Forty Years Ago This Week: “I feel it is critical to bring this bill to the attention of taxpayers around the state whose county budgets will be impacted to the greatest degree,” House Minority Leader Federico Peña, D-Denver, said in an interview with The Colorado Statesman, referring to state House Bill 81-1152, which had just passed the House chamber.

The legislation set out to give $9 million in tax relief to oil and gas companies, designed by Republican lawmakers to “reduce the assessed value of oil and gas properties by the amount of federal windfall profits taxes they paid.”

“Colorado is facing a $1.2 billion shortfall over the next decade for capital costs related directly to energy impact,” Peña said. “It is ironic, that in this year of public concern for the enormous costs which county governments will face due to the costs from energy development, that the first tax measure adopted by the Republican-controlled House is to give the oil and gas companies a tax break — at the expense of local governments.”

Peña told The Statesman that county governments were going to be in urgent need of assistance and that HB 1152 was not in the public interest.

Casting some shade on the legislative branch, Peña added, “I’d urge the people of Colorado to question their state representatives about how they voted on the measure.”

Twenty Years Ago: In one of the most comprehensive polls taken on population pressures and urban sprawl, Colorado voters overwhelmingly said overpopulation and overdevelopment were deteriorating their quality of life.

The poll, undertaken by Ridder/Braden Inc. on behalf of population policy organization Negative Population Growth (NPG), showed that three quarters of Coloradans believed the current trend of growth threatened natural resources and the quality of education.

“Colorado voters want their local communities to be empowered to discourage population growth and development,” said NPG executive director Sharon Stein. “The link between the concerns evident in this poll and expected population increases cannot be ignored.”

Over 70% of those polled named rapid population growth, overcrowding, traffic and urban sprawl as top community issues. Stein said that Coloradans saw the shepherding of lresponsible development as the domain of state and federal leaders and that public policies were needed in order to maintain a high quality of life, healthy environment and a sound economy.

“This survey suggests that Colorado voters would favor new controls on building and development and federal limits on immigration,” Stein said. “There is a striking level of public awareness and concern about population growth.”

Twenty Years Ago: Detractors of state Rep. Angie Paccione, D-Fort Collins, and her campaign to fill the Fourth Congressional District seat said they saw a pattern of concerning behavior emerging after she narrowly avoided ethics charges only to come under scrutiny again for emails she had blasted out to Colorado State University and University of Northern Colorado students.

In one email she wrote, in part, that “some of the financial aid that you and your family receive comes from the federal government.” The email then went on to make the claim that U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Morgan, who Paccione was seeking to unseat, had voted to slash funding for student loans.

Two students took exception to the apparent invasion of privacy and contacted CSU President Larry Penley, to request an official investigation.

Paccione’s campaign manager Gary Chandler said that the campaign had simply copied the email addresses off CSU’s directory website.

“I could show you how to do it if you want,” Chandler said.

But Musgrave’s campaign manager, Lance Henderson, said that CSU had a clear policy stating “initiating or facilitating in any way mass unsolicited and unofficial electronic mailing is against school policy.”

“Paccione used the system to benefit her campaign, and ultimately, her own personal gain,” Henderson went on. Emails like this one in question are clearly in violation of CSU’s Acceptable Use Policy for Computing and Networking Resources.”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in political science and history from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Colorado Springs Gazette.