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Imagine a scenario in which someone, grievously ill or injured, goes to their local hospital, only to find the doors locked, the lights out, and a sign informing them that their nearest alternative is more than an hour away by car in one direction.

This is what thousands of our neighbors experience every time a rural non-profit hospital is forced to shut its doors or close a service due to overwhelming financial pressure.

Non-profit hospitals face inherent financial hurdles from taking on a disproportionate share of uninsured and Medicaid-covered patients and absorbing the costs of providing uncompensated care; but these natural financial challenges are compounded by external pressures that serve to erode what little financial cushion remains to keep local hospitals afloat. Among these have been recent conversations about rescinding the non-profit status and the associated tax exemptions for these facilities, based on a faulty and misleading notion that the value of the uncompensated charity care hospitals provide does not equal dollar-for-dollar the loss in tax revenue generated by the exemptions. But this is an erroneous assumption, for several reasons.

Nonprofit hospitals play an important and often underappreciated role in our society, in exchange for tax-exempt status. This isn’t limited to providing charity medical care – uncompensated or heavily discounted care to low income patients – which nationwide adds up to  $16–$19 billion; this also includes maintaining essential medical services in underserved areas, such as emergency rooms,  pre-natal / obstetric clinics, neonatal intensive care units, mental health programs, opioid and other substance abuse treatment facilities; and others, all of which serve critical medical needs, but operate at a financial loss.

Non-profit hospitals make other meaningful contributions to their communities as well. Local hospitals invest significantly in public health and preventive medicine, and in social services such as housing. Altogether, non-profit hospitals in the U.S. provided roughly $129 billion in community benefits in 2020 alone. To put it in perspective, the estimated cost to the federal government of hospitals tax exemptions came to approximately $13.2 billion. It is hard to argue that the American people are not getting a good deal.

Meanwhile, the costs imposed on rural hospitals pile up – the costs of absorbing uncompensated care, low Medicaid reimbursement rates, maintaining essential services at a loss, the skyrocketing costs of labor and other inputs, and so on; it is no wonder that most non-profit and rural hospitals operate at unsustainable margins; and many, especially in rural areas, operate at negative margins.

In Colorado 42% of all rural hospitals – nearly half – have experienced year-over-year losses in patient services, and 23% are at risk of closure. How can this be sustainable?

Rural non-profit hospitals simply cannot survive on a fee-for-service model alone; they require other, creative funding sources to keep the doors open and keep qualified doctors, nurses, technicians, and other medical staff on board. The tax-exempt status is one of these tools; prescription drug discounts offered under the 340B program are another.

And yet, every year, these and other revenue sources for hospitals come under relentless attack, from all directions: the pharmaceutical industry restricts the 340B discounts, sometimes recruiting government to make laws to that effect, leading to millions in lost drug savings for hospitals; the insurance industry pushes site-neutral payment policies, which reimburse hospital outpatient clinics at the same rate as stand-alone clinics, ignoring the extra overhead and related in-house services hospital clinics provide; state governments continuously look for ways to eliminate or pare down hospitals tax exemptions; and this year, some in the Colorado General Assembly sought, unsuccessfully, to impose rate-setting – a form of price control – on hospitals, which would have further reduced our already meager resources.

Again, how can this be sustainable? The chilling answer is that it’s not. Already, non-profit rural and community hospitals have been forced to make hard decisions about what services to cut in order to continue to subsidize uncompensated care; others are facing the prospect of closing their doors and creating health care deserts in their communities. How long until services or hospitals are no longer available to residents of rural communities in Colorado and many of the urban residents who travel and recreate across our great state?

Joe Theine is the Chief Executive Officer at Southwest Health System, a rural, independent, critical access hospital located in Cortez, Colorado.

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DENVER — Roger Hutson was never a huge fan of Donald Trump.

In 2016, he supported Marco Rubio for president, helping raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his Republican primary bid.

