It's been an incredibly windy week here in Colorado.

And wind often symbolizes turbulence, change and then renewal.

There is a lot to unpack, both literally and figuratively.

So let's get started with this week's Colorado Inside Out.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let me get right to introduce you to this week's insider panel.

We start with Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword.

Marianne Goodland, chief legislative reporter with Colorado Politics and the Colorado Springs and Denver Gazette's Chris Wark, consultant with Work Media, and Alton Dillard, former election spokesperson for the City of Denver, as well as current principal at The Diller Group, Senior Advisor at Rockford Gray, and political analyst at Denver7.

So more than 100,000 people were left without electricity this week in Colorado, and strong winds moved right in, really strong on along the Front Range on Wednesday.

Some of the outages were unplanned, others were intentional.

Xcel energy implemented what they called the public safety power shut off along the Front Range because of the extreme wildfire risk in Yuma on the Eastern Plains, around 40,000 acres burned in a wind driven wildfire.

Patty, I will start with you.

Wind is not a new thing here in Colorado.

We know up by Rocky Flats.

That was one of the complaints when Rocky Flats was built.

Where it was was the incredible amount of wind up there.

But I think we all remember what happened four years ago with the Marshall Fire, when people weren't prepared.

They didn't take it seriously enough.

The damage was incredible.

So Xcel did come out in front on this.

That was good.

I mean, even though they warned people they might be turning off the power, which they hadn't done before.

I know restaurants in Boulder were upset that they got shut out, but I know, for example, in Gilpin County where I don't think they did the rolling blackouts, they're now being told they'll get their power back by noon on the 21st.

It's out in Jefferson County because we had another round of wind on Friday.

The irony here is, even if you're preparing yourself, all of a sudden, you hear about the places that were designed federally to warn us about weather issues, to help us figure out climate issues were slashed this week by Donald Trump.

And it's not just this week because of Tina Peters.

He's been slashing at NOAA.

And in Car for months.

But we now know why we really need that.

Yeah.

All right.

Marianne, your thoughts on this week?

Kudos to Excel for at least getting the notifications out.

I have seen some complaints about people who are going without food and medication because their refrigerators are out, and that kind of thing, but, you know, people have to be prepared for the way our climate is changing.

Our winds are getting stronger, our weather is getting drier.

I mean, that and that is that's a no brainer.

We're not getting the snowfall that we used to get 20, 30 years ago.

You know, the fire danger is through the roof right now.

So I think that that that's a that's just something that people have to be aware of and be prepared for.

To the point about anchor, I realize Trump wants to shut it down and it's punitive because he doesn't like policy.

He doesn't like Colorado.

I'm not 100% sure that he has the authority to do this.

And I'm I'm kind of watching to see what comes out of our attorney general's office.

I assume that he's going to take the steps he normally takes, which is to file another lawsuit, Chris?

Yeah.

I mean, Patty's right.

We we've had wind forever.

The problem is things are incredibly dry, and we have bigger issues here.

First and foremost is we don't have snow.

Like Marianne talked about.

Snowpack statewide is under 70%.

It's abysmal.

I was talking to a friend.

We were talking about how dark it seems this fall with the time change.

And although we've had that phenomenon every year, it seems darker this year.

And part of it is there's no snow on the ground to reflect light.

But we have a quandary here.

So we have a public utilities commission that is reducing emissions severely, has made some changes to that recently, which pushes our energy demand on top of electricity when we're also seeing more demand for electricity from data centers and other uses.

Is that a good idea?

Is that a good idea to be pushing towards a form of energy that you have to shut down when weather conditions go wrong?

Alton.

Well, yeah.

I'm going to echo what's been said at the table as far as shouting out Xcel for being proactive.

But the other thing that's been fascinating to me as a comms guy is yes they were proactive and yes it was in the name of public safety.

But we also sometimes forget that even though, Xcel is a utility, they are a corporation.

And trust me, after the way they got dinged after the Marshall fire, they were paying attention to make sure that bottom line was protected to the other thing that's been a little disappointing, of course, has been, Representative Abbott's reaction to it saying that this is all, you know, a byproduct of the quote unquote, green new scam.

So every once in a while, when you think she's going to take a turn towards being somewhat of a stateswoman, then she says something like that, real everything.

