Free Republic

Police Charge Campers With Trespassing, Illegal Camping. Seven people have been arrested after they were found sleeping on the roof of the Boulder Public Library. The Rainbow Family is also known as the Rainbow Family of Living Light...

Wildlife officials respond to several confrontations Tuesday night. Authorities responded to several reports of bears in homes or yards west of Boulder on Tuesday night, including one in which a bear walked into a house in Sunshine Canyon. Rice said it was the second time in recent weeks that a bear was in his house. He said in the previous break-in, the bear — he thinks it was the same one — got in through a doggie door. After officials left Rice’s house Tuesday night, a bear also walked under the porch at the home next door, belonging to Schindler....

A Niwot woman accused of stabbing two men in the back early Tuesday morning was engaged in a "sexual encounter" with both of them before they started fighting. According to a Boulder County sheriff's news release, Ruffin Griffin and Clint Cadigan, both 28, left a Niwot bar together and went to the house where Griffin lives with Serena M. Brooks and their 6-month-old son. "Upon arriving at the residence, the three adults engaged in a sexual encounter and a physical altercation ensued," . The men "fell to the floor" during the fight and that's when, sheriff's officials allege, Brooks used...

Like other green-leaning Colorado cities, Boulder finds good intentions aren't enough to meet greenhouse-gas goals. Even for Boulder, an icon of earthy urban planning, saving the planet doesn't come easy. Faced with a looming deadline and lagging results in its efforts to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, city leaders recently vowed to redouble their efforts. The City Council earlier this month voted to raise the city's "carbon tax" — a charge based on how much electricity one consumes — to the maximum $21 per year for residences and $94 per year for businesses. And Boulderites aren't pikers. Many of the 20 or...

A young mountain lion was trapped and relocated by the Colorado Division of Wildlife after eating a house cat Monday ... north Boulder. “He was just too close,” Churchill said. “We wanted to give him a spanking and move him out of town.” Wildlife officials previously tagged the same cougar in February when the kitten was stuck in a tree, Churchill said. He is part of the five-year Front Range Mountain Lion Study, which aims to track mountain lions between Lyons and Evergreen to better understand cougar movement trends and develop a way to mitigate aggressive behavior near human establishments,...

A nudist couple living in north Boulder is complaining about discrimination after being asked by their landlord to "dress appropriately" when outside of their unit. Neighbors complained to police last weekend after they saw Catharine Pierce, 51, and Robert Pierce, 58, gardening outside their Cherry Avenue rental home nearly naked. Catharine Pierce was wearing pasties, and both wore thongs. But the officers who responded confirmed what the Pierces already believed to be true: Their dress, though scanty, was legal. As long as a person's genitalia are covered, no law has been broken, Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said. But not...

Program could create door-to-door energy consultants. It’s time for an in-your-face approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Boulder City Council decided Thursday night. The council unanimously approved increasing the city’s voter-approved carbon tax from its minimum to its maximum level beginning Aug. 6, providing an additional $810,000 annually toward meeting the city’s carbon-cutting goals. The tax, built into utility bills, is expected to help the city reach 95 percent of the Kyoto Protocol — which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels — before the tax ends in 2013. Kara Mertz, an environmental affairs manager...

If Boulder is serious about meeting the goal it set in 2002 when city leaders agreed to meet the Kyoto Protocol -- reducing greenhouse gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels -- it's time for city officials to play hardball in their negotiations with Xcel Energy. That's the message a group of business, community and environmental leaders hope to convey to the Boulder City Council on Monday when they meet at the Stazio Ballfields to listen to speakers rally the crowd from a pile of faux coal. With the slender towers of the Valmont Coal Plant as a backdrop, the...

A man caught puncturing the tire of a Boulder police car and who is accused of slashing tires on about 50 other vehicles through the city told police he blames "radiation" from Rocky Flats and his relationship with his mother for the vandalism spree... Kabelis has a lengthy criminal history, including arrests on suspicion of damaging property, assault and resisting arrest. Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said Kabelis gave several reasons for why he went on the alleged slashing rampage. "He said he was frustrated with the relationship with his mother," Huntley said. "He said he was angry with losing...

Boulder High rules! A student groups' campaign to rename one of Colorado's oldest high schools Barack Obama High after the new president fizzled today in the face of widespread opposition from students and residents of left-leaning Boulder. "It's become a lot more controversial than we wanted to. It's garnered a lot of negative reactions," said 16-year-old Ben Raderstorf, president of the school's Student Worker Club, which drew national publicity when it proposed the idea Wednesday. "We were somewhat naïve about it," Raderstorf said of the backlash. The goal was to use the attention to stir up support among fellow students....