In 2024, Hutson worked with “No Labels,” a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents, to forge a bipartisan ticket with the express purpose of keeping either Trump or Joe Biden from winning the White House.

Is this “really the best we can do in a country of 330 million people?” Hutson asked in a Denver Post opinion piece after the effort collapsed and another Trump-Biden matchup seemed inevitable. The failure, he suggested, was “a sad commentary on the status of leadership in America.”

But something unexpected happened over the last six months. Trump won Hutson over.

He’s not gone full-fledged MAGA. “No, no, no!” he insisted, scoffing at the notion of driving down the street, Trump flag waving. And he’s not about to jump on JD Vance’s political bandwagon, the likeliest vehicle for extending Trumpism in 2028 and beyond.

“I’m acknowledging the accomplishments of the man in the office,” Hutson said, with emphasis on the White House’s current occupant, whom he supported over Kamala Harris. “I’m very impressed.”

It’s not, as one might suppose, because the Denver oil and gas executive is enamored of Trump’s exhortations to “Drill, baby, drill! (“No, baby, no!” is more like it, as Hutson believes oversupply would drive prices down.)

Rather, Hutson credits Trump with achieving a good deal of what he promised during the 2024 campaign.

Securing America’s borders. Forcing U.S. allies to cough up more for defense. Bringing Iran’s nuclear program to heel. Taking on the country’s unfair trade partners.

He still doesn’t much care for Trump’s abrasive personality, the name-calling and denigrating of people.

But Hutson’s conversion shows that in a country deeply dug into oppositional camps, where political views appear cement-hardened into place, there are still those open to persuasion and even willing to change their minds.

As confounding as that might seem.

::

Hutson, 65, was a Republican his whole life, until leaving the party sometime in the 2010s. Or, more precisely, he felt “the party left me.”

A growing stridency around abortion and same-sex marriage was particularly off-putting to Hutson, who describes himself as a conservative on fiscal issues and a live-and-let-live type on social matters. “If you’re lucky enough in life to find somebody you love,” he said, “God bless.”

Hutson has long been active in civic and political affairs, serving on various boards and commissions under Democrats and Republicans alike. He recalled attending a meeting some years ago when GOP leaders gathered to discuss Colorado’s increasingly blue coloration.

“If winning means nominating an African American lesbian with antennae coming out of her head,” then Republicans should do so, Hutson suggested.

That didn’t go over well.

But it fit Hutson’s approach to politics.

He grew up an Army brat, moving around the world until his father completed his military career and settled in Golden, Colo., to take a job at a family lumber business. For all the impermanence — packing up and relocating just about every two years — Hutson said his upbringing was in many ways ideal, shaping his outlook to this day.

The military, he said, reflects the best of America: unity, shared purpose, teamwork. “I think it teaches you a lot of tolerance,” he said. “I think it teaches you a lot of acceptance.”

His GOP pedigree came from his father, the Army colonel. But it wasn’t the scorched-earth version of today’s Republican Party, in which Democrats and their philosophy are regarded as the root of all evil.

Long ago, as leader of the Jefferson County Republican Men’s Club, Hutson invited Colorado’s governor, Democrat Roy Romer, to speak.

“I was catching such hell from people. ‘How dare you invite a Democrat to speak to this group?’ ” Hutson remembered being chastised. “And I said, ‘Well, he’s our governor, isn’t he? I think it’d be an honor.’ “

After some initial puzzlement from the governor’s office — are you sure? — Romer came and spoke, holding just the kind of cross-party conversation that Hutson wishes occurred more often among politicians in worlds-apart Washington.

“I’d love for Trump to have a weekly meeting with [Democratic House leader] Hakeem Jeffries,” Hutson said as he sat high above downtown Denver, his office decor — dark leather, rugged mountain landscape, a display of amber liquids — suggesting a Western cigar bar theme.

