Dillon resident Cassie Biebl will never forget Jan. 16, 2021, the night she hugged her 24-year-old son Ben Biebl good night for the last time.

Ben was born and raised in Summit County, where he spent countless hours skateboarding and snowboarding. During an interview at a coffee shop last month, his mother and father both smiled as they recalled the stunts Ben and his friends would do off homemade jumps in the backyard.

“He was too good at what he did, really,” Ben’s father, Brian Biebl said. “I mean, just trying these crazy tricks. I remember watching these kids out in the backyard on this ramp that I built, just going, ‘Holy crap — I cannot believe you guys are flying in the air like that.'” 

In 2017, when Ben broke his foot skateboarding, the doctor prescribed Oxycodone, Cassie Biebl said. After that, she said her son developed an addiction to the prescription opioid, which he kept hidden from the family.

Then, that January night three years ago, Ben purchased what he thought were six Oxycodone pills from someone he met in a local parking lot. Only, the pills were counterfeit, and the one Ben took before bed contained fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that has fueled the latest, and deadliest, wave in the nation’s opioid epidemic.

“We were going to bed. We gave each other a big huge bear hug. We said, ‘I love you,’ to each other,” Cassie Biebl said. “It was within 10 or 15 minutes after that moment. I think he was sort of in the habit of taking an Oxy to sleep and get away from his anxieties.”

Minutes after Ben had gone to bed, the cat scratched on his door to be let in, so Cassie Biebl said she knocked but got no response. When she opened the door, she said she found Ben collapsed on the floor.

Cassie and Brian Biebl jostled their son to try to wake him. But he didn’t respond, so they called 911. Brian Biebl, who had medical experience from his former years as a ski patroller, said he could tell it was too late. 

Ben died at his parent’s home that night. It was later discovered that the counterfeit pill he consumed before bed contained a fatal dose of fentanyl, Cassie Biebl said. His parents said he never knew what hit him.

“I just couldn’t process it. It’s just a horror that you just cannot process,” Brian Biebl said of his son’s death. “You learn from that experience that love never leaves, man. You wouldn’t be in grief if it weren’t for the fact that you were so much in love.”

‘Not just another drug’

For Americans ages 18-45, fentanyl overdoses are the leading cause of death, with the drug accounting for nearly 70% of the nation’s 107,000 overdose deaths in 2022, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

Summit County Public Health Director Amy Wineland said the county has been battling the opioid epidemic for the better part of a decade. In recent years fentanyl has presented a deadly new challenge. 

In 2022, 10 people died of accidental overdoses, or poisonings, in Summit County, according to the county health department. Eight of those deaths involved opioids.

“There’s a story behind every one of those numbers,” Wineland said, “and it’s a real life story. There’s pain and grief. The hope is that we can prevent others from going through the pain and grief that Brian and Cassie are facing.”

On Tuesday, May 7, Summit County Public Health will host a National Fentanyl Awareness Day event at Colorado Mountain College in Breckenridge to help educate the public about fentanyl as well as the tools that are being used to combat it.

For decades, fentanyl has had a legitimate medical purpose, but in the past decade the drug, which is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, has been produced illicitly in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the U.S. through Mexico, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Until the past few years, most Americans had never heard of fentanyl. Brian and Cassie Biebl said they were only remotely aware of the drug before it took their son’s life. It was only after Ben died that they began to understand how insidious fentanyl is.

“What we weren’t at all aware of — and I think many are still not aware of when we share Ben’s story — is this quirk with fentanyl, that it’s not just another drug,” Cassie Biebl said. “That it is being laced with or replacing all these other drugs.”

Because it is addictive and cheap to produce, law enforcement officials say drug dealers have been mixing fentanyl with other drugs like heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, increasing the likelihood of fatal interaction with those drugs. Fentanyl is also often pressed into counterfeit pills that are made to look like prescription pills such as Oxycodone or Percocet.

Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons compares the risk of consuming an unknown pill that could contain fentanyl to the game Russian roulette, where a player places a single round in a revolver, spins the cylinder, places the muzzle against their head and pulls the trigger.

“You’re playing Russian roulette every time you take counterfeit pills,” FitzSimons said. “If you don’t get them from a doctor, you’re playing Russian roulette with your life and your friends’ lives.”

Since fentanyl is so often mixed with other drugs or disguised as pills, many who die from the drug, never intended to consume it. That’s why Cassie Biebl describes her son’s death as a “poisoning,” rather than an “overdose.” 

