? It’s always interesting – sometimes pretty fun, too – when someone takes is upon themselves to act as a citizen watchdog. One of the more well-known such people in Colorado politics is back in news, as ColoradoPolitics.com tells us about Marilyn Marks and her latest pet issue – of course, related to election integrity. It’s one of the perhaps most visible issues in the past election, too: ballot selfies. She penned a long letter about a bill that’s headed to the governor’s desk to make it legal to take a picture of yourself with your ballot and post it to your Facebook or other social media feed.

? If you haven’t heard it yet, check out the Colorado Public Radio story about state Rep. Brittany Petterson, D-Lakewood, and her personal connection to the opioid epidemic. With her story in mind, it’s understandable why she wants to introduce a bill to help the state address the health issues that caused some of her own personal strife.

? It took months and months of committee meetings, rewriting and changes, as these things always do, but Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn finally had his city ethics code revisions approved. Many of the changes bring Denver in line with other major cities, including a monetary cap on gifts elected and appointed city officials can accept, as Denverite.com reported.

? Maybe it’s a downside to being one of the fastest growing states in the nation, but Colorado has 16 “hate groups” present and sometimes active, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and a story on Denver7. There’s a list of the groups and where they’re located on the TV station’s website, if you want to know who’s where.

? And in a related move, a bill to make law enforcement agencies report hate crimes, sponsored by 2018 attorney general Democratic candidate state Rep. Joe Salazar, has faced a bumpy ride in the House, after an amendment stripped any penalties on those agencies who fail to follow through was added. The lack of a requirement to report hate crimes seems to be an issue for those who track them according to reports. According to ColoradoPolitics.com, in 2015 and 2014, three communities with populations over 100,000 in Colorado – Lakewood, Thornton and Westminster – reported zero hate crimes, even though each of their agencies reported multiple bias-motivated incidents in past years.

? Those express toll lanes Highway 36 and I-70 to the mountains are getting used to the point the Colorado Department of Transportation is satisfied at the revenue they’re producing. Denver7 reported that CDOT figures show 12.9 million customers used the express lanes in 2015, and nearly 24 million customers used the express lanes in 2016, nearly double as many as 2015.

? It will likely end up just being a political statement, but Salazar also has sponsored a measure that would make Colorado the first “sanctuary state” in the nation. It’s, of course, a response to President Donald Trump’s travel ban orders, and CBS4 reported it has no Republican support.

? “I will miss you and I wish you did not have to close at all,” reads a letter pinned to the wall of Pleasant View Elementary School in Golden, written by a student named Amber. The school will close at the end of the school year after the Jefferson County School Board made the decision to save money. ChalkBeat Colorado reported several questions remain to be resolved, though.

? And now that we’ve all lost an hour sleep with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time last Sunday, do you want to vote to make the switch permanent? A bill reintroduced in the Colorado House, as reported by ColoradoPolitics.com, would require voter approval to make the loss of an hour of sleep permanent, and then we’d have to see other states in the Mountain Time Zone do likewise to have the change actually take effect. So in other words, take heart, we’ll more than likely get the hour back this spring once again, though we may all have to live through the purgatory-like cycle for the rest of our days.