Updates for Rural Colorado

New Year, Steady Focus on Our Goals

Updates for Rural Colorado
As the new year starts a new legislative session starts. At the Colorado State Capitol, I will be working hard to ensure that we ALL recover from the challenges of the previous year. Vaccines are on the way while your elected officials are hard at work paving a path for a stable and prosperous 2021. I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and happy!


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COVID-19 Updates

As many of you probably know, the executive branch in Colorado has created a rating scale to measure the danger associated with COVID in each county. A purple rating indicates extreme danger and constitutes incredibly strict public health measures with red indicating severe risk, orange indicating high risk, and yellow indicating concern. Here's a map of all Colorado counties and where they fall on the color scale.

It's great news that the vast majority of the state is orange, but that doesn't mean we are out of the woods yet. Please continue to follow local public health measures and mandates and please try to stay home and socially distant whenever possible.

Health officials in the state have now confirmed 5 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19. This strain originated in the United Kingdom and is expected to be far more contagious than the strain that has been in our country for almost a year. The most recent case of this variant was discovered in Boulder.

Here in Colorado, we are still in Phase 1 of the vaccination process. This means that healthcare workers and Colorado citizens over the age of 70 are currently receiving the vaccine. Frontline workers, educators, and government employees are also included in phase one of vaccinations. The vaccination plan continues to change as the availability of vaccines change and as cases decrease and increase. To find out if you are eligible to receive the vaccination please call 303-389-1687 or 877-462-2911 or for more information visit [link removed]

Here's an updated timeline for vaccines in Colorado
I would like to take a moment to congratulate President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. Despite a violent riot and an attempt at insurrection, the electoral votes were certified and Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20th, 2021. Although the next few days may be challenging and filled with frustration, I am hopeful that the next four years will be filled with progress and optimism. I will invest my faith in this new administration and wish them the best in their transition.
2021 Legislative Session

On Wednesday, January 13th I convened with The Colorado House of Representatives for a temporary legislative session. The purpose of this session was to agree on joint rules for both the house and senate for the 2021 legislative session, which will reconvene in early February. Although this might seem like merely bureaucratic business we debated on resolutions, rules, and amendments that will inevitably affect the state of Colorado and how our elected officials do business. We are deciding on how remote attendance will work, how many votes are required to change rules, and how testimony will work in committees during these unprecedented times. We did Adjourn on Friday January 15th and will reconvene in February. This short break will protect capitol staff from the risk of COVID.

We dealt with urgent business and passed legislation directly related to COVID-19 relief. Here are a few bills we worked on in our abbreviated session. SB21-002 Extending Limitations On Debt Collection Actions is a bill that will extends the time in which debtors experiencing financial hardship due to the COVID-19 emergency may have extraordinary debt collection actions suspended. SB21-001 Modify COVID-19 Relief Programs For Small Business is a bill that will expand the scope of the program to allow relief payments, grants, loans, and technical assistance and consulting support to small businesses disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those are just a few of the bills we worked on this last week. For more information and to stay updated on current legislation please visit [link removed]

This year I will be sitting on The Agriculture, Livestock and Water Committee, The Transportation and Local Government Committee and The Statutory Revision Committee. If you have questions or concerns about upcoming legislation or legislation that has been passed to hesitate to reach out to my office.
Update for the SNOTEL Current Water Equivalency. Visit the NRCS site for additional information. [link removed]
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