There is a lot of stigma around the word “overdose,” when in reality a large portion of the people who die from fentanyl never sought out the drug but ended up being poisoned by fentanyl when they thought they were consuming something else, she said.

“Even though I’m raising this flag about stigma, I’m definitely scared of it. Because it is still there,” Cassie Biebl said. “And I do feel protective of my son. I want the whole story told.”

Fentanyl Awareness Day

Ben Westhoff, the keynote speaker at the Fentanyl Awareness event that is being held on Tuesday evening, spent four years investigating the dangerous world of synthetic drugs before publishing Fentanyl Inc., a book that traces the origins of the fentanyl epidemic.

Experimenting with drugs was never a safe prospect, but compared to the heyday of drugs like LSD and ecstacy in the 1960s and ’70s, synthetic chemicals like fentanyl have made recreational drug use much more dangerous, Westhoff said.

“It’s a bad time to be a young person because a lot of young people experiment with drugs,” Westhoff said. “When I was in my teens and 20s, I wouldn’t say drugs were safe, but most drugs wouldn’t kill you instantly.” 

To write Fentanyl Inc., Westhoff interviewed 160 people, including drug dealers, people with addictions, law enforcement and drug awareness organizers. He went undercover to visit the factories in China that produce the precursors for synthetic drugs like fentanyl.

Westhoff said that through his research he learned that “drug addiction touches all aspects of society and doesn’t indicate some moral failing.” Since fentanyl has increased the dangers of drug use, overcoming the stigmas associated with addiction and having community-wide conversations about safe practices is more important than ever, he said.

Fentanyl test strips and the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone, often known by the brand name Narcan, have been some of the most effective tools in combating the impacts of fentanyl, Westhoff said.

Naloxone typically comes as a nasal spray and can reverse an opioid overdose from fentanyl, heroin or prescription opioid medications. Fentanyl test strips are small strips of paper that can help detect the presence of fentanyl in other drugs such as cocaine or pills.

Both fentanyl test strips and naloxone will be available for free Tuesday at the Fentanyl Awareness event. 

But Westhoff said that conversations about fentanyl shouldn’t stop after the community event and encouraged parents to talk frankly with their children about the dangers posed by fentanyl.

“Any pill or any powder that is available on the black market can and often does have fentanyl in it. So that needs to be drilled into everyone’s heads, especially young people.”

I don’t know why every time I submit a letter that I’m required to provide reams of evidence to support my claims, but it seems like purported economic firms and local governments are allowed to disseminate false information ad-nauseam. Once again, I have to provide clean up. In Ari Rabin-Havt’s April 11 piece, he further disseminated a false narrative that short-term rentals have been growing out of control. With that said, I can’t place 100% of the blame for the misinformation below at his feet. There were several culpable accomplices in distributing the falsehood. Those include Root Policy Research, county planning staff, county leadership and even the Summit Daily News who has published the misrepresentation below in at least a couple articles. 

What am I talking about? It’s the complete fiction that appears on page 48 of the Summit County 2023 Housing Needs Assessment, which indicates there were only 635 short-term rentals within the county during the fourth quarter of 2014. Anyone who has been a member of the community here for longer than five minutes knows that there were more during that time. How many? Well, the “internet archive” for VRBO provides a partial answer: 4,816. That number does not include timeshares, non-VRBO listings, shared home listings, placeholder licenses and most condos managed by property managers at that time. Likely, the real number in 2014 is not that much different from today’s “active” short-term rental count (my opinion). 

Why was this fallacy missed by so many who reviewed it? To me, it speaks volumes to the ulterior motives of those wanting to get such skewed analysis into the public view, including Mr. Rabin-Havt. Use any means necessary to blame-shift the housing crisis from decades of not-in-my-backyard planning practices to second homeowners and private vacation rentals.

It’s not going to work. We are watching. 

Second-home owners in Colorado won’t be taxed differently compared to primary owners under a bipartisan proposal introduced Monday in the final three days of the state legislative session. At least, not yet. 

The idea of creating a property tax exemption for primary homeowners has floated around the state Capitol over the past year as lawmakers have considered the best way to calculate and collect property taxes. 

Proposition HH, which voters resoundingly rejected in November, would have created a 10-year plan for reducing the state’s property taxes. It also would have created a new distinction between owner-occupied homes and those that are used for investment or as second, third or fourth homes. 

