The Colorado State Open Thread is for people interested in Colorado, the land, the people, the inhabitants and the spirit of the land. Please join us, and since this is an open thread, please feel free to contribute what you like in the comments section below.
In just one week, the most important election of our lifetimes will wrap up. A twist was thrown into the election Sunday when
Hugh McKean, Colorado’s Republican House Minority Leader, died from a heart attack Sunday morning at the age of 55.
I don’t know anything about Representative McKean other than what was in a couple of articles — here and here. justfacts.votesmart.org/… reported his various positions and endorsements as rather typical for a Republican — endorsed by the NRA while also getting low marks from conservation organizations and a “0” rating from AARP. He is survived by his two children Hanna, age 23 and Aiden, age 21, as well as his longtime partner Amy Parks and her children. He represented Loveland and was working on being elected to his fourth term in the House. Per the Denver Post (firewalled), he was running unopposed so he will still win his election, but the county Republican party will determine who will actually take the seat. As for the leadership position, his two deputies had recently resigned because they are term-limited from running again, so they have to be determined as well. I have not been fond of the Republican party in Colorado (or anywhere else, for that matter), so while I will pass on condolences to his surviving family, I don’t mourn for the Republicans.
On other political news, I marked and turned in my ballot last Friday. Today I received an email that my ballot had been counted so I know my votes are in. I hope this sharply decreases the number of begging emails and phone calls that I would otherwise have received prior to Election day.
I voted for most of the same things that I said last week, but I did change my vote on 124, the initiative to allow small liquor store owners to have more than three licenses. I was persuaded by the commercials and the readings I did on the initiative that the way things stand now, it benefits the grocery stores more than the small liquor stores to have more licenses and that the grocery stores are already going to expand. I kept my votes against allowing wine sales in grocery stores and in allowing delivery of alcohol.
For a complete list, I voted “Yes” for D, E, FF, GG, 122, 123, 124 and 6E. I voted “No” for F, 121, 125 and 126. I voted for Democrats down the list (I didn’t vote where Republicans were running unopposed) and I voted to retain all the judges since I haven’t noticed any news articles where the judges were involved in miscarriages of justice (in my non-legal point-of-view). I would love to know reasons for voting in other directions or any other thoughts you might have on the election.
The photo at the top of the column is from last year’s Halloween in downtown Estes Park. It was pretty chilly (tonight is much more pleasant for October 31st) and it should be even more crowded.
I’m kinda curious what Halloween might be like in your areas. In Estes Park, the houses tend to be a bit more spread out and there aren’t as many places where people can go trick-or-treating like they can in the cities and suburbs of much larger towns and cities. I’m not sure how long ago they started, but Estes Park has for at least a few years collected the trick-or-treaters in the downtown. The streets are shut off and stores and restaurants are open to have people come by in their costumes and collect candy from the tables set up on the sidewalks, on the street and at tables or booths that are set up. The offerings vary — some stores just have regular collections of chocolate, Linda’s makes hundreds of caramel apples to give away, one store has a skeleton-dressed band playing in their window and usually the businesses have some of the fanciest costumes. People from Estes Park and from the nearby towns and hollows come out to have fun, get to see lots of interesting costumes and maybe get to see neighbors (if they recognize them) to compare who has the most elaborate outfits. Estes Park has about 5500 residents, and at this time of year it’s less as people go south for the winter and some stores cut back or even close down now that the tourist and elk season has wound down. Still, I would easily say that there were over a thousand people, if not two thousand, at last year’s event.
When we lived in Denver, we would have around 300 people come to our door. We lived in a relatively upscale neighborhood that people would drive to, just to have their kids roam around. Now, we don’t have a single ghoul or ghostie wandering our neighborhood. Of the 45 houses or so in our HOA, nearly all of them are owned by retirees and probably a third have already gone for the winter.
Did you go out tonight, and if so, were there any notable costumes, any special treats or did you see any tricks being performed? I’ve been listening to old-time radio shows about Halloween and some of the comedy ones have had stories of tricks, like kicking over trash cans, writing in soap on glass either on a window or a windshield of a car, letting the air out of car tires, taking a gate off one house and taking it to another house’s porch. I saw a movie with a house covered with toilet paper. Things like that are not really destructive — they’re more annoyances but relatively harmless. Would anyone dare do things like that these days, or would they worry about being shot or beaten up? Have you ever did something like these tricks, or anything worse?
Well, remember to get out and vote. You can still register right up through election day, but if your ballot has not yet been mailed, the Secretary of State’s office suggests dropping it off. October 31st was the last day to ensure getting your ballot in to your precinct office in time, and for ballots starting tomorrow, it will be one week until election day. Better to drop it off into a ballot drop box than to trust Louis de Joy’s Post Office to get it there in time. You can find ballot box drop box locations right on your ballot information sheets that you were mailed or at govoteColorado.com. In the meantime, let us hear what’s on your mind down below. The floor is yours...