Standing on a street corner in Denver’s historically Black Five Points neighborhood, a group of activists, elected officials and mothers of those slain by police called on the attorney general to commit to retrying the cases and publicly acknowledge the previous convictions.

“What this system told us yesterday was liberty and justice for all — except Elijah McClain and anyone that looks like him,” said MiDian Shofner, CEO of the .

The appeals court on Thursday reversed homicide convictions for Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, the former paramedics, ruling that the district court failed to properly instruct the jury on the standard of care applicable to the criminally negligent homicide charge. The three-judge panel upheld Cichuniec’s second-degree assault by drugging conviction.

Attorney General Phil Weiser, in a statement Thursday, said his office would appeal the decision.

McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, died after Aurora police put him in a neck hold and Cooper injected him with an overdose of ketamine, a sedative. He was coming from a convenience store on Aug. 24, 2019, after buying a few cans of iced tea when a 911 caller reported a “sketchy” Black man walking down the street in a ski mask, waving his arms. McClain was unarmed and not suspected of committing any crimes.

His death sparked massive racial justice protests in Colorado in 2020 and spurred state lawmakers to pass a series of criminal justice reform bills. After prosecutors initially declined to file charges against the officers and paramedics, Gov. Jared Polis .

The court’s decision Thursday reaffirmed what Black leaders have long known about America’s justice system, they said during Friday’s news conference. , a 14-year-old Black boy who was lynched in 1955 after offending a white woman in a grocery store, “warned us about what happened to Elijah McClain,” Shofner said. So did , a 15-year-old shot in 1991 in Los Angeles by a convenience store owner.

“Yet we are supposed to believe that we are in a post-racist society,” Shofner said. She recalled the thousands of people who took to the streets in 2020, rallying for racial justice. The problem, Shofner said, “is that we confuse progress for permanence.”

“So I have to ask myself,” she said. “Where did all the good allies go?”

Veronica Seabron knows all too well what McClain’s mother is going through. Her son Jalin, in February 2025, was killed after being shot nine times in the back by a Douglas County deputy. The district attorney declined to file charges against the deputy.

The court’s ruling Thursday “punched me in the stomach,” Seabron said.

“Behind every reopened case is a mother,” she said. “This isn’t just a case number or a headline.”

Seabron wore black, red and white to the news conference — black to remember the lives lost; red to symbolize the bloodshed; and white for the purity of the deceased’s souls.

Shofner said the community stands ready to launch protests once again. The systems, she said, have simply not done enough.

“Our demands are clear; our demands are reasonable,” Shofner said. “We will be watching.”

Jonathan Alpert, partner at , confirmed the news to The Post on Wednesday.

“We have a local buyer we’re excited about and believe is the right fit to steward Stanley into its next chapter,” Alpert said. “We’re confident in their vision and execution as they lead the marketplace into its second decade, and feel strongly that this is the right step for the business owners here and the broader community.”

Although the buyer’s identity has not yet been disclosed, Jessica Nelson, a spokesperson for the Stanley, said in an email to The Post that the transaction is still subject to ongoing diligence, approvals and customary closing conditions, adding that processes like this typically take several months to complete.

Additionally, Nelson said the property will remain open and continue normal operations.

Westfield Company, a real estate and development firm, co-owns Stanley Marketplace through a joint venture partnership with Flightline Ventures, which the formerly vacant Stanley Aviation manufacturing facility in 2014.

Inspired by Denver’s The Source, the site underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation and opened as The Stanley Marketplace in 2016. It is home to more than 50 locally owned businesses at 2501 N. Dallas St.

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The for riders on Regional Transportation District buses plying one of metro Denver’s busiest roads. But for Sean Buchan, a co-owner of Cerebral Brewing, the Aurora phase could amount to a second economic body blow.

His brewery at East Colfax Avenue and Monroe Street in Denver has endured 18 months of construction, slicing 20% out of his bottom line as chain-link fencing and closed side streets have chased away customers.��Now Buchan will have to face a new round of disruption at one of his other breweries at Colfax and Florence Street — four miles to the east in Aurora.

“We saw people who would no longer drive to get here,” he said of the overhaul that began in Denver in the fall of 2024, generally starting at Broadway and moving east. “We saw a drastic year-over-year reduction in business.”

One consolation for businesses along the Aurora segment of the project is that planners are employing a totally different design than what’s being used for the 5.4 miles of Colfax from Broadway to Yosemite Street in Denver. The Denver segment is closer to a full “bus rapid transit” design — with dedicated bus lanes in the center of the street. But in Aurora, buses will migrate to the sides of Colfax and join the general flow of traffic once they cross the line dividing the two cities.

Travel time for bus riders is projected to drop by 15 to 30 minutes along the corridor from what it is on the Route 15 and Route 15L buses that serve East Colfax now. The new rapid bus system, promising easier boarding and a pickup frequency of less than every five minutes, is expected to launch at the end of 2027.

“While construction on the Aurora portion of the corridor is expected to move at a quicker pace and with less disruption than work occurring in Denver, we recognize that any level of construction activity can be challenging for nearby businesses,” said��Shawn Albert,��the deputy project director for the East Colfax Avenue BRT project.

Albert works for Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, which is overseeing the entire effort.

“We will maintain access to all businesses during the construction, but some temporary pedestrian detours may be needed to accommodate specific construction activities,” he said.

Several businesses in the Denver section of the project have closed or moved because of the construction, including Misfit Snack Bar and Colfax and Cream, a coffee and ice cream joint.

Those who haven’t turned out the lights are on the edge, Buchan said.

“Everyone who didn’t close was��waving the white flag and asking for help,” he said.

Buchan received $15,000 from Denver’s , which he said covered about a month’s worth of payroll for his dozen or so employees. He has had to cut his staff’s working hours but hasn’t laid anyone off.

“It’s been pretty brutal,” he said.

Mixed-flow traffic, station improvements

Work on Aurora’s 3.1-mile segment of the Colfax project is set to kick off Wednesday with utility work near Havana Street, Albert said. Work will generally proceed from west to east over the life of the project, with the eastern terminus at Interstate 225, near the Anschutz Medical Campus.

More involved station work will begin this summer, Albert said. The total cost for the Aurora segment is nearly $26 million — $14 million of which comes from city funds.

Carlie Campuzano, Aurora’s deputy director of transportation and mobility, said there will be 22 stations in the city — 11 on each side of Colfax.

“There will be station improvements,” she said. “There will be a shelter added at every station.”

The stations will have ticket kiosks so that fares don’t have to be paid onboard the buses, saving time. Some of the stations will feature real-time arrival screens and level boarding, making it seamless for wheelchairs and people with disabilities to get on and off the buses.

Campuzano said that while the Aurora segment looks and works differently from the Denver segment, it meets the standards for what constitutes a bus rapid transit system.

“For BRT, there’s a menu for different strategies,” she said.

According to , the organization posited that there is no single way to design a project, saying “… flexible systems are important, especially since many BRT systems operate in dynamic urban environments.”

“While a majority of BRT (lines) … operate at least a portion of the system in some form of dedicated bus lanes (median, side, or curb-running), a majority also have a portion of the system that also operates in mixed flow, which highlights the flexibility of BRT,” the organization said.