When that proposal failed in November, Gov. Jared Polis convened a special session of the legislature. While lawmakers agreed on a way to slow property tax spikes for one year during that special session, they also created a commission to study a longer-term approach to the issue. The commission, which has met regularly since then, also considered taxing second-home owners differently. 

But ultimately, Senate Bill 233, the proposal presented by bipartisan leaders of both chambers and Polis on Monday, didn’t include that idea. 

Sen. Chris Hansen, a prime sponsor of Senate Bill 233 and the chair of the property tax commission, said the commission initially supported the concept.

“But we quickly started to understand some of the implementation issues and it was going to take time for us to figure out how to implement that idea,” said Hansen, a Denver Democrat.

Hansen was referring to the need to develop a system for assessors to learn whether a property is a primary home or not. 

Even though the concept wasn’t included in the latest proposal doesn’t mean the idea is totally dead, however.

“We’re going to spend some more time studying it,” Hansen said. “It will be back on the docket for the conversations with the commission as we meet during the interim.” 

The Colorado Association of Realtors has said in the past that it opposes the idea and that it would hurt real estate in the state. It could also penalize Coloradans who have worked to get a second home, said Brian Tanner, the vice president of public policy for the group.

When asked about the concept, Polis said he wanted the commission to consider a land value tax, which he said could help increase housing supply.

“There will be an ongoing discussion about ways we can further improve property tax to enhance competitiveness and keep rates low,” he said. 

A bipartisan proposal

Senate Bill 233, a complex proposal that could change over the coming days, suggests the state keep tax rates from last year for the 2024 tax year. 

That approach would set schools across the state back by about $380 million when compared to what they would have received under current law. The bill proposes backfilling all of that from the state’s education fund.

The 2024 rates would also cause a hit to local governments, such as counties and special districts. Most would not receive backfill, losing out on a combined millions of dollars.

Beginning in 2025, the bill proposes creating two separate property assessment rates for calculating residential property taxes, with school districts having a higher rate and other local districts having another.

The bill’s sponsors hope that through creating the higher rate for schools, they can avoid the budget deficiencies that have plagued school districts in Colorado. 

For the local district assessment rate, the bill would also eventually create a 10% tax exemption for up to $70,000 of a home’s value.

The bill would also set a 5.5% cap on the annual growth of property taxes collected by local governments, except schools, beginning in 2025.  

The average impact on local governments and individual homeowners is difficult to predict because of the various mill levy rates imposed by local governments. 

Local governments that saw significant increases in property assessments, like many in the mountains, stand to lose some of that additional revenue under the deal.  

Colorado Counties Incorporated, which represents dozenes of counties across the state, is in support of the bill. 

“I think it strikes the right balance,” said Tamara Pogue, a Summit County commissioner. 

The compromise has been struck as a series of property-tax-related ballot measures offering greater tax relief have put pressure on lawmakers to come up with an alternative. One of them, Initiative 50, a proposal brought by the conservative group Advance Colorado, would impose a 4% annual statewide cap on property tax revenue growth. 

The bill is sponsored by Hansen, along with Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat, and Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican. 

The session is scheduled to end at midnight on Wednesday. 

Another ski season is nearing its end in the Colorado High Country. For meteorologists, “average” is the word that comes to mind when they think about this winter and spring compared to others.

“My parting thought about this season was that I was happy with ‘average,'” wrote OpenSnow.com founding meteorologist Joel Gratz in a May 1 blog post.

“Sure, we can always hope for more snow, but an ‘average’ season is still pretty good and offers plenty of opportunities for powder days, sunny skies, and everything in between,” Gratz continued. 

For about half the season, from November through mid-January, snowpack levels throughout the state were significantly below the 30-year-median, according to data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Then, in mid-January, snowpack began to surge, straddling the 30-year median. For a month between March 14 and April 14, levels were above the normal threshold. 

Specific basins saw greater snowpack than what was reported statewide, such as the Colorado River Headwaters Basin that encompasses a slew of high-profile ski areas including Breckenridge Ski Resort, Copper Mountain Resort, Vail Mountain and Beaver Creek. 

The Colorado River basin’s snowpack levels held consistently above the 30-year median beginning on March 4 — 10 days before the trend was seen statewide — and through mid-April, though levels had briefly pushed above normal a few times earlier in the season. 