Back to echo your comments.

It's been dry and crunchy here for a while, and we just have to start really being prepared for our current climate reality that we're going to touch on.

And you know though Patty was talking with both of you were about incur the wind reports that you might have seen if you were looking at articles or on TV news reports, the wind reports that were showing the strength of the gusts came from and car, which as we've mentioned, is on the chopping block.

The president also singled out Colorado this week, calling it a poorly run state.

And the administration also ordered an end to Colorado's artificial intelligence law and canceled over $100 million in environmental transportation projects for our state.

Marianne, where would you like to begin?

Artificial intelligence.

Okay.

This is a topic that I've written about a lot over the last, probably 18 months or so.

Colorado's law is now about one of 100 that passed by the states.

But the Trump administration wants to put a a block on any of it and and has appointed a task force, a litigation task force to go after the states that have done that.

The thing that I find sort of amusing about all this, if, if I can use that, is that when Colorado started working on an artificial intelligence law, it did so in lieu of the fact that the federal government wasn't acting.

Well, the Trump administration has now acted, but not in a way that that makes anybody happy.

And one of the things that I found most interesting about this is how much bipartisan pushback he's getting on this.

You look at Ron DeSantis down in Florida, who immediately came out and said, this doesn't work for him.

There are Republican lawmakers all over the country that are unhappy about this.

So it'll be interesting to see just how far he can get with, with these lawsuits.

Again, another lawsuit that I think you'll see coming out of the attorney general's office.

Okay.

And how many lawsuits are we at now?

I don't.

47.

47?

Yeah, something like that.

Yeah.

All right.

Chris.

Yeah.

Back to the the in-car situation.

Not all of what in-car does is going away.

What the Trump administration wants to do is get rid of the climate science arm of what end car does, and then farm out the supercomputing and then also the weather modeling to other states.

So, yeah, as Marianne talked about, it looks punitive.

It's a thousand jobs, about a thousand jobs up in Boulder.

And I'm not going to defend this, but I want to point out the similarity in, in government appointments and committees and commissions that make decisions.

So in this situation, the National Science Foundation, which is over and Car has made this decision.

It's appointed by the president here in the state of Colorado.

We have Jared Polis appointing a Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission that is driving his agenda when it comes to wildlife management.

We have the PUC that I just mentioned that is driving energy direction.

So this should come as no shock to anyone.

Unfortunately, we lost a over $100 million in transportation grants that were largely tied to renewable projects.

However, 66 million of that was tied to a rail project, a rail safety project in Northern Colorado.

So it's really disappointing.

Okay.

Right.

I'm going to do sort of a quick double header here I want to talk about in car briefly because we live in Colorado.

We have an airport that's in a tornado alley.

They're also the ones who pioneered the technology that detects wind shear and microburst.

So when we're white knuckle in our way over the mountains on our way to our landings at Dia, we have in-car to thank for the pilot making the decision.

Where are they going to try and land the plane or not?

The I piece, I find it to be both sort of a paradox and an irony because now we have our tech bro gub squaring off against the president, who all of a sudden is concerned about the startup environment.

Something's just not adding up for me their math wise.

But, you know, the other concern is this creates a 50 state patchwork.

And it's like, well, 50 state patchwork works for our election system.

Why won't it work for AI?

So and watching Polis, who's a former congressman, calling on Congress to do something, shows that he's having a flashback to when Congress actually acted on things.

I want to follow up a little bit on what Alton said about about a 50 state patchwork.

It actually is possible in AI because AI is perfectly capable of carving out those boundaries.

Which was something new that I learned recently.

And and so it really isn't that bad of an idea.

Okay.

All right.

And Patty, let's remember too that people had a lot of problems with our Colorado law that was passed for AI and it was supposed to be fixed.

And now maybe this gives a little more impetus to return to the drawing board and really fix everything.

I'm going back to I mean, that that has been in Boulder since 1960, and already 40% of its budget had been cut.

So this is just really decimating that agency based in that amazing I.M.

Pei building.

But Noah up there also was decimated, and that was one of the ones that takes care of hurricanes.

So all the country will suffer for this, whether it's punitive with Colorado, the rest of the country will suffer, too.

