We know. There’s so much going on and so many great stories to read, it’s hard to catch them all. The Denver Post team is here to help with a new newsletter highlighting our most important work of the week, with a special focus on the story we’ve decided should lead our Sunday newspaper.
This week that story explores the effort to repeal Denver’s camping ban. It’s shaping up to be one of the city’s most expensive ballot fights with well-meaning people on both sides arguing about what is best for the city and its residents facing homelessness. What is the most compassionate approach? What’s the right balance? How has the ban been used so far?
The story was reported by Andrew Kenney, who covers the city and its neighborhoods for The Post. He delivers insights from those living on the streets and those who work with them, statistics, expert opinion and national perspective in this in-depth piece. Photojournalist Joe Amon has many times convinced people in tough circumstances to trust him to tell their story. He does it again here, capturing intimate images — the man dry shaving with a carpet knife sticks with me — of the people who find themselves without a reliable roof over their heads.
We hope you learn something from this work. I sure did.
— , Editor of The Denver Post
Five of The Denver Post’s best stories this week
How Denver’s camping ban works — or doesn’t work — as voters prepare to decide its future
Denver voters will soon decide the fate of Initiative 300, known as the “Right to Survive,” which would allow people to pitch tents, sleep in cars and use other types of shelters in public places. The effort has quickly become one of the city’s most expensive election-year fights as opponents to the initiative have raised nearly $600,000 to keep the camping ban in place. Read more from Andrew Kenney.
Denver planning “pay-as-you-throw” trash fee, Mayor Hancock says
Denver is preparing to launch a “pay-as-you-throw” trash collection program, Mayor Michael Hancock announced at an elections forum, reviving an idea that was discussed his first year in office. Read more from Andrew Kenney.
Polis blocks blame-it-on-China approach that would prevent EPA from flunking Colorado as “serious” violator of federal air-quality standards
Colorado could get an exemption from the Environmental Protection Agency on the basis that Asia’s air pollution wafts into the state. However, Gov. Jared Polis directed air officials not to use that exemption because “We have to do everything in our power right here at home,” he said. Read more from Bruce Finley.
Amazon’s gamble on finding 1,500 workers for robotic warehouse in Thornton may not have been a gamble after all
After turning the heads of countless drivers on Interstate 25 while its massive walls went up, Amazon’s four-story, 855,000-square-foot Thornton fulfillment center finally opened last summer, shipping its first order in August. Eight months on, the facility known among Amazon workers as DEN3 is humming along, sorting, packing and shipping hundreds of thousands of orders daily. Read more from Joe Rubino.
Denver’s latest big idea for affordable housing is tiny apartments (some the size of your master bedroom)
Would you pay $1,189 rent per month for a 369 square foot apartment in RiNo? In an era when the metro area’s stockpile of apartments continues to grow big time, a trend is emerging in Denver’s urban core: apartment shrinkage in the form of “micro apartments.” Places like Ride at RiNo appeal to renters who put more stock in location than square footage and are heavy on communal spaces and light on parking. Read more from Joe Rubino.
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Quick Hits
+ Gas fee among ideas as Colorado lawmakers figure out how to pay for transportation
+ From cow town to tech town: Denver’s startup scene is flourishing
+ 7-year-old Caden McWilliams died in dog crate after being forced to sleep there, affidavit states
+ Bay Area tech firm Checkr could bring more than 1,400 jobs to Colorado in its HQ2
+ Colorado teen pregnancies dropped 20 percent near these clinics. Now, their funding is at risk.