In Summit County, for example, that meant above-average snow accumulation for some areas. In Dillon, a SNOTEL site recorded 134.5 inches of total snow accumulation between September and April, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Bernie Meier. 

The seasonal average for that site is 108.4 inches. During the 2022-23 season, the site recorded 105 inches for the total season, which ends in June, while in 2021-22 it recorded 111 inches, Meier said. 

Another SNOTEL site in Breckenridge recorded 144.7 between September and March and has not yet reported its April figures, Meier said. But it puts the site at just below normal for snow accumulation through March, with average accumulation for that time being 146 inches. 

Looking at the Colorado River basin as a whole, “The seasonal precipitation came in at 101%, so almost as normal as you can get,” Meier added. 

Zooming in on a ski area like Copper Mountain, snow base depth remained strong for much of the season, according to OpenSnow meteorologist Sam Collentine.

In a a May 1 blog post, Collentine stated that a review of Copper data showed that the resort was 69% below the 30-year normal snow depth in November and 17% below in December but was 32% above in January, 9% above in February, 30% above in March and 34% above in April. 

“According to our monthly snowfall chart for Copper Mountain, we recorded 14 powder days with 6 inches or more from December through April,” Collentine wrote.

The healthy snowpack, boosted by several spring storms, helped Copper extend its closing date to May 12 — marking the second time in two years that the resort has remained open into May. 

Stay up-to-date on all things Summit County. Get the top stories in your inbox every morning. Sign up here: SummitDaily.com/newsletter

Other resorts that extended seasons included Steamboat Resort, which extended its ski activities by a week from its original end date, closing on April 21. Last season, the resort closed on April 16. Prior to then, Steamboat had not extended its season by a week or more since 1993. 

Others, like Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, have yet to announce a closing date. Last season, Breckenridge closed on May 21 while Arapahoe Basin closed on June 4. 

In his 2023-24 season preview published in August, Collentine predicted that with the switch to an El Nino pattern, Colorado would see average snowfall with the potential for a stronger start and end to the season.

“This winter forecast preview tended to be right on the mark with a snowpack hovering right around the 30-year normal by the time we reached the peak snowpack in late April,” Collentine wrote in a May 1 blog post on OpenSnow.com. 

El Nino refers to the warming of surface temperatures of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America and the subsequent change in the jet stream that can occur. Typically, this translates to less snow and dryer conditions in the northern U.S. with more snow and wetter conditions in the southern U.S. 

The pattern, however, has little correlation on conditions in the country’s central regions, including much of Colorado, making it hard to discern El Nino’s effects on the High Country. 

Heading into the summer, experts predict El Nino will give way to a La Nina pattern, representing the inverse wherein the jet stream brings wetter, cooler temperatures to the north and warmer, dryer temperatures to the south. 

La Nina is likely to persist into the fall and winter as well, with an “80-90% chance for a La Nina during the winter of 2024-2025,” Gratz stated in his May 1 post. 

Gratz added while he has “low to no confidence” in predicting snowfall so far out, La Nina tends to be the opposite of this season’s El Nino, meaning next season, “could bring average to above-average snow to Canada and the northern Rockies and possibly below-average snow to the southwestern U.S.”

But once again, Colorado falls in-between both zones, “so anything could happen,” Gratz stated. 

The Dillon Town Council will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, May 8, at 7 p.m., where parking is among the topics of discussion, according to an agenda published by the town late last week.

The special meeting agenda includes time for citizen comments as well as votes on resolutions related to parking fees in town-owned lots and a consulting agreement for the town park plaza design.

Dillon started rolling out a new parking program that will charge hourly fees for parking at the Dillon Marina Lot, Dillon Amphitheater Lot and along Lodgepole Street last month when it published details of the program on ParkDillon.com.

Dillon Town Manager Nathan Johnson told Summit Daily News late last month that the fees listed online are “proposed fees” and potential changes could be made by the Dillon Town Council.

Those potential changes are outlined in a staff memo that was written to the Town Council and included in the special meeting agenda packet. 

Dillon residents, employees of businesses located in town limits, marina slip holders, marina patrons and marina concessionaire patrons will receive free parking, according to the program outlined in the staff memo. Free three-hour parking will be available in the town core for everyone.

Daily parking fees at the Marina Lot, Amphitheater Lot and Lodgepole Street will be free for the first 30 minutes, the memo states. The rates will vary Monday through Thursday, except holidays, between $1.25 to $12 per half hour. The fee for Fridays through Sunday and holidays will vary between $2.50 and $15 per half hour, according to the memo.