Mixed flow is what Aurora is getting, meaning the buses will ride with the overall traffic flow on Colfax rather than in a bus-only lane. But buses will receive priority signalization at intersections — “an early green or an extended green time,” according to Campuzano — to keep them moving swiftly.

Jill Locantore, the executive director of the pro-transit , is disappointed that the design on the Denver side of the project didn’t extend into Aurora.

“I think it’s a misnomer to call it bus rapid transit in Aurora without dedicated bus lanes,” she said. “When the buses are running in mixed flow, it will not be rapid because the buses will be stuck in traffic.”

Locantore holds out hope that if BRT notably improves the transit experience on the 8.5-mile corridor over the next few years, the side lanes of East Colfax in Aurora could eventually be turned into exclusive bus lanes.

“Making it a dedicated bus lane just takes paint and signs,” she said.

The reason behind Aurora’s less-robust approach to BRT lies beyond the dynamics of East Colfax itself, said Doug Monroe, RTD’s manager of corridor planning. While the Denver stretch of the project is buttressed by alternating east-west routes to help relieve traffic on Colfax — East 13th and 14th avenues to the south and East 17th and 18th avenues to the north — Aurora’s street grid is different.

“Aurora does not have that capacity on their parallel street network,” Monroe said. “The city was concerned about impacts to traffic on Colfax.”

Up to 35 articulated buses — larger versions of a typical city bus — will move through the entire Colfax BRT corridor on any given day, Monroe said. While much of RTD’s ridership was decimated by the agency’s orders to severely restrict capacity on its buses and trains during the coronavirus pandemic, Monroe said the Colfax corridor has bounced back faster than the system as a whole in recent years.

It now has 16,000 to 17,000 daily riders, he said, compared to nearly 22,000 before the pandemic restrictions.

“Colfax is the busiest bus line in the system,” Monroe said.

Not a one-size-fits-all project

Shoshana Lew, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, is comfortable with the lack of design continuity between the Denver and Aurora segments.

“There are pros and cons to each approach,” she said in an interview with The Denver Post.

Other bus rapid transit corridors in metro Denver that are under construction, such as the , or in the planning stages, like Federal and boulevards, aren’t carbon copies of each other, Lew said.

“I think it’s phenomenal that each city is taking the lead in what it looks like,” she said. “None of these are going to be one-size-fits-all for all areas.”

Aurora’s BRT efforts come at a time when the city is making efforts to rejuvenate the Colfax corridor, which has struggled with crime and underinvestment for years. Last fall, Aurora voters approved the formation of a , which will have the power to draw on growing tax dollars in the form of tax-increment financing to invest in the corridor. The goal is to support small businesses, housing, safety and neighborhood improvements.

As the overall Colfax BRT project hit its brewery owner Buchan said he was worried about how his Aurora location would be impacted once the machines and work crews moved into place.

“I think some of the damage has been done — people see Colfax as hard to navigate,” he said.

Cerebral Brewing in Aurora, which opened in 2022 as an offshoot of the original Denver location, serves as the company’s production facility. It also has a taproom that Buchan hopes will remain a neighborhood gathering spot.

Despite being impacted twice by construction over the course of the project, Buchan says he’s a transit supporter and hopes bus rapid transit, once up and running, will inject life into the corridor and benefit the businesses that make Colfax, Colfax.

Re: “Vet found stability building home; now city wants land,” May 3 news story, and “Denver Water to drain Antero Reservoir,” April 21 news story

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman can’t feel good that his city is about to ruin the life of Josh Kimbrough, who suffered brain injuries and trauma during his Army deployment. But he now needs to step up and change the narrative.

To help heal, Josh needs peace of mind, and he’s found it on the land he purchased in South Park, where he’s built a cabin for his family of four. But Aurora needs water, and has targeted his land for a large new reservoir. The city initially had another site, but believed this one is better because it will have one, not three, dams and be easier to operate.

Not good enough, Mr. Mayor. Better to incur a little more financial pain and spread it among all your water customers than stay the course and focus immeasurable physical pain and mental anguish on an injured veteran you would normally step up to protect.

Jeffrey Stroh, Denver

Aurora proposes flooding a large area of South Park for its planned Wild Horse Reservoir, while Denver Water drains Antero Reservoir because it does not have enough water in its system to keep it full during this drought.

Take a look at a map of South Park. The planned Wild Horse Reservoir is within spitting distance of Antero. The irony is delicious while also sad. I know Denver and Aurora have different water agencies, rights and responsibilities. Couldn’t something be negotiated so that yet another parcel of wonderful Colorado landscape is not inundated with water that might soon not be flowing if this drought continues?

I am not an expert on water law and the like, nor am I a fan of AI. But it couldn’t hurt Denver and Aurora to just ask their respective AIs: “Isn’t there an alternative to more dams and flooding in South Park?” Just ask for alternatives, please.

Martin Linnet, Golden

So let me get this straight. Aurora Water wants to spend $1 billion to create a new large, shallow reservoir — just a few miles as the crow flies — from Antero Reservoir, another large, shallow reservoir that is about to be drained, to avoid the massive evaporation that occurs with large, shallow reservoirs. This proposal seems laughable and lacking anything resembling science or research.

Wouldn’t it be more effective if Aurora eliminated all of the thirsty grasses and lawn areas that are merely ornamental? We need parks and similar shared recreation areas with grass, but I’ve seen plenty of subdivisions with lush grassy areas (like those between streets and sidewalks) that serve only an aesthetic purpose.

Randy Thompson, Salida

Did the Supreme Court decision gut the Voting Rights Act?

Re: “SCOTUS just neutered the Voting Rights Act,” May 3 commentary

Americans don’t like gerrymandering. Period. Irrespective of whether it’s a racial or political rationale.

Sunday’s opinion piece from Noah Feldman on the Supreme Court’s recent decision regarding Louisiana v. Callais, while predictably liberal, is surprisingly loud and histrionic given his usual pragmatism. While he probably didn’t write the headline, the decision hardly “neuters” the Voters Rights Act from 1965. Nor does it “gut” it, as Chuck Schumer babbled after the 2013 SCOTUS ruling on Shelby County v. Holder. Feldman claims the ruling serves to “eliminate Black Democratic members of Congress.” It does no such thing.

Since Shelby, both houses of Congress, mirroring the rest of society, have become far more racially mixed, with about versus only 45 in the 2011-13.

The VRA was neither neutered nor gutted. Nor were Black members “eliminated.” Rather, Black representation ballooned.

The recent decision merely reaffirms and restates that carving up districts based on race is illegal. Jim Crow died a too slow death, but most assuredly remains deceased today.

Employing the “the sky is falling” strategy when making an argument doesn’t make it more credible. It merely signals resignation.

Jon Pitt, Golden

I read with great interest Noah Feldman’s column in the Perspective section. He echoed every point I have been thinking about this with this new 6-3 conservative Supreme Court.

First, they started with overturning Roe vs. Wade after all three new justices agreed during their confirmation hearings that it was settled law. Then they gutted the Voting Rights Act, which was one of the cornerstones of our democracy.

We are returning to the Jim Crow era in this country as the rest of the democracies around the world continue moving forward, and we continue moving backward.