A 16-year-old junior at Boulder High School is spearheading an effort to change the name of the school to Barack Obama High School in honor of the new president. Ben Raderstorf, who was the youth volunteer coordinator for Democrat Will Shafroth's bid to win the 2nd Congressional District, will hold a news conference today announcing his hope that the school will be renamed. "We think the election of Barack Obama is one of the most significant events in our country and shows the progress we've made in this country," Ben said Wednesday between classes. "We think he is deserving of...

Kirlins say they will only have to cede 15 percent of south Boulder lot. Two Boulder neighbors have settled an adverse-possession case that made national headlines last year and prompted changes to the state's law, according to a joint statement released Tuesday. Don and Susie Kirlin, who originally lost 34 percent of one of their vacant south Boulder lots to their neighbors Richard McLean and Edith Stevens, said they had settled a lawsuit and will only cede 15 percent of the lot. "This settlement allows the parties to put this longstanding and difficult dispute behind them," the couples wrote in...

Backers say citizenship shouldn’t be necessary to serve on city boards. If Boulder’s voters approve Ballot Question 2E this fall, city residents who aren’t eligible to vote — and who aren’t U.S. citizens — will be eligible to serve on the city’s 20 boards and commissions. The measure would remove the charter requirement that applicants to serve on those boards and commissions be “registered electors” — that is, registered to vote. Instead, applicants hoping for an appointment from the City Council to those boards would simply have to be 18 years old and have lived in the city for at...

Exactly as some legal experts predicted, Boulder's courts saw a spike in claims of "adverse possession" filed by people apparently trying to beat the clock on changes to the controversial land law. Of the 25 active adverse-possession lawsuits in Boulder County -- where a person or company claims someone else's land after trespassing on it for at least 18 years -- 15 of those cases were filed in June Some of those cases were filed just hours before changes to the law went into effect last Tuesday, court records show. The changes, drafted by a bipartisan group of state legislators...

Two commercials from Democratic congressional candidate Jared Polis paint him as a man of the people who will stand up to special interests. But ... the facts of Polis’ campaign do not exactly match up with the rhetoric in his commercials. "How can we reform health care when the politicians won't stand up to the lobbyists? ” However, Polis took at least $10,000 from members of large lobbying firms or people who identified themselves as lobbyists, Federal Election Commission records show. Another ad says: "Jared Polis will do things differently; he'll stand up to the oil companies ..." But Polis...

BOULDER — A cyclist in Boulder County was injured after a run-in, literally, with a bear. Tim Egan, 53, was riding on Old Stage Road Tuesday afternoon when suddenly a bear appeared in front of him. Egan hit the bear and ended up skidding across the road. "This bear looked at me with a look of terror on his face and sort of made a noise," said Egan. "I looked at him with a look of terror and we went, 'aaaahhhhh.'"

Internet entrepreneur Jared Polis changed the dynamics of his Democratic congressional primary race in March when he wrote his campaign another $50,000 check. That donation took his self-financing bid beyond the $350,000 mark, triggering the aptly named but little known federal "millionaires' amendment." Polis has contributed nearly $3.7 million of his money to his campaign. He now ranks among the top 10 self-funded House candidates in the 2008 election cycle nationally and will likely become Colorado's largest-ever self-donor. That puts pressure on his 2nd Congressional District primary competitors - former state Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, of Coal Creek Canyon, and...

As Tim Egan flew down Old Stage Road in Boulder County on Tuesday afternoon on his bike, he saw a large, unusual obstacle in the way. Before he could squeeze the brakes, the 53-year-old former Colorado College hockey player was in the midst of a bike-vs.-bear accident. A black bear crossing the road from west to east collided with Egan, who estimated he was going 45 mph. Egan, of Boulder, was tossed into the air and skidded across the asphalt, suffering a nasty case of road rash, cracked ribs and lacerations to his head, he said. “If it wasn’t me...

Ward Churchill is baaaaack! by: Deborah Lambert, June 05, 2008 Although Ward Churchill was finally fired by the University of Colorado, Boulder for plagiarism and dishonest scholarship rather than his 9-11 remarks, you'd never know it from his website at www.wardchurchill.net, aka the “Ward Churchill Solidarity Network,” dedicated to “Defending Academic Freedom and Political Dissent.” The site includes a petition to reinstate Ward Churchill, and a statement of support from Noam Chomsky....

Now members of the Hispanic community are concerned that the sole Mexican teacher, whom they see as a positive role model for their children, was singled out unfairly because she speaks little English.