During paid amphitheater shows, there will be reserved parking at the Amphitheater Lot and on Lodgepole Street for $50 per event, the memo states. A parking fee will not be charged during free shows.

The overnight parking fee will not change and will apply to town-owned lots between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m, according to the memo. The fee for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays will remain at $20 per night while other nights will be $10 per night.

Parking permits for residents and businesses in the core area will not change, the memo states. Residents can purchase a permit for $25 per quarter or $100 annually. Businesses in the town core can purchase a permit for $75 per quarter or $300 annually.

Marina Season Parking Passes for the parking lot adjacent to the Dillon Marina are priced at $99 for the season, according to the memo. The town expects the parking program to operate from May 24 through Sept. 30, the memo states.

The town will reportedly receive 50% of all revenues from the managed parking programs.

The Dillon Town Council is also scheduled to enter an executive session at the end of special meeting Wednesday to receive legal advice on legal questions related to the use of the Dillon Amphitheater.
The Town Council last month began discussing a formal policy for which groups can use the amphitheater.

Johnson told the Town Council at that meeting last month that the Dillon Community Church has been allowed to use the amphitheater for services for years, but other groups have also asked to use the venue, raising potential legal issues.

Lane closures at the Interstate 70 Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels are expected to continue through the spring and summer, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Full overnight westbound closures of the tunnel with alternating traffic using the eastbound tunnel will reportedly continue from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day through Thursday, May 9, the transportation department said in a news release.

The full overnight westbound closures of the tunnel will then resume Sunday, May 12, through Thursday, May 16, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., the release states. 

When the westbound tunnel is closed, traffic along both directions of I-70 will be stopped at the tunnel entrance while one direction of traffic is escorted through the tunnel, according to the news release. Traffic stops will reportedly last for about 20 minutes, and delays are expected to be minimal due to the overnight working hours.

Over the summer there will be more work that will require overnight single lane and full tunnel closures with alternating traffic through the open tunnel, according to the transportation department. Work will take place Sunday through Thursday nights, and there are no planned closures over weekends or holidays, the release states. The latest updates will be posted on CoTrip.org.

The projects ongoing at the I-70 tunnels include improvements to drainage, fire department hose connections, freeze protection, signage and security upgrades, and repairs to the tunnel liner to decrease water intrusion, the release states.

While closures are in place in May, maintenance crews will wash the tunnel walls, clean the drains, sweep the pavement and other clean-up to improve road conditions prior to the summer driving season, according to the release.

I just reread “Jane Eyre” for the third time. It is not a perfect novel. It has some improbable coincidences and (spoiler alert) Jane really should have figured out that Mr. Rochester’s insane wife lived upstairs. In spite of its weaknesses, the brilliance of the prose and touching romance shines through, making it my favorite novel. Yes, I also enjoy chick flicks.

America is like that. Troubling headlines and negative campaign rhetoric are always drawing attention to our nation’s imperfections. Yet, in spite of America’s faults, the brilliance of its traditions, individual freedoms and can-do spirit shines through. It is my favorite nation, by a wide margin.

So, how shall we deal with imperfection in a nation made up of 335 million flawed humans who each has their own opinions about government and society? The left tends to want government to make everything perfect, and the right often takes fiscal conservatism to an extreme and opposes any spending the left may want. The result is no spirit of cooperation and compromise which might result in practical improvements to existing policies. 

There are some odd approaches from the right for dealing with the shortcomings of the U.S. Some want us to forget about “not so bad” blemishes in our history such as slavery and Jim Crow by sanitizing school textbooks and forbidding uncomfortable discussions about the topic. And the MAGA slogan is catchy, but when was this ideal time in our past? All of us who love our country know that America was and is great in spite of its faults. 

The liberal unhappiness with imperfection is troubling since many progressive ideas are very expensive and we already have a national debt of $34.6 trillion. An always-expanding government is a threat to everyone’s liberty. In 2022 local, state and federal government spending amounted to over 36% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) according to the International Monetary Fund. Every new spending bill adds to the debt and hinders attention to existing programs. And this is money that could be left with taxpayers to boost the economy through consumer spending and investments.