Shame on the Supreme Court. It is no wonder their approval ratings are at an all-time low.

It is a sad day for our country and one more step towards Christian Nationalism. Hungary sent the world a message, but apparently our country wasn’t listening.

David Shaw, Highlands Ranch

CHSAA needs to address youth sports loophole

Re: “CHSAA cracks down on high school recruiting,” May 3 editorial

I have coached youth football for 25 seasons and have witnessed multiple high school coaches directly ask middle school-aged players to “come play for them.” When I step in to protect my player, I’m often asked: “Why do you care?” My response is that it’s the student who usually pays the price for recruiting violations.

I agree that these two rule modifications are a good first step. But the middle school issue isn’t so cut and dry. When teams age out of youth football (8th grade), it’s the parents who start the conversation about which school their son should attend. They weigh factors like team success, playing time, the possibility of making varsity, the position they are likely to play, and whether the school will prepare them for college football.

As I understand the rules, an incoming freshman is not subject to “athletically motivated transfers.” High school coaches are aware of this and do what they can to try to influence students to attend their school. They do this through camps and by being involved in youth sports, either directly or by hiring youth coaches as assistants.

In the winter after his 8th-grade season, my nephew was invited to play for a “Colorado All-Star” team in a tournament where coaches from four different high schools were on staff. I witnessed two of them tell my nephew to come to their school, saying, “I have a spot for you.”

It used to be that high school coaches were prohibited from coaching youth sports. CHSAA should close this loophole by either reinstating the youth sports prohibition or acknowledging that they are OK with it.

Larry A Gombos, Littleton

Insurance companies could serve us better by cutting advertising

Every year, the top insurance companies spend billions on advertising and marketing. For example, , Progressive spent nearly $3.5B, State Farm $1.11B, Geico nearly $1.4B, and Allstate $1.87B. That����ap nearly $7.8 billion, not counting Liberty Mutual, USAA, Farmers, American Family, Nationwide, Travelers and others?

With global warming, devastating fires are burning up our forests, farmlands, the plains, and even parts of cities. In December 2021, the devastated Boulder County, laying waste to more than 6,000 acres and incinerating more than 1,000 homes and seven commercial buildings at a projected cost of��$1 billion, making it Colorado’s most destructive fire in terms of property loss.

If the insurance companies used just 1% to buy firefighting aircraft instead of making millionaire celebrities even richer, how many planes could be bought to protect our homes? How many homes could have been saved, thus saving the insurance company millions?��More planes in the air, less destruction, and the insurance companies save money. They could then pass the savings on to you.

Imagine seeing a plane flying over to save you and your loved one’s property with the logo of the insurance company on the side. Would you switch to that company? I would!

Randy Moyle, Westminster

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The military recently chose the base in Aurora as the potential host of a nuclear microreactor to produce always-on electric power for the facility, home to Space Base Delta 2 and the Mission Delta 4 missile-warning system.

The proposed compact nuclear fission reactor at Buckley, which would produce less than 10 megawatts of electric power and would not be connected to the larger electric grid, could be up and running by 2030, the Department of the Air Force says.

“There is a growing need for energy independence and access to uninterruptible power supplies for national security,” the department, which oversees the U.S. Space Force, said in a statement to The Denver Post this week in response to emailed questions. “Microreactors provide steady, reliable, and high-density energy that is less susceptible to grid failures and system outages caused by disruptions like natural disasters or cyber-attacks compared to other energy sources.”

Buckley was one of�� to be part of the military’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program. The other two are Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana and in Texas.

It’s not the first time the use of a small nuclear reactor has been pitched in Colorado. Last summer, Denver International Airport generated headlines when it said it would explore the possibility of locating such a reactor on airport land to help meet growing demand for electricity while reducing the use of carbon-emitting power.

Less than a week after that announcement, DIA put plans to commission a feasibility study on hold after Denver City Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore questioned why the airport didn’t first consult the community and residents around DIA.

The Buckley proposal has drawn increasing attention in the weeks since it was quietly announced.

City spokesman Joe Rubino said Aurora city leaders were aware of the military’s plans at Buckley but said any questions would need to be directed to the Department of the Air Force. Aurora City Councilwoman Amy Wiles, whose ward encompasses Buckley, said she has heard some concern from constituents about having a nuclear power source so close to neighborhoods.

Some have questioned whether waste from the reactor could pose a hazard, she said.

“Because it is in a ward surrounded by homes, I would like to know what the safety and notification plan is if something were to happen,” Wiles said.

The Air Force department said it would engage with local leaders and the public once its plans were firmed up, including holding public town halls featuring experts from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy.

One critic of the plan is Chris Allred, the nuclear guardianship coordinator with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. He said the reactor proposal at Buckley “is a key example of how nuclear energy is connected to militarism.”

“We are experiencing a nationwide propaganda campaign trying to sell nuclear energy to the public as clean energy that will help to mitigate the climate crisis,” he said.

But, Allred said, nuclear energy requires “massive quantities of water” — problematic for a state hobbled by a historic drought — and leaves behind an intractable waste problem.

“We should be allocating water toward organic agriculture and regenerative projects that help us to live in harmony with the environment, not investing further in nuclear technology and militarism,” he said. “We advocate for nuclear abolition because there is no long-term plan for management of radioactive waste.”

But Thomas Albrecht, the director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Center at the Colorado School of Mines, said microreactors use nowhere near the amount of water that traditional and much bigger nuclear power plants require.

Most modular reactors, he said, can fit on the back of a semitruck.

“The water supply issue is a nonissue,” he said.

While there are no modular reactors up and running yet in the United States, Albrecht said some of those in the design phase will use molten salt, helium or liquid metal to help cool the fission process, obviating the need for large amounts of water.

And because microreactors are portable, Albrecht said, the entire unit can be removed and the waste processed or recycled by the private-sector contractor that provides the technology to the base. In Buckley’s case, the Department of the Air Force chose last month as its partner company on the initiative.

Modular nuclear reactors have more “up time” than wind or solar energy sources, Albrecht said, and they wouldn’t be subject to the emergency power shutoffs that Xcel Energy and other utilities have imposed to prevent wildfires during high-wind events.

“A military base can’t tolerate that,” he said. “It needs really stable, really reliable power.”

Still, the professor said, the military will need to bury and heavily fortify the microreactor to guard against terrorist attacks and ensure it can survive natural disasters. To that end, Aurora last year signed an agreement with the military and the FBI to prevent drone operators from flying unmanned aircraft systems over the base.

“They dig a hole or have a bunker in place, and they go underground,” Albrecht said. “The reactor has to be protected so that even in the event of something catastrophic, they are not accessible.”

The Department of the Air Force responded The Post’s questions through an unidentified spokesperson. The representative said any microreactor the military deploys “must follow strict federal nuclear safety regulations and environmental review processes.”

It would need an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or authorization from the Department of Energy before it could go online.

“This includes development and expert review of detailed safety and emergency response plans — from reactor design to decommissioning,” the department said.

The couple bought their 23-acre property in 2017 as a place away from the chaos of Denver life, and where Josh could heal from the brain injuries and trauma he suffered while serving in the U.S. Army. For years, they lived in an RV on the property in the central high valley, which is surrounded by mountains, as they built a home.

