, I end up putting them in there too.
If you’re open, I have a couple tips to share on bulbs, things I’ve learned along the way.
If you’re low on money and patient, you don’t need to outfit your whole space all at once. Buy one or two bulbs and heavily mulch any bare spots you’d want them in (for now).
After a year or two, to settle and start growing, dig up your original bulbs and divide them. You can be really thoughtful and array them in a grid, but I love to just stand up and randomly scatter them, planting them where they land. You can divide again later or let them colonize and fill in.
In other words, grow your own instead of buying. Same goes for nearly any bulb (I have a growing bearded iris collection that started from 3 plants I originally bought, as well as some aztec daisies). Dividing is simple and you can find any number of videos or guides on the internet. Try it and you’ll feel like Mr. or Ms. Master Gardener.
The other tip is this: don’t be afraid to mix and match bulbs in with other stuff. The planting above is tulips next to hyacinth. I have other spots around the yard where tulips are next to daffodils. I have grape hyacinth in with black eyed susans. Some of those crocus in the pictures are in the beds where my apricot tree lives or a grape grows. I love a little early pop of color before the other slugabeds wake up. And, by the time they do, the crocus are ready to sleep a bit.
You can put bulbs with anything as long as you’re careful and thoughtful. In particular consider who gets sun and at what times of year.
Sosa comes from a long tradition of South American folk singers. Others include Violeta Parra, a Chilean who wrote Gracias a la Vida which Sosa famously covered.
Here’s an interview with Sosa with a Chilean journalist.
https://youtu.be/nUFkCzXUq1I?si=Ud_ioVNduhQJJjyO
Her accent is entirely different from the main Argentinian accent though as she’s from the North-Central region of the country which didn’t see the heavy influence from Italian.