Many of the proposals by the left have merit, but their list of problems to fix seems endless and daunting. Progressives need to get better at accepting imperfection and focus on a shorter list of improvements which are affordable and will yield the best return on the government’s investment. The saying “perfect is the enemy of good” is a warning that the quest for perfect solutions only impedes the cooperation needed to craft sensible legislation.

Our free-market economy is an excellent example of how you do not need perfection to achieve something very positive. Our economy is currently out performing almost every other nation in growth and job creation, yet there are many who cannot acknowledge the success of our free markets. They instead dwell on the shortcomings and look to the government to intervene with socialist solutions. 

The World Happiness Index for 2024 was announced in March, and most of the headlines focused on the U.S. dropping out of the top 20 nations. The more significant story is how, for ages 60 and older, the U.S. ranked 10th, but for ages 18 to 29 the U.S. ranked only 62nd.

In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” authors Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff suggest that we have created a generation of fragile young people by shielding them from adversity. Perhaps young adults are unhappy due to an unrealistic attitude for dealing with the world’s imperfection. Our future leaders need optimism and practicality.

What really annoys the public is that each political party sends the message that things would be perfect in America if only the other party would do things their way. Moderate citizens long for that humble candidate who doesn’t claim to be that Great Man (or Woman) who will fix everything, and instead promises to pursue cooperation and affordable progress.

I have convinced my friends back in the Midwest that life in Summit County is perfect, but locals here are well aware of the problems we face. It seems that we have a healthy, practical attitude about making improvements in spite of our disagreements over taxes, regulations and priorities. We recently held local elections and voters were not searching for flawless diamonds but only people who would work hard and work together to make our community a better place. Let’s acknowledge where we need improvement but more importantly recognize what we are doing right.

Between 3-8 inches of snowfall and wind gusts as high as 80mph above timberline have Summit County under a winter weather advisory, according to the National Weather Service of Boulder.

The advisory expires at 6 p.m. Monday.

Breckenridge Ski Resort released information on social media saying the gusty weather caused disruptions to some of its lifts on Monday.

According to National Weather Service forecasts, winds will continue to be strong with gusts near 50 mph Tuesday and 1 to 2 inches of snow possible. Wednesday will be breezy but mostly sunny with a high near 42 degrees and gusts up to 25 mph.

Intermittent snow showers are possible through Sunday.

One month ago, newsrooms across the state launched an ambitious project: invite the people of Colorado to tell us what they want politicians to talk about in this election, and use their answers to help guide the stories we tell.

So far, more than 3,100 people from around the state have responded to that call and filled out the Voter Voices survey. 

“I’d like to see candidates focus not only on our rights as Americans, but also on our obligations to be informed, involved, open to compromise, civil, nonviolent. In other words, to put our country first,”  wrote Sydney Schnurr of Buena Vista, who credited Richard Haass’ book, “The Bill of Obligations,” as an influence. 

“What the U.S. can do to make the world more stable,” is the question a man in Fort Collins said candidates need to answer. “Employment rate is near pre-COVID levels, what can be done to get prices down after 9% increases in 2022 — it’s great that inflation is ONLY 3%/yr now but prices are still 20-30% higher than 2019.”

The Coloradans who filled out our survey so far make it clear they want politicians to discuss issues like the environment, housing affordability, immigration, health care and education. 

In Walsh, on the southeastern plains, a shortage of healthcare workers is a driving concern for Rita Hetrick. She runs the long-term care facility in the town of roughly 540 people. Instead of drawing on a local workforce, she relies on pricey staffing agencies. “We don’t have a stream of cash that’s just available when you’re a small, rural facility.” Hetrick told Voter Voices that state and federal regulations exacerbate the problem and it’s something she wants to see politicians tackle.

Many have also written about their concerns for our democracy itself.

“I want candidates to discuss wholesale reform of our country’s and Colorado’s constitution,” wrote Juan Manuel Ramirez Anzures of Denver. “We need to overhaul them to incorporate reforms like more seats, instant-runoff elections, robust publicly financed elections, and proportional representation.”

We’re also asking how much confidence people have in elections, both how they are conducted in Colorado, and around the country. The people responding so far are telling us they have great faith in our state’s election system, but a lot more doubt about whether the election will be conducted fairly nationwide.

The Voter Voices survey is being conducted by 60 newsrooms statewide from Fort Collins to Pueblo, Salida and Alamosa and from Sterling and Kiowa to Grand Junction, Durango and Nucla. 