They learned how to use excavators and other heavy machinery. They dug out their basement, installed a septic tank and plumbing lines, and wired a solar-powered electrical system. They bought and transported a two-room log cabin from Montana. They installed a playground for their children, ages 7 and 1.

On March 25, they received their certificate of occupancy and officially moved into their cabin.

“It����ap a sanctuary,” said Josh Kimbrough, 41. “It’s the first time in a very long time that I’ve been able to reduce my stress level enough to do some meaningful therapy work and become the person I want to be — versus the constantly triggered, high-anxiety person I’ve been.”

But what was meant to be a long-term home now feels uncertain. In February, Aurora Water announced its plans to on a swath of land that includes the Kimbroughs’ parcel.

The decision by the faraway city’s water utility has pitted two pursuits of stability against each other: Aurora Water’s hunt for reliable water supplies and the Kimbroughs’ search for peace.

“It has completely stripped me of all sense of stability and security for my family,” Josh Kimbrough said.

Aurora Water, for years, has sought to build a new reservoir so it can store more water for extreme drought years like this one.

The new body of water, to be named the Wild Horse Reservoir, would become the city’s largest at a capacity of 95,000 acre-feet. It would significantly ��from 150,000 acre-feet to 245,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot of water is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre in a foot of water — more than 325,000 gallons — which is enough water for three Aurora households’ annual use.

The project is critically important for the growing city, said Sarah Young, an assistant general manager for the utility.

“If we don’t have the ability to store water for times of drought or emergencies, then we lose the ability to provide water to over 400,000 people,” Young said.

‘Not an easy decision,’ utility says

Aurora Water first planned to build the new reservoir at a different site that’s closer to Hartsel. It purchased the vast majority of the land needed to construct the reservoir there, but it stopped short of exercising eminent domain on the remaining necessary parcels.

However, showed that the current site, located farther south, made more engineering sense.

The southern location would require one dam instead of three, which would simplify operations and greatly reduce the risk of problems, said Zachary Henry, a communications strategist for Aurora Water working on the reservoir project. The southern site also would not require the creation of a new quarry for dam materials, minimizing environmental impacts.

But there’s one complication: People live on the 1,700 acres of land the utility needs for the reservoir.

“This was not an easy decision for us, even though all the engineering and costs led to this site,” Young said. “We really struggled with this decision because of the residents living down there.”

Several hundred people own land in the planned reservoir’s footprint, but only seven of those properties include a habitable residence — including the Kimbroughs’, Young said.

The city has already purchased several properties that were for sale in the area and is working with other landowners who would rather sell now than wait. Aurora water officials are talking with the remaining owners to determine the best way forward without resorting to eminent domain to seize the land.

“We have a lot of time,” said Lyle Whitney, a project manager with Aurora Water who has overseen communication with landowners. “We don’t want to rush; we want to make it right.”

The utility’s leaders want to offer landowners deals that are as good or better than their current situation, Whitney said.

Aurora Water officials acknowledged the uncertainty the reservoir plans created for landowners in the footprint. They have had multiple conversations with the Kimbrough family to find solutions.

“I understand his desire for stability and peace up there, and we’re trying to do right by them,” Henry said.

Loss of stability

But up in South Park, Kimbrough once again is struggling to sleep at night.

He lies in bed and runs the numbers: how much they might get for their land, what that money could buy elsewhere, whether they could afford the property tax there.

Kimbrough received an honorable medical discharge from the Army in 2006 after serving three years and deploying during the Iraq War to Baghdad, where he and held multiple forward operating bases. During his service, he suffered two traumatic brain injuries — one during a training exercise when his parachute malfunctioned, and the second when rocket-propelled grenades exploded just feet from a Humvee he was leaning halfway out of.

After his discharge, he returned home to the Denver area and enrolled at Metropolitan State University, where he met Sarah. But he struggled to find stability and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Four times, he was admitted to emergency mental health services.

South Park was his escape.

And now, learning that he and his family might have to move from the land they poured thousands of hours into has been crushing, he said. Kimbrough has spent much of his time working on the property, but now the remaining projects — landscaping, finishing the basement — seem pointless to pursue.

The couple planned very carefully so that they could afford to own a house and raise a family on their budget. They worry that fair market compensation for their modestly valued property in a remote valley would not be enough to buy a home elsewhere.

Even if Aurora were to acquire a larger or more expensive home for them, they worry they would not be able to afford the property tax on Kimbrough’s fixed disability income.

“I don’t think Aurora has the same ideas of what people value as what my family values,” he said. “We don’t value quantity and bigger houses — we value quality time and living within our means.

“We’re very happy out here in the middle of nowhere, without electric bills and water bills and huge property bills.”

The permitting for the reservoir is in early stages, and construction on the dam won’t begin until 2028 at the earliest, Young said. After the dam is complete, it will take several more years to fill the reservoir. The project is expected to cost more than $1 billion, she said.

The amount of time before the water flows is little comfort to the Kimbroughs. The family hired an eminent domain attorney to prepare — a large, unexpected expense. It’s one of the expenses they .

“It����ap really hard, personally, to have gone to war for this country,” Kimbrough said, “and then have the Aurora government come and rip out every bit of stability from under my feet.”

The couple sat in a vestibule inside the Aurora immigration detention facility on a Saturday in March, staring at each other through the glass barrier separating the incarcerated from the free. A dozen vestibules side by side contained the stories of immigrants and those who loved them.

Donovan, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen, and her husband Juan clutched wall-mounted telephones, transporting their weekly dispatches, daydreams and flirtations across the barrier. (The Denver Post agreed to identify Juan only by his first name so he could speak freely about his experience in the U.S. immigration system without fear of retaliation.)

The husband and wife traced shapes on their palms and tapped their fingertips together, the reverberations against the glass as close to holding hands as they’d come in more than a year.

“I need time with you very badly,” Juan said in Spanish, his eyes rarely straying from Donovan’s during the hour-long visit. “I can’t wait to hug you and kiss you.”

Juan has been held at U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s Aurora detention facility since being picked up on Feb. 5, 2025, during Denver’s most high-profile immigration raid since President Donald Trump returned to office — a day that altered the course of Juan and Donovan’s lives in unimaginable ways.

For months, The Denver Post followed this couple ensnared in Trump’s unprecedented mass-deportation push to show its impact on those targeted and their loved ones. While their experience shows the pitfalls of fighting against an unprecedented legal effort, this is also a story about the lengths a couple will go to fight for their love.

Juan has no criminal history. He came to the United States legally on a work visa in 2018 and overstayed that visa — a common situation that would not have warranted detention in the past, said Anya Lear, Juan’s immigration attorney.

“That’s something that wouldn’t happen in prior administrations,” Lear said. “They would not target people who just overstayed their visas. They would definitely not detain them. It’s very unprecedented.”

The vast majority of undocumented immigrants — more than 12 million in 2023 — entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed their visas, .

Since last year, Juan and Donovan have explored an array of legal avenues — including filing a habeas corpus petition — to fight for his freedom and a path to U.S. residency, even as the Trump administration’s overhaul of the immigration process has driven them to consider giving up entirely.

