John Scarffe, Nederland.  During a town hall meeting at Very Nice Brewery on Sunday, March 26, 2017, Colorado House Majority Leader KC Becker and State Senator Steve Fenberg discussed end-of-the-season legislation and answered questions from the crowd. Issues surrounding House Bill 2020 and marijuana dominated the meeting.

Becker represents Colorado’s House District 13, which extends from the Wyoming border on the north, to Mount Evans in the south – from Boulder to Kremmling, according to her website. The district includes Jackson, Grand, Gilpin and Clear Creek counties, as well as the western portions of the City of Boulder and Boulder County.

Fenberg represents Senate District 18, which includes the cities of Boulder, Lyons, Nederland, Allenspark, Niwot, Gold Hill, Ward, Hygiene, Jamestown and most of unincorporated western Boulder County.

Laura Richards, with Indivisible Colorado, opened the questions and asked about Senate Bill 061. Indivisible Colorado, which fights the Trump agenda in the most effective ways possible, opposes this bill because it would further dilute the funding of traditional public schools.

The issue is that, without additional funding, the state is not in a position to provide Charter Schools with additional funding, according to the Indivisible Colorado website. “The funding issue is already so bad we have school closures occurring and schools that have had to go to four-day school weeks.”

Becker said the language of the bill had been stripped, and on May 9, the House Committee on Education postponed it indefinitely, according to the bill tracker website. Becker said a bill that would assist with rural broadband had been killed in the Senate but she planned to reintroduce it the next day, and it has bipartisan support.

A man then took control of the microphone and made a long speech about House Bill 1220, which was introduced on March 2 and approved by a House committee on March 6. According to the Marijuana News website, House Majority Leader KC Becker sponsored the bill.

According to The Colorado Statesman on April 5, both the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate unanimously approved the bill, which reduces the residential medical marijuana growing limit from 99 plants per household to 12 plants per household. If patients and caregivers register with the state, they would be allowed to grow up to 24 plants due to an exemption to the 12-plant limit.

The man told Becker that House Bill 1220 will kill some people. He knows of a lady who is juicing marijuana to cure her cancer. Because of a code administrator, a new front has opened up in Nederland, the man said, and Nederland-based State activist and business owner Kathleen Chippi has said they are now down to counting plants.

“What kind of hypocrisy does this represent?” he asked. Becker replied that under the new bill more than 24 plants can’t be grown at home. “I had broad support for this bill,” she said, adding that it was a direct response to inquiries in Colorado about home grows. “The whole industry is under attack.”

Fenberg said the Senate was having a big battle about the bill. “It might not be a perfect bill but it will help.” Becker told the story of two teen-agers who jumped a fence to gain access to a big home grow in Colorado, and they were killed.

There will be a crackdown on marijuana in the state, and we need to do something that protects patients, Becker said. Nederland, Boulder County or any local community can opt out of the state law. “It’s an important relief valve. It’s more liberal than any other medical marijuana law in the country.”

After he made his comments from the microphone, the man continued to holler at Becker and Fenberg from the back of the room. He would not calm down after several in the crowd asked him to be quiet, and he eventually was removed from the building.

Later in the meeting, Chippi came to the microphone and said the bill is criminalizing more than a quarter of a million people. Now they will have to apply to the state to get a license. “What’s the sanity of recriminalizing more than a quarter of a million people?” She asked.

Becker said the bill covers more than 94 percent of care givers and impacts fewer than 6 percent. Colorado’s marijuana laws are an example to the rest of the country. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Changing the subject, Magnolia Road Residents Bunny Spangler and Atashnaa Werner brought up cell phone issues they are having in their area. Cell phone coverage in the area has been sporadic or non-existent. Magnolia residents have made repeated calls to AT&T to find out the problem, but the issue has not been resolved.

Werner said she has to go to one corner window in her house to make calls and even then sometimes cannot make or receive a call. She has a direct line of sight to Mt. Thorodin. The area is not served by the tower in Nederland but by one on Mt. Thorodin, which is owned by a private company, although AT&T also uses the tower.

Neither Fenberg nor Becker had heard of this situation, but Fenberg said he was glad to know about it, because there is no company he would rather take on that AT&T. Nederland Mayor Kristopher Larsen said he had been talking to area residents about this before the meeting and will be looking into it.

Larsen asked about progress on a transportation bill and what is being done to deal with Colorado roads. He asked if a measure would be on the November ballot adding road conditions.

Becker said a request for $2 billion in bonds would probably be on the November ballot, and the state has a $9 billion back log on roads. Placing a measure on the ballot is onerous and expensive though.

It costs $1 million to place an item on the budget and then multimillions to support it, Becker said. The tax on gasoline was 21 cents in 1991, and it’s still 21 cents today.

Nederland Resident Bill Ikler said that Tabor has been a boat anchor on Colorado. Driving down Boulder Canyon, the highway is in terrible shape. “How do you fix this? How do you get rid of Tabor?”

The Colorado Taxpayer Bill of Rights (Tabor) allows citizens to vote on taxes and has a cap over which state revenue can’t exceed, Becker told a Gilpin County group in March. Colorado has the largest revenue in the country right now but the State can’t exceed the cap. “We have to come up with a whole lot of cuts to make refunds happen because of a State law passed years ago,” Becker said.

Becker told the Nederland crowd that she has been the plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming that Tabor has taken away the right of legislators to pass legislation, but the Supreme Court struck it down. “I’m not sure if it’s going any further.”

Senator Steve Fenberg’s Capitol Office is located at 1525 Sherman Street, Denver, CO 80203, Room 647, and his Capitol Building Mailbox is 200 E Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80203,

Room 346. He can be reached by snail mail at PO Box 4671, Boulder, CO 80306, email: Steve@stevefenberg.org, or by phone at 303-866-4872.

You can reach KC Becker through her website at http://kcbecker.org/; phone number 303-866-2578; email: kcbecker.house@state.co.us; or write to her at Representative K.C. Becker – District 13, 200 East Colfax Ave, Room 307, Denver, CO 80203; or visit her in Room #246 of the Capitol off the South West Stairwell on the second floor.

(Originally published in the May 18, 2017 print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)