Next year you won't be able to buy plastic grocery sacks. You can get paper though ... for 10 cents. Mountain lion hunting ban update. And a Prop 123 update: gov'ts procrastinate too apparently.
Oh, to return to a time when government's job wasn't to "perfect" us but to make life easier and provide for the common good.
On January 1, 2024, we'll ring in the new year ... and not be able to get any plastic bags at the grocery. Not even by buying them.
Forget your bags? Manhandle your stuff out, or switch over to paper (for 10 cents).
I love how the Democrats running this state have focused on affordability and all the other issues facing us, don't you?
More details below.
https://www.kktv.com/2023/12/02/coloradans-get-ready-no-more-plastic-bags-grocery-stores-restaurants/
Quick update to the mountain lion hunting ban.
I have written in the past about what happens when initiatives come before the Title Board and where you can get involved in that process.
Left (mostly) unsaid by me, however, is what happens when someone still disagrees with the Title Board. The only recourse after motions for rehearing are denied is to take the issue to the Colorado Supreme Court.
The proposed initiative to ban so-called "trophy" hunting of mountain lions is at that point. After a rehearing and public comment, the board still set a title and moved it along.
Someone (see the first link below for the actual court motion) decided to take the issue to the Colorado Supreme Court and so filed a brief. We now await their decision.
In the meantime, likely to hedge their bets, activists have put up a new initiative (#101--hasn't yet appeared on the Secretary of State's initiative tracker, but you can check up for it by looking at the second link below).
According to the Sun article linked third below, this newer initiative wouldn't be an outright ban on hunting mountain lions, just a good-sized (my thoughts) restriction on it.
Besides being the camel's nose under the tent, one argument that I am hearing consistently against animal rights measures is that we should not be doing wildlife management by vote.
I think I agree and that this is a valid argument. Besides the obvious pseudo-moral hazard of having people in the Front Range able to vote in things where they will bear absolutely no cost, I'd rather this process were done by people who know better what they're doing (with public comment to help guide them); I'd rather the decisions be made not on the animal's charm.
I'll keep my ears open and update as I hear more.
https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/initiatives/2023-2024/23SA294/Petition.pdf
https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/
https://coloradosun.com/2023/12/01/mountain-lion-hunting-ban-2024-ballot/
And, close out the day with another update, this time on Proposition 123, the now 1 year old "affordable housing initiative".
I posted some time around July (based on an earlier Sun article) about how not many municipal governments had signed up for the affordable housing programs offered by the passage of Prop 123 the previous election. These would be things like getting grants to help build affordable housing (by committing to build more affordable housing), a variety of loan programs, and land banking. See more at the first link below.
I had to chuckle when I read the Sun's update linked second below. It seems as though governments are like my students: they like to procrastinate and wait til the last minute. From July til now, the number of enrolled local governments went from 14 up to 202.
So, now we'll have yet another creative way to siphon off excess revenue instead of returning it to taxpayers and many local governments (see the third link) have said that, yes, they too would like to spend more of your money.
Whether that spending will do anything other than move tax dollars around remains to be seen.
https://coloradoaffordablehousingfinancingfund.com/
https://coloradosun.com/2023/12/01/colorado-proposition-123-one-year-update/
https://engagedola.org/prop-123/news_feed/commitment-filings-for-2023