The couple has grown so jaded by their experience that they say Juan might agree to voluntarily deport himself to Mexico — an increasingly common outcome as immigrants across the nation are pushed to their limits by the federal government’s mass-deportation policies.

Juan is not currently under a deportation or removal order, Lear said, because the federal immigration court is awaiting the outcome of Donovan’s petition to establish their family relationship — the first step toward Juan being able to apply for a permanent resident card, or “green card.”

“He entered the country legally, we are in the green card process, we’re trying to do everything the ‘right way’ and it just simply doesn’t matter,” Donovan said.

Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said the idea that there is even a right way to immigrate to the United States is a myth in a complex, restrictive immigration system that does not provide court-appointed legal counsel to those entangled in it.��The scant paths to U.S. citizenship that exist have become even fewer and ever-changing under this federal administration, she said.

ICE representatives did not respond to questions from The Post for this story.

The Department of Homeland Security, in its efforts to remove Juan from the U.S., has opposed his requests to be released on bond. Following an August hearing, an immigration judge issued a one-sentence order denying bond, stating that Juan “did not meet his burden to establish that he would not be a flight risk.”

‘I just want to be with her’

Donovan grew up in Missouri and considered herself the quintessential all-American girl. She was voted prom queen. She organized anti-gun protests at her school.

In 2020, Donovan moved to Colorado and became a special education teacher at a school for children with behavioral needs. She lives in southeast Denver.

She and Juan met through mutual friends toward the end of 2024.

She practiced Spanish with him and found his gentle, easygoing presence a balm to her anxiety and feisty disposition.

“He’s just so mellow,” Donovan said. “He’s literally wrongfully imprisoned right now, and he’s still so mellow.”

Donovan is talkative, bubbly and outgoing, while Juan is more of a listener. Juan is a self-professed workaholic — a roofer — who likes to stay active.

Juan took Donovan seriously, she said. When she shared her aspirations of going to law school, he asked how he could support her dreams.

“His responses are real and meaty,” Donovan said. “And I like that. Our entire relationship has been yapping, yapping, yapping.”

Each day felt like a new opportunity to learn more about each other, talk more, laugh more.

But after a few months of getting to know one another, Donovan was dumbfounded when the attentive, sweet guy she knew went radio silent.

Following worrisome days with no contact, Donovan received a call from a number she didn’t recognize. Via voicemail, Juan confirmed he wasn’t ignoring her. ICE agents had detained him while he was at a friend’s place in the Cedar Run Apartments in Denver.

Armed federal agents broke down the door while executing a warrant for someone else, and rounded up the people inside without properly determining whether Juan was a flight risk or a danger to the community, said Lear, his immigration attorney.

“I am just a middle-class white woman, so I naively didn’t think at the time there was a reality in which I was going to be affected very much by Trump’s insane policies, especially right off the bat,” Donovan said of the raid, which took place less than three weeks after the president’s inauguration. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

Juan was one of 4,750 people without legal status who were arrested by federal immigration authorities in Colorado during Trump’s first year back in office,��new data shows, reflecting a near-quadrupling of the prior year’s arrest numbers.

The number of immigrants arrested who have criminal convictions has plummeted, the data shows, while deportations of those with no criminal history have skyrocketed.

The changes have made it difficult for even seasoned professionals to navigate, Lear said.

“It’s very hard to maneuver,” she said. “It’s very, very emotionally hard for me, even as their attorney. I feel like I’m trying to do everything I can, but I’m feeling like, ‘Am I missing something?’ I’m doubting myself. It’s wrong on so many fronts. He should not be detained, especially for this long. Ultimately, he’s been punished for the delays of the system.”

While Donovan and Juan’s attorney fight for his freedom, Juan languishes in the Aurora detention facility, spending his days picturing a future where he and his wife can wake up in the same house and eat breakfast together.

“I just want to be with her,” he said during a recent visit.

A difficult decision

Donovan didn’t know about Juan’s immigration status before he was detained. He came to Denver in 2018 on a work visa and was employed as a roofer. His work was his life, she said, along with his three young children from a previous relationship.

After receiving the voicemail about Juan’s detention, Donovan found herself in an awkward situation.

She had only been seeing this guy for a couple of months. Should she stick with him through his detention?

Donovan grew up visiting family in prison, so she knew the toll of watching a loved one endure incarceration and dealing with the legal ramifications it could have on a person.

But, man, he seemed like he could be the one.

“I knew that, were he to be deported, that wouldn’t even be a dealbreaker for me,” Donovan said. “I just really, really liked him, and he felt the same. I am hellbent and determined to not cave to this system, but also not (expletive) up my life completely in the process.”

Even before Donovan made up her mind on staying with Juan, she couldn’t stop visiting him in the detention facility. She had grown too accustomed to his company and their conversations.

From the beginning, she visited him every Saturday — a tradition she continues. When she’s not visiting,��Donovan spends about $200 a month on an app that lets the couple text, call and video chat. They talk every day, she said.

It wasn’t long after Juan’s initial voicemail that Donovan decided she was all in on their relationship.

Both grew up Catholic, so the idea of an early marriage wasn’t taboo, Donovan said. Matrimony while detained seemed less than ideal, though. But as the months passed without an end in sight to Juan’s detention, the couple wondered whether they should just go for it.

“I’ve never been one to let the government tell me what to do,” Donovan said.

During a visitation last August, Juan asked Donovan to marry him.

What the location lacked in romance, it made up for in practicality — it was their only option.

The visitation room at the Aurora detention center is small. Visitors have to get to the facility early in the morning to sign in and are given a time later in the day to return. They must hand over anything on them and pass through a metal detector before their one-hour time slot.

Donovan isn’t fluent in Spanish, but she knows enough to be conversational. During a visit, She tried to ask Juan whether he thought ICE would give him an ankle bracelet if they let him out. She didn’t know the Spanish word for “ankle bracelet,” so she hoisted her foot up and pointed. Through giggles and miming, the couple eventually figured out what she meant.

“Sometimes we have to play charades,” Donovan said.

Visitors are separated from detainees by glass barriers. Families pile in with kids decked out in their Sunday best — bows in their hair, fluffy dresses, cowlicks gelled down. The adults settle into seats facing each other while children from different families run behind them, squealing, playing, crying. People talk about their legal cases, their loved ones, the conditions of the detention facility.

And sometimes they propose marriage.

“It was not a get-down-on-one-knee moment,” Donovan said.

In September, the two married. Donovan cried all day, she said. They weren’t happy tears.

No flowers. No first dance. The couple didn’t even get to see each other on their wedding day.

Donovan took off work to get all the paperwork signed in a process her attorney called “a nightmare.”

The couple needed to fill out a document to account for Juan’s absence when applying for their marriage license. An administrative error meant Donovan had to drive back and forth between the Adams County marriage license office and the Aurora ICE facility, waiting for their attorney, who was scheduled to have a face-to-face legal visit with Juan, to be able to bring him the papers to sign.

Dressed in an all-white skirt, top and heels, plus a ring she bought herself online, Donovan said she cried off all her makeup by the end of the hectic day.

“One day, we are actually going to get married the way we want to,” she said.

Denials, appeals and habeas corpus

Juan and Donovan’s emotions swing wildly between hope and despair, depending on the day.