“I would love for Trump to sit down weekly with [Chuck] Schumer” — the Democratic Senate leader — or bring Schumer and the GOP Senate leader, John Thune, together and say, ” ‘How do we work our way through this?’ “

Could you imagine that, Hutson asked, before answering his own question.

Nope. Never gonna happen.

::

Nothing, and no individual, is perfect. But Hutson looks to the bottom line, and he’s willing to accept trade-offs.

Trump is loud and uncouth. But he’s respected on the world stage, Hutson said, in a way the shuffling Biden was not.

Trump may be toying with tariffs — up, down, all around. But at least he’s addressing the country’s one-sided trade relationships in a way, Hutson said, no president has before.

He may be off base calling for a drastic ramp-up of domestic oil production. But in general, Hutson said, Trump’s welcoming message to business is, “What can we do to be more helpful?”

It’s unfortunate that innocents are being swept up in mass immigration raids. But maybe that wouldn’t have happened, Hutson said, if local officials had been more cooperative and criminal elements weren’t allowed to insinuate themselves so deeply into their communities in the first place.

Besides, he said, haven’t Democrats and Republicans both said a secure border and tougher enforcement is needed before comprehensively overhauling the nation’s fouled-up immigration system?

“We need to bring in the workers we need,” Hutson said. “I mean, if somebody’s coming here to work and be a meaningful part of society, God bless, man.”

Not perfect. But, all in all, a better and stronger presidential performance, Hutson suggested, than many with their blind hatred of Trump can see, or are willing to acknowledge.

“I’ve got to look at the results,” Hutson said, “and despite his caustic attitude and behavior, I think he’s done a really, really good job.”

When Barack Obama was elected president, Hutson recalled, one of his Democratic friends, a Black man, said to him,  ” ‘Roger, you’ve got a Black president.’ And I said, ‘You know, Kevin, you’re right. And he’s my president, just like he’s your president.

” ‘We don’t have to agree on everything but, by God, he’s the president of the United States and we respect that office.’ “

Hutson paused. His eyes narrowed, disapprovingly. “We’ve lost that,” he said.

Mark Z. Barabak is a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on California and the West. ©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Longmont’s Open Space program is being compromised by Longmont Public Works and Utilities. Public Works has put forward a proposal for a land exchange involving property acquired with Open Space tax funds and land currently owned by the Public Works or Utilities Departments. This entire proposal is predicated on forming a partnership with Boulder County for regional compost infrastructure.

In January 2025, Longmont City Council directed staff to pursue a compost partnership with Boulder County, which apparently included exploring city-owned properties. Boulder County wants to build a large-scale composting operation and does not want to use Boulder County land, nor do they want to go through their own stringent Location and Extent, Land Use process.

The proposal includes the Distel property, purchased with Open Space dollars, to be exchanged for the Tull property, which was purchased with Public Works and Utility dollars.

The city purchased both properties from Aggregate in 2019. The Open Space program fully intended to purchase both properties for Open Space, as was identified in the initial 2001 Integrated Reclamation Plan, which has been updated and supported by six mayors and their councils, most recently in March of 2022. That plan was drawn up and approved by multiple city departments and past City Councils to protect this entire riparian and wildlife movement corridor along our St. Vrain Creek and Boulder Creek corridor. A plan that is nearly 30 years in the making.

At the last minute of 2019, Public Works argued that their department needed a portion of the Tull property for clean infill from development. Their needs prevailed, and 139 acres of the Tull property went to Public Works. Public Works proceeded to modify the Tull reclamation plan to meet their needs, and now, just six years later, Public Works wants to swap these two properties so Boulder County and City development can happen on Distel.

Open Space knew that the Distel property included temporary industrial development that would go away with reclamation, now Public Works wants to make the industrial development permanent with their operations.