As Regan Tuttle, owner and editor of the San Miguel Basin Forum, put it:  “My community is very remote and rural. They tend to feel that nobody listens. I felt the survey would give them a chance to speak and feel heard …” 

The project is led by the nonprofit Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) and CPR. 

The survey will remain open through this year’s election campaigning, as newsrooms continue to record their communities’ priorities and present what we learn to our readers and listeners.

The goal is not only to respond to what Coloradans statewide and locally say matters to them in our election reporting, but also to challenge candidates to respond directly to voter priorities and concerns. 

We invite you not just to fill out the Voter Voices survey, but also to pass it on; share the link with others you know whose opinions we should hear. You can also find out whether your newsroom is participating and connect directly to its survey here.

CPR Audience Editor Stephanie Rivera contributed to this report

Everyone that knows her will say Paige VanArsdale is a badass. Her mother Melissa VanArsdale can even recount multiple instances of her toughness. 

“One time when she was running cross country for the high school, she totally wiped out and had blood running down her leg but she got up and finished the race with blood pouring down,” Melissa explained. “That’s just how Paige is, she’s always been a fighter and always comes back stronger.” 

Paige is accustomed to a fight. The 24-year-old Steamboat Springs para-Alpine skier was born with cerebral palsy and continues in that battle today. Cerebral palsy is a condition that affects brain and nervous system functions, but impacts everyone differently. For Paige, CP makes the right side of her body weaker and less flexible than the other half. Because of this, she struggles with balance.

As a young girl, Paige competed in several sports including T-ball and soccer, but she had a special affinity for the individual sports of swimming and skiing. She began skiing at age 3 and took to para-Alpine racing in her teens. Now, Paige trains with the National Ability Center in Park City, Utah. 

This winter, Paige’s competition season got off to a slow start while she was focusing on school work. Her first race of the season came in mid-February in Kimberley, Canada. 

On Feb. 15, Paige was faced with three runs of the day; a training run and two competition races. Due to her condition, it is more challenging for Paige to turn left on skis because her downhill leg is weaker. What makes it even harder is the rules of the competition refrain Paige from using a pole on her weak side. 

On her final run of the competition day, Paige was nearing the finish when she came across the most challenging slope of the course — nicknamed Lord’s Leap. 

“I was going down the hill and there is a big slope that is kind of steep,” Paige said. “I didn’t really turn very well in the section where my coaches were. I turned at 3 o’clock, right in front of them and I tumbled. At least my skis went off when I wiped out, but I knew that something didn’t seem right when I was getting back up.” 

Immediately, Paige’s coach Eric Leirfallom ran up and helped her to the side of the course. After the race finished, Paige clipped back into her skis and gradually made her way down the mountain while writhing in pain with a swelling left knee. 

Paige was unable to compete in the remaining races of the week but was still unsure of the severity of her injury. Two days after her accident, she returned to Park City and was taken to Urgent Care, where an X-ray confirmed she had a fractured tibia plateau on the lateral side of the knee joint on her left leg.  

Shortly after, Melissa picked up Paige and drove her home, where she received further testing at Steamboat Orthopaedics and Spine Institute. She was told to go six weeks non-weight-bearing on her left side and utilized both crutches and a wheelchair for the entirety of March and much of April. 

“She was able to start physical therapy before she could start walking,” Melissa explained. “They want you to start working your joints so you don’t lock up. They were working her knee joint and trying to get the muscles around the knee strong again because they get weak so fast when you don’t use them and it takes longer to build that muscle back up.” 

Paige still has follow-up appointments with SOSI that will involve more X-rays, and she will have at least 11 more physical therapy sessions on her road to recovery. The medical expenses between urgent care, UCHealth radiology, SOSI and physical therapy have added up and Melissa has begun a GoFundMe page to aid in covering the cost. 

Despite having a few more credits to earn, Paige recently attended her graduation from Healing Mountain Massage School and dreams of becoming a massage therapist after she completes her anatomy and kinesiology courses this fall. 

Paige will soon get a recumbent trike that is custom fit for her so she can stay balanced and enjoy the spring and summer mountain air while riding. Once fully recovered, she plans to join some dryland training sessions this summer with her coaches. 

She is expected to make a full recovery from the accident and has no plans of putting the skis down anytime soon. She’s prepared to get back on the snow in the winter and continue to chase her skiing dreams. 

“I’m definitely going to be joining my ski team again next year, for sure,” Paige said.

This story is from SteamboatPilot.com