On good days, the hope feels electric. The couple tries not to spook hope away with too big of a reality check. They allow themselves to fantasize about Juan being free. They’d eat tacos, drink beer and hold each other. They’d make tortillas by hand. They’d walk the dog together. They’d go mountain biking.

“We want to find ways we can have a stable life and do things we want to do, but reverse some of the damage we feel has been done to immigrants in this country,” she said.

But immigration judges have denied Juan bond multiple times, according to court documents. He appealed his most recent bond denial, in October, to the . That appeal remains pending, court documents show.

Lear, though, believes there’s not much hope with the Board of Immigration Appeals. Since the beginning of the year, she said, the board has issued 71 published decisions. Of those, 97% favored the federal government, she said.

During the entire four-year span of the Biden administration, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued 76 published decisions and 60% favored the federal government, Lear said.

Federal authorities have made it harder for people to even request bail in immigration cases, keeping immigrants without criminal records detained indefinitely and left to petition federal judges for habeas corpus, a way of legally challenging detention or incarceration.

Habeas petitions have become the predominant path for immigrants seeking release from detention. Colorado has seen an explosion of habeas cases as other avenues of relief have been cut off under the Trump administration.

While the array of legal challenges is a lot to manage, Donovan understands the privilege of even having legal representation.

Colorado has among the lowest rates in the nation of immigrants with legal representation, with about 85% of immigrants in the state representing themselves in court, according to a��

Detained immigrants who had legal representation were four times more likely to be released from detention, according to a

“We do know how lucky we are despite all of this,” Donovan said.

Proving their relationship is real

Donovan also has a pending I-130 petition, which allows a U.S. citizen to establish a “qualifying relationship” with an immigrant so they can seek a green card for permanent residency.

In December, interviewed Juan and Donovan separately as part of the I-130 application process. The federal agency is trying to determine whether their marriage is legitimate or fraudulent.

Violeta Chapin, an immigration law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said immigrants are often forced to prove their love in ways U.S. citizens don’t have to consider.

“You have to provide evidence of love because the immigration system has always been concerned about fraud,” Chapin said. “Certainly, under the Trump administration, there is a lot more scrutiny.”

Evidence of love can vary depending on the couple, Chapin said. Some couples might show they live together or purchased property or a car together. Younger couples who might have different relationship milestones might show they have a dog together or share a Netflix password, Chapin said.

Juan and Donovan’s relationship was interrupted by his detainment early on, so their evidence wasn’t as easy.

After waiting hours for her appointment to begin, Donovan stared at a gray wall while strangers asked her to prove her love for Juan was real, she said. She wished she had taken more photos together at the start of their relationship. She wished she could show them the sleepless nights. The crying outbursts. The number of times she drove to the detention facility just to be closer to him. She goes to therapy twice a week to deal with her declining mental health.

“During my interview, I felt like I was just floating above my body because I was sitting there thinking it’s so hopeless,” Donovan said. “None of these people give a (expletive) about my life or his… but I have to put stock into these people’s opinions of me. I didn’t know I was going to have to present evidence of my relationship. That’s not something you think about.”

As proof of their relationship, Lear submitted screenshots of Juan and Donovan’s communications over the past year.

Immigration judges have cited doubts about the validity of the couple’s marriage in denying Juan bond, Lear said.

“They are a real couple navigating a very, very difficult situation created by his detention and the uncertainty of his case,” she said. “The fact that they married while he was detained makes it very unique, but it does not make it fraudulent or wrong in any way. I don’t have any doubts about their relationship being sincere. I wouldn’t be working on the case if I thought it was some kind of scheme. She wouldn’t be fighting this hard for somebody who isn’t dear to her heart.”

The decision on Donovan’s I-130 petition is vital, Lear noted. Should Citizenship and Immigration Services approve it, Juan will be able to seek lawful permanent residency. But if it’s denied, she said, “the court would likely issue a removal order at that time.”

‘There is nothing’

When Donovan is having a particularly hard day, all she wants is to be near her husband. Sometimes she craves Juan’s presence so bad, she drives to the detention facility and sits outside the building.

Juan used to be confined to a different room in the facility that had a frosted window with a small patch scratched out at the bottom, just big enough for his eye to peek through. Donovan used to bring her longboard to the facility, call her husband and skate back and forth in front of the window, watching her husband’s eye follow her.

“I am so sick of not being able to be near him,” she said.

Despite his limited resources, Juan finds creative ways to show his affection for his wife. He crafted a tiny shoe ornament by weaving together scraps of ramen noodle wrappers from the commissary and fibers from his clothing. He slipped Donovan the trinket during one of his court hearings. She keeps it on her bedside table — a prized possession — and turns it over in her fingers to touch something her husband’s hands made.

One Monday evening in March, Donovan sat on the floor of her apartment after a long day making art with students. She spent the evening the way she does most nights — calling Juan over and over as they battled technology difficulties, poor service and the facility occasionally shutting off phone lines.

When the call finally went through, Donovan’s face lit up.

Throughout March, the couple was hopeful a judge would rule in their favor on their habeas petition, granting Juan release from the detention facility — though not settling the government’s deportation case against him.

During the phone call, they discussed the logistics of his potential discharge. What if it happened during the school day? How would they get a hold of each other?

The conversation drifted, as it often did, to the conditions in the detention center.

When it snowed, icy water cascaded from the ceiling, Juan said. The living quarters were freezing in cool weather and scorching in warm weather, he said. He told her how the meat they were fed was rotten to the point of making detainees sick and how the beans had rocks in them.

“It’s bad,” Juan said of his time in the detention center. “It’s just very bad. I don’t know the effect on my mental health. There is nothing to do here. There is nothing.”

Resignation and plans for self-deportation

To keep him going, Juan said he daydreams about his wife.

He loves the shape of Donovan’s mouth when she smiles, he said. He loves her independence. Her sense of humor keeps him laughing through hard times, he said.

“I love you because you’ve been through the good and bad,” he told her via text. “You’ve supported me in everything. I love your personality. I love your craziness and that’s why I want to be with you to build a beautiful future and have a stable life together.”

Juan knows his circumstances contribute to his wife’s worsening mental health, she said.

“I’m feeling desperate,” Donovan said. “I know Juan worries about me because of my mental health and doesn’t want to leave me alone, and then I feel guilty because I’m not the one detained. He’s the one really suffering.”

By mid-April, hope over Juan’s release had all but dwindled entirely.

Juan’s detention seemed endless. His odds of winning an appeal of his bond denial seemed low. Each morning, Juan wakes up in the detention center instead of beside his wife, his resolve crumbles that much further. Everybody he was originally arrested with has already been deported, he said.

The couple has reached their limit.

If nothing changes by the end of the month, they said they plan to request voluntary departure. Juan would be deported to Mexico. Donovan intends to follow him.

The couple and Lear said they know they’re operating within an immigration system intended to break them — to make the conditions so untenable that they choose to give up on the American dream altogether.

They’re willing to admit it worked.

Their dreamy conversations about hiking Colorado mountains together and which Denver neighborhoods they’d like to call home have now evolved into plans to move to Mexico.