Tull is in the floodway and not as readily suitable for development as Distel, due to Public Works negotiations to modify Holcim’s reclamation plan. The proposal for industrial development at Distel carves out multiple acres for Boulder County’s compost infrastructure as well as the balance for City of Longmont infrastructure, such as moving the Fire Training Center and the municipal training center pad for police, fire, snow vehicles and perhaps a warehouse.

Both properties are in Weld County and the neighbors are very unhappy with what was proposed to be Open Space and now to be a permanent industrial development, being incompatible with their rural homes, and bolstering volumes of traffic.

Development in this area will create a large industrial donut hole in the middle of open space and agricultural lands, creating additional fragmentation of wildlife habitat and cutting off wildlife movement corridors.

Open Space advocates support sustainability projects like composting, but not if it means sacrificing designated Open Space.

Our community’s green spaces are finite and precious. We must ensure that the total amount and quality of protected open space never diminishes.

This is about honoring our commitments and protecting the qualities of life that make Longmont unique. It’s about making clear choices that safeguard our community’s environment for generations to come.

Longmont’s Public Works Department owns 139 acres on the Tull property; this is where this development should take place, not on City Open Space. City Council, from a land preservation perspective, please “Just Say No!”

Daniel Wolford worked 22.5 years as the Open Space manager for the City of Longmont and previously eight years as the operations manager for Boulder County Open Space. He is currently a Water Advisory Board member for the City of Longmont.
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Want to get ahead in politics? Don’t say stupid stuff. Someone tell Douglas County Commissioner George Teal and state Rep. Ron Weinberg, both Republicans.

Also watch what you post. Social media for the Democratic candidate for Congressional District 8, Manny Rutinel, featured a Canadian mountain range in place of the Colorado Rockies.

Fortunately for him, that gaffe will be a little easier to live down than Teal and Weinberg’s unfortunate comments.

Frustrated that his attempt to pass a home rule charter for Douglas County in a special election was going down in flames, Teal accused the opposition of being nefariously funded. “Here’s a nationwide [effort], funded by China, funded by a communist organization that is actually trying to work against the people of Douglas County having a say on local control issues,” Teal told a rightwing radio station audience without providing one lick of evidence.

He doubled down on the bogus conspiracy theory, telling 9NEWS that No Little Kings In Douglas County, a group that opposed Ballot Issue 1A, was the one to which he referred in the radio interview. Turns out the group was created and funded by Highlands Ranch doctor Eiko Browning, an American citizen of Japanese descent with no connection whatsoever to China or its communist party.

Teal had an opportunity to apologize this week at a county commissioners meeting. Multiple Douglas County residents asked him to retract the false information and apologize for impugning a local resident based on her perceived ethnicity. He did not. Fellow Commissioner Abe Laydon then defended Teal as having no ill will toward anyone of any background. He said they had heard there was an active federal investigation into foreign influences in the national No Kings Campaign. He didn’t know if it was true, but since the local campaign had a similar name, his colleague may have drawn a connection.

Just a little free advice guys: if you don’t know whether it’s true, don’t say it. Then weigh the odds of the claim you’re considering. Would a foreign government go to the trouble of financing opposition to a relatively minor change of ordinance in a county in the middle of the U.S.? Douglas County constitutes .02% of the country’s total landmass, but I’ll wager the odds are even less than that. Do your credibility a favor and apologize.

There are, however, worse ways to put your foot in your mouth, which brings me to another bit of free advice. The list of appropriate topics for discussion at a public event is nearly infinite. Nearly. You can discuss former Senator Dick Durbin’s just announced retirement, Senator Ron Johnson’s vote on the Big Beautiful Bill, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi’s European tour, or Anthony Weiner’s current run for New York City Council.

But bring up yours and the moment will come back to haunt you as state Rep. Ron Weinberg, a Loveland Republican, discovered this week, when he had to step down from his run for House minority whip for inappropriate comments made to women while apparently drunk at events. Weinberg says he doesn’t remember making the remarks and has hired an attorney.

Even if he sticks with mocktails from now on, the damage is done.