I can't even imagine what it would take to bring back something as efficient and really getting all these synapses working with all these different scientists once it's been dismantled.

Okay.

Denver City Council is holding firm on their decisions.

Big decisions.

One is a push back against the Trump administration and the other decision to hold off on voting to fund the new women's soccer stadium, something that Mayor Johnston is all for.

And the council is actually much more cautious about.

Chris, I will start with you.

Yeah.

City council decided not to vote on the soccer stadium Monday night.

They said they wanted to bring the rezoning and the funding and other agreements to the table all at once to make a decision on it.

They say they're going to vote on it December 22nd.

Unfortunately, that puts the owners in a precarious situation with their backs up against the wall.

They need to communicate to the National Women's Soccer League that there they will indeed have a stadium by 2028.

And the timeline is really short.

This is not a good way to start a new relationship.

Let me just put that there.

This the ownership group is, is bringing forth a community benefits package.

It's $7 million over ten years and includes scholarship ships, meeting space, art projects, a portion of the food and beverage.

The proceeds will go towards locally owned and minority owned businesses.

It's a great opportunity for this blighted piece of property, a great opportunity for the community.

It has to pass The owners say they'll take it somewhere else.

And I think there's some metro counties that would be all too happy to have a new stadium.

All right.

You giggling over there?

Yes, I am giggling because one of the things that's been breaking out in the course of that story is whether the threat that Chris mentions is like implicit or explicit, because to her point, they do have a deadline that they've promised to the National Women's Soccer League that this has to happen by a certain time.

But it was also interesting watching the franchise guys, you know, in their media coverage after that hearing said, well, no, we weren't threatening, you know, but it's like we had to speak to some other jurisdictions just in case.

I also find the key lime thing to be fascinating because it's a great sort of symbolic stand.

But all they did was essentially say, you all can't have this 1200 square feet to expand your little storage part of your operation.

That's the size of my bachelor pad.

So we're not talking a large piece of land there, but it also shows like we've talked about at the table before, that this council is not willing to just rubber stamp things.

And I'm going to give a shout out to President Amanda Sandoval for pumping the brakes on a few things and saying, hey, until we get the communication we require, we're going to put the hold on some of these and Key Lime Air is the they won't say this is what they do, but they are said to be part of deportation flights.

And that's why the city council was like, wait, what?

Exactly.

Yeah.

And they play a major role in that.

And to your point, they've been trying to soft pedal and that is what Key Lime Air does.

Okay.

Well and Key Lime used to be named Denver Air Connector.

It runs also.

So they do more than deport people.

But there's no question they have the contracted with the feds and Ice to run deportation planes.

But I'm going back to the stadium.

It's been such theater, and it reminds me a lot of when there was the threat to take the national Western away from Denver to so that the city would come back to the table.

In this case, you did get community benefits released earlier, and I think that is going to sweeten the pot a lot for the council people who were a little reluctant to vote for it before now, it looks like there's going to be a lot that's going to be good for the community.

Everyone was already pretty pro the concept of women's professional sports because of what it would do for the city in general.

So I think we will see it go through really pretty easily on Monday night, but I would hope that the city will put a very strong system in place to monitor how that project is done, just the way it should be, monitoring all the other projects that are going to be going on in the city very soon.

A lot of projects.

Oh, all the DDA money.

Yeah, so much.

All right.

Maryann, if what fascinates me about this is the relationship between the mayor and city council.

It it's it's not unusual to see pushback from from a city council against a mayor or from the legislature against a governor, but but this city council seems to be a lot more.

I hate to use the word activist, but I think that that's that's kind of where where things are headed, and, and taking very strong positions on, on a number of different issues at a time when the city is dealing with a huge, huge budget shortfall.

Which raises it always raises concerns for me.

I'm a I'm a budget.

What kind of person.

So so how this will impact things going down the road.

For other, things that the mayor may be bringing to city council, I think it will be really interesting to watch.

Okay.

All right.

We will see.

On Thursday this week, President Trump signed an executive order that re classifies marijuana that puts in the same category as prescription pain medications.

There's a lot more to it.

And I'll start with you.

Yes.

Now as always when we're discussing this issue, I want to make sure I disclose my client relationship with one Chance to Grow Up, which is a community nonprofit that focuses on protecting kids in this space.

