Today is June 12, 2024, and here’s what you need to know:

Teller County official slams posts by Colorado GOP chair Dave Williams, asks for resignation

Teller County Commissioner Dan Williams, a Republican, publicly asked for the removal of Dave Williams from his state post in a letter that was endorsed by several other elected officials in the county.

“I need to get this off my conscience; I was a soldier for 30 years and swore an oath to protect this Constitution,” he said, speaking at the commissioners’ meeting June 6. “We have something called the First Amendment and the right to assemble.”

Dan Williams, the commissioner, highlighted assemblies of the past weekend, law enforcement as well as a Gay Pride assembly in Memorial Park in Woodland Park.

The tents on college campuses are gone. They'll likely return if history repeats itself

As pro-Palestinian encampments cropped up this spring on college campuses in Denver and across the nation, U.S. historians were quick to draw comparisons to the student movement that organized against the Vietnam War.

At some level of analysis, the parallels are eerily similar, with today’s students calling for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas.

But on other levels, the similarities end and the divergence becomes palpable. Notably, the protests today have taken an explicitly racial undertone, which many Jewish students regard as suffused with antisemitism.

Proposed sales tax hike in Denver inches closer to November ballot box

A proposed Denver sales tax rate increase is a step closer to appearing on the November ballot after Mayor Mike Johnston “viewed” the measure on Tuesday.

The tax increase would, if approved, make Denver one of the highest-taxed major cities in the state, surpassing Boulder and Colorado Springs.

The proposal adds 0.34 points to the current sales tax rate of 8.81%, raising it to 9.14% total. With other proposed tax increases also in the pipeline, Denver’s taxpayers could see the rate go up as high as 9.61%.

Denver Board of Education to create ‘guardrails’ when recommending school closures

A year after using low enrollment to justify school closures, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education is expected to consider a policy that would prohibit district officials from using enrollment numbers for future recommendations.

The proposed policy suggests — as DPS officials have warned for years — more closures are coming, but new guidelines will be used to decide which schools will close.

“The Board of Education believes it is necessary to consolidate and unify schools to maintain the financial viability of the district and to maximize the resources, staff, and programs offered to students,” district officials said in a draft of the proposed consolidation policy.

Colorado justices agree Jeffco judge wrongly ordered disclosure of confidential communications

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday concluded a Jefferson County judge went too far when she ordered a group of plaintiffs alleging injuries from toxic chemical exposure to disclose communications with their attorneys to the opposing side.

Justice Richard L. Gabriel, writing in the June 10 opinion, agreed the facts of the plaintiffs’ exposure were not confidential, but the attorney-client communications themselves were not something defendant Terumo BCT was entitled to across the board.

“If the rule were as Terumo suggests, then opposing parties would be entitled to obtain in discovery all manner of communications between their opponents and opposing counsel (because parties necessarily must convey facts to their counsel), and this would serve only to chill open communications between parties and their lawyers,” Gabriel explained.