Krista L. Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.

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Denver just poured $60 million and four years of construction into a gleaming makeover of its Central Library, funded largely by the 2017 Elevate Denver bond. City leaders cut the ribbon last November, calling it a “world-class downtown living room.” The building is a 21st-century public space built for all.

But eight months later, that living room still pulls the shades every Friday.

Starting July 6, the city’s flagship library will operate Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will remain completely closed on Fridays. Evening hours? Still none. That leaves the public with just 44 hours of access per week — far fewer than what’s typical in similarly sized U.S. cities.

Denver residents have paid not once, but twice for better access. The 2017 bond covered the renovation. Then, in 2022, voters approved Referred Question 2I, a property-tax increase pitched specifically as the key to expanding library hours — especially on nights and weekends.

Despite that promise, Central continues to close before dinner every day and remains dark on a weekday that working families, students, and unhoused residents rely on for internet access, research help, and basic community services.

Other cities don’t treat their central libraries like optional luxuries. Seattle’s Central Library is open seven days a week, including evenings. So is Minneapolis. Austin and Kansas City also offer full-week service, with multiple nights open past 6 p.m. These peer cities provide between 58 and 65 hours of weekly public access at their main branches. Denver offers just 44.

What makes that shortfall even harder to understand is the budget behind it. Denver Public Library’s annual operating budget now stands at $95 million — nearly identical to Seattle’s. The City of Denver’s general fund will grow to $1.76 billion in 2025. And yet, no new full-time library positions have been added.

Insiders estimate that keeping Central open on Fridays and adding just two evenings per week would cost around $1 million a year — roughly 1% of the dedicated mill levy voters approved in 2022. The money exists. What’s missing is the will to spend it where it was promised.

The library may cite staffing shortages or safety concerns near Civic Center Park. But other cities face the same pressures — and still prioritize keeping their civic institutions open when people need them most.

City leaders like to call the Central Library a model of 21st-century public space — a cornerstone of civic life. But a public institution that closes every Friday and never stays open past dinner doesn’t anchor anything. It isolates. What Denver needs isn’t more ribbon-cuttings — it needs consistent, reliable access to the spaces people rely on most.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about logistics. It’s about broken promises. The 2017 bond was marketed as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize core public infrastructure. The 2022 tax was sold as a way to restore library hours and reestablish libraries as true community anchors.

Yet today Denver’s Central Library — the city’s busiest branch, housing vital archives, youth programs, and the system’s largest meeting spaces — keeps fewer hours than many neighborhood branches right here in Denver and lags well behind the main libraries of comparable cities.

The renovation is finished. The collection is stocked. The staff is ready. All that stands between Denver residents and the full use of their library is City Hall’s willingness to turn the key. Until it does, the Central Library will remain Denver’s costliest “Closed” sign — $60 million spent to tell taxpayers, “Come back some other time.”

William Porter is a longtime Denver resident and public-affairs professional who has spent more than a decade working in and alongside local government in Colorado. 

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The heart of Wyoming pumps 1,500 gallons of healing water per minute from the world’s largest single mineral hot spring, making it an unrivalled place of healing and peaceful encounter over countless generations.

As Indigenous Peoples we have always connected to the power of these healing waters, that we hold sacred, with pools documented long before contact.

In the Shoshone language, they are called: bah guewana, smoking waters; in the Arapaho language: xonou’o, where the healing water turns into air, unifying with the ecosystem; and in the Cheyenne language: tsexhoeomotometo mahpe, where the breath of life comes out of the water.

In a reckless move risking local, regional and statewide economic and legal certainty, the state has been asserting unilateral decision-making power regarding the Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis, trying to build on the illegal attempts of dispossession of our peoples, while currently pushing for major changes to the park.

We fear these plans will turn our sacred springs into a playground for the rich, inaccessible to the many tribal members who hold these waters sacred.

