WEEK OF MAY 9, 2024
VOLUME 36 | ISSUE 19
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Electricity Prescription Take Back Day cooperatives offers easy way to prevent drug abuse
changing energy markets United Power seeking more local control over the energy it sells
reports them to the DEA. The DEA publishes the national combined weight collected each year; in 2023, a whopping 599,897 lbs — nearly 300 tons — of drugs were collected. After the drugs are weighed, a police officer escorts them down to the DEA office where they take custody and transport the drugs to be destroyed by incineration. At a time when opioid addiction is a national crisis, the option to safely dispose of unwanted or unused narcotics is especially important because it can keep them off the streets, she said.
The sources of electrons flowing into about 290,000 suburban and rural homes and businesses on the Front Range are about to change. And while refrigerators will still hum and lights shine, it marks a new chapter in how Coloradans get their electricity. The state’s two largest cooperatives, Sedalia-based CORE Electric Cooperative and Brighton-based United Power, are each poised to leave their long-time power suppliers and strike out on their own in the growing merchant power market. “United and CORE and a few others are large enough where we can contract with utility-scale resources where the prices are driven down,” said Chris Hildred, power supply director for CORE, formerly the Intermountain Rural Electric Association. “This is about local control and financial independence,” said Mark Gabriel, United Power’s CEO. The first big step comes as United Power, which serves about 300,000 people in an area from Commerce City through Adams and Weld counties, leaves the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. CORE, serving more than 375,000 residents in parts of 11 counties from west of Colorado Springs to east of Denver, is set to finish its contract with Xcel Energy at the end of 2025.
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• Vestas to lay off 200 employees
BUSINESS
BY MARK JAFFE THE COLORADO SUN
Treats for shoppers who turn in their unused or expired prescription drugs line a table at the King Soopers on 104th Avenue in LONDON LYLE Commerce City on the national Prescription Drug Take Back Day, April 27, 2024. BY LONDON LYLE SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
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LOCAL OBITUARIES LEGALS CLASSIFIED
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
LOCAL
On the last Saturday of April each year, thousands of American families gather up expired and unused prescriptions or over-the-counter drugs and willingly turn them over to law enforcement. In return, they get … dental floss? That’s just one of the more mundane offerings that the Commerce City Police Department handed out April 27, in addition to pill organizers, toys and Frisbees. This year was the 26th annual event, overseen by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Local police departments create pop-up col-
lection sites across the country, and despite one last April shower, community members showed up at the King Soopers on East 104th Avenue in Commerce City. Despite the rainy weather, the turnout was fairly decent, said Susan Beard, who works in the Property and Evidence Unit for the Commerce City police and was working the blue tent outside the King Soopers. “We’re taking in a lot of weight in what we have collected so far,” Beard said. To track yearly trends within the program, Beard records the weights of the medications they receive at the end of the day and
OBITUARIES: PAGE 4 | CLASSIFIEDS: PAGE 9 | LEGAL: PAGE 11
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GREEN LATINOS SEEK TO RECLAIM CINCO DE MAYO P6