So, yeah, this rescheduling is, problematic for a few reasons.

A, it's premature, B, I think is going to cause confusion where people think that that somehow means that we're also legalized federally, which is not the case.

And then the other thing is, things have been rolling out with all these changes, whether it be intoxicating hemp, whether it be rescheduling the focus of the media continues to be on the impacts the industry.

And it's like, well, what about the impacts the kids?

What about the fact that marijuana and THC products have been shown to start being a path into opioid use?

I want to start seeing some more focus on that.

And then there's also this thing about the health benefits you're starting to see Wall Street Journal, you're starting to see the Journal of American Medicine saying, hey, you know what?

This may not have all these health benefits that have been touted over the years.

And that's one of the reasons, again, that this rescheduling is concerning.

So this is another instance of hopefully pumping the brakes.

But again, we may be looking at yet another 50 state patchwork.

Okay.

All right.

Patty, let me, reveal my conflict.

We had the first marijuana critic at a newspaper in the country.

So because it was so popular when the first caretakers moved into dispensaries here after medical marijuana was legalized, at this point, 40 states have some form of medical marijuana.

First of all, they now will be able to enjoy some of the same tax benefits that other businesses can if they haven't been able to, they haven't been able to bank, which is a huge issue when you're trying to run a business on the up and up.

That's a big issue.

There will now be able to be more medical research, more research in general on it.

So this is where I think it belonged all the time.

If we're going to have a country where alcohol is legal, this is where this belongs to.

Okay, Marion, I want to push back a little bit on Alton here.

Sorry, buddy.

If if marijuana does not have the medical benefits that, that have been claimed for so long that rescheduling is going to allow science to prove it, this is this is going to be one of the really huge benefits of rescheduling is that, right now, the amount of research is very, very limited.

Here in Colorado and across the country.

And there is some going on I think CSU has taken has taken the lead on some of this.

But now is the time to if if you want the proof, now's the time to get it.

And the CU School of Public Health has been playing big in that space.

So I that's one of the reasons I love Colorado inside out so much is that we can agree and disagree civilly.

And so far, so far, all right.

Chris.

Well, I don't know that I have much more to add, but to Alan's point, I agree with the rescheduling.

It sends a message that, oh, this is okay.

And maybe it is more, accepted, especially in light of children's use or, or young people, you know, being drawn to it.

But I also agree with Marianne, and I think I take the side of scheduling or, you know, scheduling it back to a three because there is no medical testing.

We don't know about these claims.

You hear them anecdotally from people who have used them since the 60s and 70s that it does this, that and the other thing, but we don't have a quantitative analysis of what marijuana brings to the table.

We do have that with prescription drugs.

When I take a prescription drug, I know exactly what I'm taking.

I know what side effects to look for.

I know what the benefits are, everything like that, and we need that on marijuana.

I also don't think people, the the average consumer is even going to notice this.

This is this is not going with the exception, possibly the banking issue.

If, if, dispensaries are allowed to use credit cards, for example, I think that might be that might be a big one.

But other than that, I don't think most people are even going to notice.

Well, not in Colorado, where actually marijuana is as cheap as it's ever been.

Yeah, right.

It's not going to get cheaper.

Okay.

All right, now let's, go across the table and talk about some of our highs and lows of this week.

We'll start on the low notes week end on a high note pad.

I'll start with you.

I can't believe we're still going to be talking about Tina Peters, not just today, but into the new year.

The fact is, Trump hasn't left Colorado for a long time.

He hasn't liked it since 2016 when he didn't win the primary.

He would be taking efforts.

He would be making efforts to punish Colorado, whether or not to Peters was locked up.

But I can't believe we are now hearing this again.

All right.

Something negative for you, Marianne.

Well, I'm going to follow follow the thread here.

I try not to get into the president's behavior, but this week there were three things that just made me just gasp in horror.

One, of course, was the comments that he made about the murder of Michelle and Rob Reiner.

Just who says that kind of stuff?

Nobody does.

And he complained, after Charlie Kirk was murdered, about about the rhetoric.

Well, he's he's doubling down and going twice as bad.

Then there was the what he did to the photos at the white House where he put descriptors under the, pictures of Obama and Biden.