As Indigenous Peoples we are afraid this will result in the desecration and further commercialization of our sacred Hot Springs. All this has been and continues to be done without the consent of our peoples and revenue-sharing, both required to recognize us as decision-makers, including regarding current attempts to hand over facilities to an out-of-state operator and large infrastructure investments that stand to change our sacred Hot Springs forever.

As Indigenous Peoples we have to be recognized as decision makers regarding these sacred hot springs to protect them for all future generations and to ensure free access for our people to enable healing from intergenerational effects of genocide, which is more important now than ever.

Both massacres of Native Americans and policies, such as the federal boarding school system that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families, meet the international definition of genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The intergenerational healing provided by our sacred hot springs has to be recognized. Our Arapaho and Cheyenne ancestors went directly there to heal after the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, all the way through our homelands, from South Eastern Colorado, along the Eastern frontal range of the Rocky Mountains, to the heart of Wyoming, all promised in the Treaties of Fort Laramie.

These sacred hot springs were included in the original Wind River Reservation, created long before the state of Wyoming, and today it sits at its center as the sole reservation in the state. The inclusion of the hot springs in the original reservation constitutes evidence of the importance of these healing waters to us, with Owl Creek marking the boundary to the North.

The old town of Thermopolis was located 10 miles away, outside the original reservation. Wyoming History has documented that the darkest times that followed — with disease decimating our populations by more than half and hunger reigning because the buffalo had been eradicated — settlers started to push into the reservation, especially the hot springs area.

The pressure on our tribes was tremendous; we were within 2 years of running out of rations, when the federal government sent their negotiator James McLaughlin to try to force the surrender of the hot springs for an offer of initially $50,000 and then $60,000 and rations. According to Geoffrey O’Gara’s book “What You See in Clear Water,”  another Indian agent called the offer “abundantly low for the finest hot spring on Earth.”

In light of the duress our tribes were under any agreement in itself is on questionable legal ground; what makes it even more legally questionable is that the vast majority of the payments were never made, meaning that the transfer has never been properly effected.

Even then, if anything, the relationship has been between the federal government and our sovereign tribes around the sacred hot springs, putting them in the same category as Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Access to these and all other national parks is free for all tribal members and the same should be implemented for this park and all pools in it as places of intergenerational healing.

It makes it even more questionable how the state of Wyoming ever imposed itself on the area, not just the one square mile that they claim as Hot Springs State Park, but the 10 miles by 10 miles that they illegally claim as removed from the reservation, which covers the current town of Thermopolis and beyond.

It is imperative for the state to recognize our peoples and tribes as decision-makers regarding these sacred hot springs and lands. There are an increasing number of examples of co-management of parks with Indigenous Peoples, which the Hot Springs State Park is a prime candidate for to implement joint decision making, one of the longest standing examples being Gwaii Haanas National Park which is co-managed with the Haida People and has now been extended to the whole island chain.

What the state otherwise risks is great economic and legal uncertainty for the local community and the whole state. To put the value of the land into context, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon in late December 2024 approved the sale of one square mile of undeveloped land to the federal government so it could be added to the Grand Teton National Park, for $100 million. We are talking about 100 square miles of developed land and the finest hot springs on Earth and outstanding liabilities for 130 years.

In addition to the failure to recognize our larger proprietary interests, this does not meet the standards of consultation with tribes necessary under U.S. law, and the requirement of free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples under international law, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that the United States have committed to implementing.

As Indigenous Peoples we not only have the strongest connection to these sacred waters and lands, we also hold the most long-term knowledge that is key to ensuring their protection and sustainable use; of central importance has to be unlimited free access to these sacred waters for our Peoples to support the healing from intergenerational effects of genocide.

William C’Hair is a Northern Arapaho leader and knowledge keeper. Wes Martel is an Eastern Shoshone leader and knowledge keeper, and Phillip Whiteman Jr. is a Northern Cheyenne traditional chief and knowledge keeper.

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