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Suburban voters select new mayors in Lakewood and Arvada, decide on police and fire funding

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Voters on Tuesday were set to elect new mayors for two of Colorado’s largest cities, bringing to an end eight-year runs at the top of Lakewood’s and Arvada’s municipal power structures.Councilwoman Wendi Strom held a sizable lead over challengers Cathy Kentner and Don Burkhart in Lakewood, the state’s fifth-largest city, with 46.7% of the vote, according to preliminary results released shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m. In Arvada, the state’s seventh-largest city, John Marriott had a slender 50.3% to 49.7% lead over Lauren Simpson.Both Marriott and Simpson currently serve on the City Council.Suburban voters had a host of candidates and ballot issues to decide on in this election, including a myriad of local tax measures and three separate ballot questions in Commerce City about whether residents can keep backyard ducks, chickens and bees. In early results, chickens and bees were in the winning column while ducks were not so welcome.The winner in Lakew...

Incumbent Mike Coffman leading Juan Marcano in Aurora mayor’s race

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Incumbent Mike Coffman had a significant lead in the race for Aurora mayor in the first round of election results posted at 7 p.m. Tuesday.City Council member Juan Marcano is challenging Coffman for the seat, and in the early results, Coffman, who is running for a second term, had 56.61% of the vote to Marcano’s 36.35%, leading by more than 8,100 votes.The third candidate in the race, Jeff Sanford, who ran a limited campaign for the seat, had received 7.04% of the vote.Although the citywide races are nonpartisan, the candidates for mayor and City Council could take Aurora in vastly different directions, depending on who voters ultimately elect.Coffman, a Republican and former U.S. congressman, was elected to his first term leading the left-leaning city in 2019. In 2021, the City Council majority also flipped to conservative leadership. While Coffman and others running for local seats hope to see that trend continue, Marcano, a Democrat, and other progressive candidates are pus...

Proposition HH results: Colorado are rejecting complex property tax relief measure

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Colorado’s wide-ranging Proposition HH, a property tax relief and education-funding measure pressed by the state’s Democratic leaders, was failing by a wide margin Tuesday night, with early results showing it down by more than 20 percentage points. As of 7:45 p.m., nearly 62% of voters had rejected Proposition HH while just under 39% supported it out of 966,000 votes tabulated so far.While 56% of Denver voters were supporting HH, suburban voters were handily rejecting it — “no” votes had a 57% share in Arapahoe County, a 60% share in Jefferson County and a 66% share in Douglas County.The measure, backed by Gov. Jared Polis, became a partisan battleground in an election year without any state races on the ballot. Its complexity reflected the careful aims of supporters, while rallying opposition groups against a measure that, beyond tamping down on coming property tax increases, also proposed to tinker with state tax refunds and significantly boost educat...

Denver Referred Question 2P: Voters supporting extension of preschool tax

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Denver voters are supporting Referred Question 2P, which would permanently extend the existing city sales tax that provides preschool tuition for Denver kids, early results on Tuesday night show.Initial results posted shortly after 7 p.m. by the Denver Elections Division, 75.9% of voters supported the measure while 24.1% opposed it. The measure held a 46,491 vote lead with just under 90,000 ballots counted in that initial posting.If that lead holds, the city’s 0.15% sales tax — or 15 cents on every $100 purchase — that raises money for preschool tuition for Denver kids would become a permanent fixture of the city’s tax hierarchy.As currently written, the tax sunsets in 2026.Denverites first voted to establish a dedicated sales tax stream to provide educational opportunities for 4-year-olds in 2006. That measure established a 0.12%  — or 12 cents on every purchase of $100 dollars — sale tax to fund the city’s preschool program through 2016.In...

John Youngquist holds commanding lead in Denver school board’s at-large race; incumbents trailing

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Candidates supported by education reform groups were leading in the Denver school board election in the first returns Tuesday night, with the two incumbents in the race — Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay — trailing their challengers. The three candidates — John Youngquist, Kimberlee Sia and Marlene De La Rosa —  backed by Denver Families Action, a deep-pocketed political group with charter-school ties, were ahead as initial election results were posted.Younguist, a former East High principal, held a commanding lead in the at-large race, with 50,579 votes, or 62.84% of the total. Kwame Spearman, the former mayoral candidate and ex-CEO of the Tattered Cover bookstore chain, had 20,371 — or 25.31% — votes. And Brittni Johnson, a community organizer and DPS parent, had 9,536 — or 11.85% — votes. “Thank you to the families, educators, and community leaders that have supported my campaign and gotten us to the finish line,” Youngq...