“We try to just keep it positive,” Donovan said, sounding defeated. “We will be able to build some sort of life together. But obviously, we would have to take pay cuts. We would have to figure out how to maintain a relationship with his kids, figure out how to maintain relationships with our families, because we’re going to be in a different country than them. …

“We try not to stress right now. As long as we’re together. We just want to be together.”

The 3-2 vote by , in favor of the State Sunlight/Long well pad proposed by Crestone Peak Resources, came after about five hours of testimony and deliberation. The decision ends what had become one of the more contentious battles over energy extraction in Colorado.

Board Chair Jeff Robbins acknowledged that the application from Crestone had evoked a strong reaction from homeowners living nearby. But in the end, the company complied with rigorous state oil and gas regulations enshrined in a law known as Senate Bill 181, which was passed by state lawmakers seven years ago.

“At the end of the day, State Sunlight/Long achieves the balance we were told to look for,” Robbins said.

The two commissioners who voted no were Trisha Oeth and John Messner. The approvals process for the Sunlight/Long well pad encompassed seven hearings before the commission, stretching over several months.

Nearby homeowners rose up in opposition, claiming that the project would pose health hazards to those living nearby — in particular, to school-age children. They also worried about the drilling’s potential environmental impacts on the Aurora Reservoir, which is a water source for the 400,000 residents of Colorado’s third-largest city.

“I cannot believe that the state came down on the side of the industry yet again,” Randy Willard, the president of opposition group , said in an interview minutes after the vote came down Tuesday afternoon. “The group as a whole is severely disappointed.”

The group had pushed back on the proposed project using the 2019 oil and gas reform law as a guide, Willard said.

The 2019 law prioritized public health, safety and the environment when regulators consider oil and gas development — a profound change from the industry-focused approach Colorado had taken for decades.

“We’ve done everything we feel is possible under 181, only to find the industry comes out on top yet again,” Willard said. “I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do.”

In December, the state commission voted 4-1 to put a stay on the project, ordering Crestone to return with a list of alternative sites from which it could drill.

Crestone, a subsidiary of Denver-based SM Energy Company, came back this month with a slimmed-down proposal, knocking down the number of wells at Sunlight/Long from 32 to 24.

The company insisted that after examining 11 other potential sites, most of which were farther away from homes, its preferred site near Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood and the reservoir remained the best place to locate its wells.

Civitas Resources was Crestone’s parent company until late January, .

Jamie Jost, an attorney for Crestone, spoke to the commission during an online hearing Tuesday that, at one point, was attended by nearly 1,000 people. She called the site the “most vetted, most analyzed” location for the pad.

The company said the site would have the least impact on wildlife and waterways across 26,500-acre Lowry Ranch, a stretch of rolling prairie owned by the Colorado State Land Board where Crestone has plans to drill just over 100 wells in total — down from 166 just a couple of years ago.

Dan Harrington, SM Energy’s asset development manager, told the commission that reducing the number of wells at Sunlight/Long would curtail the time needed for drilling and fracking.

“This will reduce operational duration by about 25%,” he testified.

And the scaled-back operation will emit fewer emissions, including of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and methane, the company in favor of its preferred site.

Mike Foote, a former Democratic state lawmaker who represents the neighbor opposition group as its lawyer, testified that Crestone didn’t conduct an honest comparison of alternative sites.

“It found things wrong with everyone else’s suggested sites instead of coming up with something that worked,” he said.

But Nathan Bennett, SM Energy’s director of permitting and compliance, said Crestone looked at other potential locations with an open mind. The company, however, said the alternate sites had problems, with questions raised about whether Xcel Energy could provide electricity to some of them to power electric drilling equipment.

Other locations, the company said, would have required much longer truck trips and called for running pipe over more ecologically sensitive areas.

Commissioner Mike Cross said Crestone’s proposed site for Sunlight/Long was well outside the state’s required 2,000-foot distance buffer from homes. He said the company’s commitment to use quieter and cleaner electric equipment on site was a positive aspect of the project.

“The best practices that we’ve seen from operators in the state, we’ve seen in this application,” he said. “It does meet our rules.”

But Willard, who has been working to defeat the application for nearly two years, said neighbors were already complaining of noise from other Crestone drilling operations on Lowry Ranch. In a presentation that the opposition group ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, the group claimed that more than 40 noise complaints were filed with the agency last month alone.

That, Willard said, will only increase once drilling starts at Sunlight/Long in the coming months.

Metro cities and utilities are starting to lay out various defensive strategies against what has become a crispy-dry 2026, starting with an alarmingly warm and dry winter in Colorado that’s been marked by .

Denver Water, which serves 1.5 million people, could follow a similar track to Thornton’s by month’s end. Aurora Water, which is relied upon by 400,000 people, may be right behind with its own Stage 1 drought declaration in early April.

“We’re looking for a 20% reduction in outdoor irrigation compared to last year,” said Shonnie Cline, an Aurora Water spokeswoman.

The Aurora City Council is set to have a study session on the city’s water situation on March 23, followed by a council vote on potential watering restrictions on April 6.

“We’re at the lowest snowpack we’ve been at since 1978,” Cline said.

Locally, that also translates to abysmal conditions in the Clear Creek basin, where Westminster gets most of its water. Last week, the Westminster City Council discussed enacting a drought watch — a less severe step than a Stage 1 declaration that would rely on voluntary cutbacks.

“The current trend is tracking just above the 2002 line for the Clear Creek basin, which is the driest year on record,” Westminster Mayor Claire Carmelia said.

Broomfield was the first metro city to , on Feb. 9.

Jason Ullmann, the state engineer for , said the drought of the last quarter century in the southwestern United States is believed to be . Things are particularly strained this year, with Colorado’s snowpack measuring in at just 61% of median levels for this time of year as of late last week.

Earlier this month, federal forecasters projected that the Colorado River this spring will deliver 2.3 million acre-feet of water to Lake Powell, one of the river system’s largest reservoirs and downriver from much of the mountain states’ snowmelt.��That����ap just 36% of the median of 6.4 million acre-feet recorded annually between 1991 and 2020.

Closer to home, the painted a grim weather picture based on conditions in Denver. Last month was the third-warmest and second-driest February in the city, while it was the least-snowiest February on record for Denver, tying 2009’s equally snow-starved February.

Exactly when the city — and region — will finally shake off their dessicated state is unknown, Ullmann said.

“There’s no guarantee we’re going to have a better year next year, so we can’t count on that,” he said.

What water managers can control sits on the demand side of the water ledger.

Thornton gets the bulk of its water from the Upper South Platte River and Clear Creek watersheds, which are both at “record low levels,” according to a memo accompanying last Tuesday’s council meeting.

Emily Hunt, Thornton’s interim infrastructure director, says the concern lies not so much with the summer ahead but with the summers to follow, assuming precipitation stays meager. Colorado’s sixth-largest city is presently at 83% of storage capacity . It stores a large portion of the water it consumes in Standley Lake, which is also a water source for Westminster and Northglenn.

“We’re going into the summer with good storage, but with this snowpack, we’re not going to be able to top off our reservoirs the way we normally would,” Hunt said. “We’re basically trying to keep the year in balance so that if the drought continues into next year, we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

Thornton’s new rules stipulate that watering can occur only between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. Violations of the twice-weekly schedule, which goes into effect May 1, will result in a warning for a first infraction. If not remedied within 10 days, households face a $100 fine, while commercial customers will pay a $250 fine. Repeated infractions, including the failure to address leaky pipes, will result in heavier fines.

