Columns

By Robert Tonsing

On May 3, Conifer area residents will have the chance to vote, for the fifth time, whether to add another government agency, which will require funding ultimately from taxpayer support. In the current economic and political environment, this is a brave and selfish undertaking.

It’s good that virtue is its own reward, as that may be all Betty Boyd and Amy Stephens get from sponsoring legislation to establish health benefit exchanges in Colorado.
Boyd, a Democratic senator from Lakewood who serves as president pro tem of the Senate and chairs the Health and Human Services Committee, and Stephens, a Republican representative from Monument who is the House majority leader, have introduced Senate Bill 200 to put the wheels in motion to establish health benefit exchanges in Colorado.

Saturday will mark the halfway point of the Colorado General Assembly’s 120-day session. As expected, budget issues have dominated the first half of the session. Beyond that, the tenor of the session has been decidedly contradictory.

We believe we have some pretty impressive publications here at Evergreen Newspapers, and the Colorado Press Association recently offered support for this assertion with 14 awards in its annual newspaper contest.
The honors included five first-place awards in the categories of Sports Story, Sustained Coverage, Public Service, Deadline Reporting and News Story. The 14 awards mark the biggest total so far in my five years as editor here.