Proposition II results: Colorado voters favor measure allowing state to keep excess tobacco taxes

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Colorado’s tobacco and nicotine taxes will likely remain unchanged and the state will reap an extra $23.65 million in preschool program funding as voters were widely favoring ballot measure Proposition II in early results Tuesday night.In the first batch of results released just after 7 p.m., about 67% of voters were supporting Proposition II and 33% were rejecting it.Prop. II is a tax-retention measure that asked voters to allow the state to keep excess tax collections under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. It’s a sequel to 2020’s Proposition EE, which raised taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products and created a new tax on certain nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes and vapes. Voters approved that tax increase by a 2-to-1 margin.Prop. EE added $1.10 to the price of a pack of cigarettes on top of an existing 84-cent tax; the EE portion of the tax is set to increase to $1.40 in July and then to $1.80 in July 2027. Tax increases on other items included...

Suspect wanted for man's murder outside North Hills strip club

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Police are searching for a man wanted in connection with a deadly shooting at a North Hills strip club.The suspect, Savin Seng, 38, was identified as the man accused of murdering Gabriel Isiguzo, 20, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.The shooting happened on March 7, 2022 outside the Synn Gentlemen's Club on the 8300 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard around 2 a.m.Isiguzo was picking up his girlfriend who worked at the club when he reportedly got into a dispute with Seng in the parking lot. Seng allegedly shot him and fled the scene, police said.Isiguzo was transported to the hospital by paramedics but later died from his injuries.In April 2023, Isiguzo’s family and friends gathered at the All Saints Anglican Church in Hawthorne on the one-year anniversary of his death. O.C. mom sentenced for horrific torture of 10-year-old stepdaughter Family and friends honor Gabriel Isiguzo on the one-year anniversary of his death. (KTLA)Paramedics respond to a shooting outside str...

Why Israeli consulate in San Francisco invited journalists to witness new harrowing footage of Hamas attacks

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

It is the morning of Oct. 7, and the sounds of gunfire ring. A man rushes his 8- and 12-year-old sons — still in their pajamas — through a side door, and they crowd into a backyard shed. Within seconds, someone tosses in a grenade. The father leaps to absorb the blast, then crumples to the floor.“Why am I alive?” one of the boys howls, screaming for his father in Hebrew. Stunned, he looks to his brother, who is covered in blood and appears to have lost an eye. “Itay, I think we are going to die.”The horrific scene was among dozens compiled by the Israel Defense Forces and shown to journalists on Tuesday morning at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, exactly one month after Hamas’ attacks on citizens across southern Israel. The footage, pulled from the body cameras, social media accounts and mobile phones of the attackers, Israeli responders and victims themselves, was assembled to document the carnage of that day — and to reinvigorate support as outrage m...

College Football Playoff rankings: Washington and Oregon hold steady as Arizona makes an appearance

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

Washington and Oregon held their ground in the second College Football Playoff rankings as five Pac-12 teams made the cut — none of them from Los Angeles.The Huskies were No. 5 for the second consecutive week, followed immediately by the Ducks in the No. 6 spot. Oregon State moved up four positions to No. 12, and Utah held steady at No. 18.Meanwhile, Arizona made its first appearance in the CFP rankings since 2017, landing in the No. 21 spot after beating UCLA for its third consecutive win.“The three straight wins, two of their losses coming in overtime, a seven-point loss to Washington and the job that Coach (Jedd) Fisch has done out there is really something,” selection committee chair Boo Corrigan, the N.C. State athletic director, said on a media teleconference.USC and UCLA dropped out of the rankings following losses to Washington and Arizona, respectively.Washington was the lowest-ranked of the five undefeated teams in the major conferences, behind Ohio State...

Ohio voters enshrine abortion access in constitution in latest statewide win for reproductive rights

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:26:01 GMT

People gather in the parking lot of the Hamilton County Board of Elections as people arrive for early in-person voting in Cincinnati, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. They urge a vote for or against the measure known as Issue 1. Issue 1 is the only abortion question on any state ballot this year. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)(AP/Carolyn Kaster) People gather in the parking lot of the Hamilton County Board of Elections as people arrive for early in-person voting in Cincinnati, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. They urge a vote for or against the measure known as Issue 1. Issue 1 is the only abortion question on any state ballot this year. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)(AP/Carolyn Kaster) COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio voters approved a constituti...