Today is June 8, 2023 and here’s what you need to know:

The General Assembly’s decision to allow the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice to lapse did not go over well with Gov. Jared Polis.

Polis on Tuesday evening vetoed House Bill 1258, a plan by legislative Democrats to replace the commission after they opted against extending it beyond this fall. In a letter announcing the veto, the governor chided them for the pair of moves.

“I would be remiss if I did not mention that the type of study contemplated by HB23-1258 would have been appropriately scoped and conducted by the soon-to-sunset Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice,” Polis wrote.

The governor said he plans to take executive action “shortly” to, in some form, continue the work of the 30-member commission, first set up through legislation in 2007.

Shontel M. Lewis has defeated challenger Brad Revare for the Denver City Council District 8 seat, according to the final – but still unofficial – vote count from the Denver Clerk & Recorder. 

Lewis campaigned on the slogan “people over politics” and said her life experience gives her the tools she needs to effectively advocate for Denver improvements, especially when it comes to affordable housing. 

Vote counts were close all night Tuesday, with barely 70 votes separating the two. But Lewis pulled ahead Wednesday, with 7,458 votes to Revare’s 7,102.

Denver elected a new mayor on Tuesday, handing the keys to city hall to Mike Johnston, who takes over next month from three-term Mayor Michael Hancock.

The 48-year-old former state senator, school principal and philanthropic CEO defeated Kelly Brough, a former Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce CEO and chief of staff to former Mayor John Hickenlooper, by about 9 percentage points in the runoff, according to incomplete, unofficial results. The two moderate Democrats emerged from a 16-candidate first round of voting in April.

Here are five takeaways from the race and Johnston’s win.

Procrastinators in Colorado are busy.

That’s because Thursday is the last day property owners can object to the valuation of their property determined by their county assessor’s office, which dictates how much property tax each owner owes, and this year appeals are expected to flood the El Paso County Assessor’s Office.

Home values, which are assessed every other year in Colorado, skyrocketed in El Paso County by nearly 44% from the last time the office updated property values in 2021, The Gazette reported. That was largely because home prices vaulted up 37% during a red-hot season of sales that coincided with the statewide property assessment period of Jan. 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.

As it pushes to renew a cornerstone law that authorizes major surveillance programs, the Biden administration faces an American public that’s broadly skeptical of common intelligence practices and of the need to sacrifice civil liberties for security.

Congress in the coming months will debate whether to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Section 702 authorizes U.S. spy agencies to collect large amounts of foreign communications for intelligence purposes ranging from stopping spies to listening in on allies and foes. Those collection programs also sweep up U.S. citizen communications that can then be searched by intelligence and law enforcement officers.

The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that Democrats and Republicans have similar views on surveillance tactics, while Republicans have become substantially less likely over the last decade to say it’s at least sometimes necessary to sacrifice freedom in response to threats.

U.S. intelligence officials say Section 702 is necessary to protect national security and to counter China, Russia and other adversaries. They credit the program with better informing U.S. diplomats and enabling operations like last year’s strike to kill a key plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

But officials will have to overcome sharp divisions in Congress and bipartisan anger at the FBI, though most observers still believe Section 702 will be renewed in some form.