The city provides a , which differ depending on the type of sprinkler head that’s used. Residents will be able to choose which two days of the week they water their lawns.

Denver Water operates in a forward-looking manner as well. Greg Fisher, its manager of demand planning and efficiency, said Colorado’s largest water supplier is taking on this summer’s challenges with 2027 and 2028 in mind.

“We are very much in drought preparation,” he said.

The good news is that Denver Water’s storage capacity is at around 80% — just a little lower than the 85% it typically sits at this time of year, Fisher said. And efficiencies in landscaping and indoor water use are a world away from where they were in 2002, with the average household using 35% less water than it did 24 years ago.

Fisher expects the utility’s to make a drought declaration by the end of March.

“With these dry conditions, I think we’re headed to a Stage 1 declaration,” he said.

Aside from a mandatory twice-weekly outdoor watering schedule under a Stage 1 declaration — Denver Water would assign watering days to households in its service area — the utility would also ask restaurants not to serve water to customers unless requested, and to ask hotels not to wash sheets or towels unless requested.

“If we get better weather, we can scale back on restrictions,” Fisher said.

But even under a mandatory water reduction scenario, green thumbs can still make their front and backyards sing this summer, said Cassey Anderson, a horticultural specialist with Colorado State University Extension in Adams County.

“You don’t have to water a lot to water well,” she said.

Trees should be a focus, Anderson said, with the most effective watering applied on the ground in a radius from the trunk all the way out to the tips of the branches. Kentucky bluegrass, a notoriously thirsty grass that has become a villain in the eyes of water experts and policy makers, will go dormant without water — but will be primed to bounce back in more auspicious conditions.

“You aren’t going to kill it by not watering it for a season,” she said.

Anderson cautioned that this summer might not be the time to put in a new drought-tolerant or native garden, given that new plantings require extra water to establish themselves properly.

Carmelia, the Westminster mayor, says there is nothing to do but hope that the supply side of the water ledger eases up after the start of spring on Friday.

“The silver lining is that March and April are typically the wettest months of the year, and there’s still time for Mother Nature to come through for us,” she said.

The City Council on Monday night unanimously approved a on first reading. It aims to reduce underage access to tobacco products, like e-cigarettes and vaping cartridges, by stiffening fines on businesses that sell those products to people under age 21, while tightening rules on where tobacco retailers can set up shop in the city.

The ordinance would also cover sales of kratom and certain psychoactive hemp products to minors, and it would give the city greater oversight of hookah lounges.

The new law, which will be up for a final vote next month, would not ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, as was authorized by voters in neighboring Denver last fall.

“The primary concern for us is that these products are targeted towards youths,” said Trevor Vaughn, Aurora’s manager of licensing. “We’re addressing youth access to and usage of the products.”

It’s a move that , a nonprofit coalition, has been advocating for.

“In Aurora, we have a problem with tobacco retailers selling tobacco to our youths,” said Alison Reidmohr, a member of the advocacy group. “It would improve the resources for doing age-compliance checks at retailers.”

Aurora Partners cites the 2023 that found nearly 84% of Aurora youths who attempted to buy tobacco or vape products in stores were able to do so, despite not being of legal age. The city has about 340 tobacco retailers, and Aurora Partners says more than 100 of those outlets are within 1,000 feet of schools and recreation centers.

During Monday night’s council meeting, Joyce Baker, a respiratory therapist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, said that although many people view tobacco as a “problem of the past,” its main addictive component, nicotine, “has simply changed forms.”

“Today our kids are exposed to an entirely new generation of products — like disposable vapes, e-cigarettes, pods, nicotine pouches — that are designed to be discreet, addictive and appealing,” she told the council.

Baker held up a picture of a vape device that closely resembled a doctor-prescribed asthma inhaler, allowing for “stealth vaping” by underage kids.

‘Our kids are so addicted’

DeLisha Boyd, dean of students at Aurora’s Rangeview High School, told the council that responding to vaping has been “one of the biggest disciplinary actions we have to take” at the school. Students, she said, will often buy vape products in bulk and then resell them at school.

“Our kids are so addicted,” Boyd said.

Joe Miklosi, a lobbyist for the Rocky Mountain Smoke Free Alliance, an industry group that fiercely opposed Denver’s flavored tobacco ban, said his group was happy with Aurora’s proposed ordinance. His group advocates for 125 small vape stores in Colorado, 25 of which are in Aurora. Many of them are minority-owned, he said.

A sticking point was a provision in the initial draft of the ordinance that would have banned retailers from selling tobacco and vape products that the federal government hasn’t explicitly approved. That generated fear among vape shop owners that much of their inventory would be prohibited for sale, Miklosi said.

The provision was removed before the council voted Monday.

Miklosi said adults’ freedom to buy what they want must be protected, especially given the critical role vaping plays as a less harmful alternative to smoking.

As an odd contrast to Monday’s vote, Philip Morris International recently began ramping up production of its increasingly popular ZYN nicotine pouches at a new factory in Aurora, south of Denver International Airport. Aurora agreed to provide $7.1 million in tax rebates to the company while the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved $4.5 million in Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits, and Adams County has agreed to chip in another $4.3 million in incentives.

The company has hired about 120 of the 500 workers it plans to eventually employ in Aurora, which is the location of its second U.S. ZYN plant after one in Owensboro, Ky.

How ordinance would work

Aurora’s proposed ordinance cracking down on sales to young people follows a move by state lawmakers in 2020 to in Colorado from 18 to 21. Aurora’s punishment for retailers that flout its new law will be tougher than the state’s.

A first violation is set at $1,000. A second violation will get a store owner a $2,000 fine and a seven-day suspension. And a third strike will raise the fine to $2,650 and the suspension to 21 days. A store that violates the ordinance a fourth time within three years will lose its license.

A license will cost a business that sells tobacco products $500 annually, which will help pay for two compliance checks a year by the city. Aurora projects the program will generate about $170,000 a year, with an additional $30,000 expected from fines.

The measure also sets new distance requirements to “prevent over-concentration of outlets,” according to a city memo. That would mean they could be located no closer than 1,500 feet from schools or 2,000 feet from another vape store. Existing retailers will be exempted from the spacing limits.

Under the proposed law, hookah lounges would have to close by 2 a.m. and would be required to prohibit alcohol consumption and illicit drug use on their premises.

It was just half a year ago that Aurora passed a sweeping measure banning the sale of an array of “gray market” substances and drug paraphernalia commonly found in convenience stores, gas stations, and smoke and vape shops. They included nitrous oxide, synthetic cannabinoids and poppers, a nitrate product that the Federal Drug Administration says is not safe to inhale or ingest.

Dr. Terri Richardson, a retired physician who is vice chairwoman of the said there was a higher concentration of smoke and vape shops in parts of the city where more ethnic and racial minorities live. And with pipes and other tobacco paraphernalia bearing cartoon characters and puppets — like Hello Kitty and Oscar the Grouch — as a major selling point, she said there’s no question who the industry is trying to lure.

“The manufacturer is telling you exactly who they’re targeting,” Richardson said.