And I looked at those, and they that's that's not what you put in in the white House.

It just doesn't it doesn't feel right.

And then, of course, the speech last night was ludicrous.

It's it's disappointing.

I wish I wish he had some modicum of decency because this is not a okay, Chris.

A, Wolf 2403 was, captured in New Mexico, had wandered across the border, and per an agreement with New Mexico, it was trapped and returned to Colorado.

And it was released in Grand County, where it originally was part of a pack that was, removed for chronic depredation.

They've put it back in Grand County.

The acting director, Laura Cleland, defended it, saying that this is the best opportunity for it to contribute to a sustainable wolf pack and it will minimize conflict.

Hello.

That's where the conflict and all the problems started was in Grand County.

The sheriff and the Board of County commissioners have written a letter to C bw.

Okay.

All right.

I love it, Chris.

As always, Dancing With Wolves is going to be the state of collegiate athletics right now.

Yes.

It's not fair to have it like the old days where your star football player couldn't even get pizza back in his dorm because they were getting no money while the college was making billions off of them.

But now, with the transfer portal and this name, image and likeness thing, we've got college athletes making six and seven figures.

And now entering the transfer portal, if things are not going their way, c U is lost three of their best players to the transfer portal, but that was also how they were able to infuse themselves for that successful season.

So I really don't want to go all the way back to full amateurism, but I would like to see college sports go back to resembling college sports.

See that?

Okay, all right.

Something positive.

Patty, let's go to professional sports in Colorado, specifically with unbelievable records going into the new year.

Except for the Rockies.

We won't talk about that.

Just a shame.

We're not going to be able to have the Broncos Super Bowl victory rally, or the nuggets Victory Rally, or the Avs Victory Rally in Civic Center Park, since most of it is closed.

Well, we hope we get the championships first and we'll worry about the other.

My, my high of the week is the 25,000 for 25, 20, 25 fundraiser for the Denver Press Club.

I just want to thank everybody who contributed to that.

And of course Heisman Dosa, my quarterback, my alma mater, Indiana University, now has a Heisman winner.

So this is this is like living in an alternate universe right now.

Oh that's cool.

Awesome.

Right.

On Thursday, the house is voting on a de-listing, bill for, the Gray Wolf.

And, I think that's a good thing.

Not because this bill is about killing wolves.

I want to make that point perfectly clear.

De-listing the wolf from the endangered species list is not about killing wolves.

It's about bringing it under a wildlife management system.

The North American model for wildlife conservation.

It allows to control populations of wolves, and it also allows to control populations of those who are impacted by wolves.

Okay.

All right.

And Alton and my shout out is to farmers, thank you for what you do for keeping food on our tables and what a crucial part of our infrastructure you are.

We understand the challenges you face, especially in today's environment where we have an immigration policy of if you're brown, get out of town.

But I also want to make sure to shout out the farmers in Yuma who broke out their tractors and their disks to help cut fire lines during the wildfires they experienced during the high wind.

That's community.

It is community.

Thank you.

Really quickly, before we go, you know, we've talked about some heavy topics, over the last many months, but this is a season of promise and hope.

So if you had a Christmas wish for Colorado, what would it be?

Well, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah.

You got them all.

How about civil behavior towards one another?

Okay, snow.

Okay.

An alternate candidate in the governor's race.

A GOP candidate that actually unaffiliated voters can vote for.

Okay.

And you, you're.

And Patti stole mine.

But yeah, civil discourse and the ability to have discussions on issues of where you may not agree.

All right.

My my wish kind of all combined.

I'm excited to have a full house this week and I hope everyone here watching here, the staff, everyone behind the scenes has a wonderful week ahead.

And yes, here's to a new year of continued civil discourse on our show and hopefully that'll spread outside the walls of this building.

Thank you all for watching throughout the whole year.

Actually, I could say to our for listening to our podcast, I'm Kyle Dyer.

I will see you next week.

And I should mention the day after Christmas on December 26th, we're going to have a special edition of Colorado Inside Out, where you're going to see, hear more about the stories of some of our insiders.

And also we put them to the test in terms of artistic ability.

Yeah.

You got to see this one Friday night at eight or outs.

Of course, you can catch the stream anytime.

Have a wonderful week ahead.

Everybody.

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