Your Daily Guide

🏚️ What Happens to All the Neglected Buildings in Denver?

Right now, 310 buildings in Denver are considered neglected and derelict. Because the city wasn’t addressing these properties quickly enough, one local investor, John Crays, began approaching the neighbors of these houses, offering to navigate the thorny civil court system on their behalf in exchange for the chance to bring home a healthy profit. [City of Denver; Denver Post 🔒]

• Which buildings are legally considered “neglected and derelict”? These are buildings that city inspectors have identified as unsafe, a nuisance, habitually in violation of city codes, or at least one year behind in property taxes. The owners of these problem buildings must complete a remedial plan to inform the city how they plan to correct the problem. If they don’t, they may be fined $1,000, and potentially be subject to other fines. [City of Denver]
• Court records show that Crays and his attorney have filed lawsuits in at least eight cases over the last year and a half. Though Crays pays all the legal fees in these lawsuits, he also gets awarded damages in the case of successful suits, and can even bid on properties that go up for auction. Some owners are fighting back, calling him an opportunist who is disrupting their remedial plans and misrepresenting property issues.
• One possible solution is a community ownership model, which the city of Detroit has been doing successfully since 2008. In the absence of such an approach, though, "the use of these types of legal tools is probably better than nothing,” says Zach Neumann, a foreclosure and eviction defense attorney. [Detroit Land Bank]
• The City of Denver has a “limited bandwidth” for these cases, though, and Cray’s methods are considered a “last resort.” Last year, we talked with a reporter about this problem and the city's plan to fix it. [City Cast Denver 🎧]

🗣️ Activists, Faith Leaders Sue the Town of Hudson

In response to the announcement that the GEO Group plans to open an ICE detention center in Hudson, the community organization Together Colorado sued the Weld County town. This comes after a social media post from town officials, in which they stated that they did not have approval authority over federal immigration operations at a private facility. The lawsuit, however, calls on the town to enforce its own land development code. In a news conference last week, members of Together Colorado said that they are “simply asking Hudson to do what it is obligated and has the authority to do.” [CBS News]

🔥 The Financial Toll of Colorado's Wildfires

As of Friday, there were 13 large wildfires active across Colorado, with dozens more sparking to life over the previous week alone. More than 100 fire crews are working on these wildfires, and it’s taking a toll on resources, manpower … and finances. The state’s Drought Task Force estimates that it could cost taxpayers $266 million to cover the expenses of addressing the state’s four largest fires this summer. [Colorado Sun]

• Four firefighters have died fighting Colorado fires this year, and the Aspen Acres fire alone has destroyed more than 800 structures. [Colorado Newsline]

🧑‍⚖️ Federal Government Sues Colorado in Immigration Crackdown

The Trump administration has been going after states offering in-state tuition rates to undocumented students, and Colorado is its latest target. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state last week, arguing that the 2013 Colorado law allowing undocumented students living in the state to pay in-state tuition is unconstitutional. While the federal government has prevailed in Texas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper and Mayor Mike Johnston, who was involved in the bill’s passage in 2013, spoke against the lawsuit and what it represents. [Denver Post 🔒]

⛰️ Why Is Colorado Such a Bigfoot Hotspot?

Colorado is full of myths and legends, from the tommyknockers, believed by some to be the ghosts of former miners knocking from within the Rocky Mountains, to the very-Colorado Slide-Rock Bolter, which is said to lurk on steep mountain slopes, ready to devour unsuspecting tourists. And then of course there’s Bigfoot, whose popularity is helped along by things like the state’s vast wilderness and an annual festival in Estes Park. Find out how these mythical creatures helped shape the story of Colorado. [Denver Post 🔒]

• Just what is the Slide-Rock Bolter? We talked to an expert at History Colorado to learn everything we could about this "mountain whale." [City Cast Denver 🎧]