The free box of Good morning, Boulder County. It's Wednesday, May 27th. I'm your host, Shay Castle. And this is the Frequency, a weekly local podcast covering the news, events, and voices shaping the Boulder Valley. This podcast is made possible by listeners and local businesses. You can sponsor an episode of The Frequency and reach our growing audience of highly engaged listeners. Email boulderfrequency at gmail.com. To kick off the start of summer vacation, we've got a shorter show for you today. Just the headlines. Let's get to it. The Trump administration has opened a congressional inquiry into law enforcement in Boulder and Boulder County for their refusal to cooperate with immigration authorities. Last week, letters were sent to Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfern, Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson, and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Doherty. The letters accuse the jurisdictions of, quote, thwarting the efficient enforcement of federal law and request documents and communications related to internal decision making, interactions with ICE officers, and, quote, sanctuary policies. The request for records stretches back years to March 2018 in the case of the Boulder County DA. The letter sent to Boulder Police specifically called out the city's use of flock license plate reading technology and Boulder's choice to disable a feature that allows ICE to search for specific license plate numbers within the city. Boulder stopped sharing data nationally in June 2025. Boulder Police and the Boulder County Sheriff's Office told local media they are reviewing the congressional inquiry. The DA's office issued a statement dismissing the letters as, quote, political theater. Colorado law determines how local jurisdictions interact with ICE, his office wrote, including restrictions on what can be shared with a federal agency. Local district attorneys do not write federal immigration law. Congress does, Doherty was quoted as saying in his statement. If Washington politicians are serious about immigration enforcement and public safety, they should focus on fixing the broken federal system instead of attacking Colorado prosecutors who were doing the real work of protecting communities. Read the letters and the DA's response at the link in our show notes. Hear more from DA Michael Doherty this Friday when we re-release our February interview about his office's Know Your Rights training. One worked late nights and could not get to the shelter by the time it closes. Another had multiple pets, which are not allowed at all roads, formerly Boulder Shelter for the Homeless. ACLU Colorado represented the plaintiffs. They argued Boulder's policy of ticketing people living outside amounted to cruel and unusual punishment when no shelter was available, punished people based on their housing status, violated freedom of movement, and led to state-created danger when people were forced to sleep outside without blankets or sleeping bags. Boulder's law, on the books since 1980, prevents anyone sleeping outside from covering themselves with anything other than clothing. A separate law adopted in 2021 bans the use of tents or shelters. Boulder police do ticket people when the shelter is over capacity, which has occurred dozens of times each year since the lawsuit was begun. In their ruling, the three appeals judges said the camping ban regulates conduct, not status, and that environmental factors such as weather could not be considered state-created danger. Plaintiffs could appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. In a statement, ACLU Colorado said the decision was devastating. Quote, homelessness can happen to anyone, they said in a prepared statement. This state-sponsored attack on survival continues to be unconscionable. Read more from Boulder Reporting Lab at the link in our show notes. The city of Boulder is predicting a $6.5 million shortfall for its 2027 budget and will pursue 4% spending cuts across all departments. No new layoffs are planned, but the city has been under a hiring freeze for nearly a year. City manager Nuria Rivera Vandermeid said during a late May study session that a quote, hard conversation is coming about cuts to programs and services. The bulk of Boulder's revenue comes from sales tax, a source that has been slowing and or shrinking for years. Inflation, economic uncertainty, and federal budget cuts were also blamed for the deficit. Federal labs such as NCAR and NOAA are some of the city's largest employers. Boulder's 2027 budget is being created now. It will be released to the public in the fall, with two hearings typically held in October at city council meetings. Thanks again to Mitchell Byers at Axios Boulder for that reporting. Boulder's famed Buddhist college, NEROPA, laid off 51 of its teachers, according to the Daily Camera, 11 core faculty and 40 instructor jobs. Many will continue to receive medical benefits and be offered the chance to resume teaching at Naropa if conditions improve. The cuts are the latest in an attempt to address a severe budget crisis as the private university faces declining enrollment and revenue. In recent years, Naropa sold off all but one of its campus buildings, including its iconic downtown location, and moved more of its classes online. Read more from the Daily Camera at the link in our show notes. The NOBO creative campus is a little closer to becoming reality, as the planned Arts and Culture Hub has reached the halfway mark in a funding goal. The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, or BMOCA, has been working for more than four years to build a new, larger museum in North Boulder. The facility will also include 67 units of housing and studio space for artists, with retail space on the ground floor where local works can be sold. On Saturday, May 23rd, BMOCA announced they had raised $12.43 million, about half their goal. Designs for the campus are also 60% complete, the museum said in a press release. The project expects to break ground in late 2027, with BMOCA and others moving in by 2029. That's the sound of the very first person to cross this year's Boulder Boulder finish line. And that's the sound of the crowd for the winners of the women's and men's pro races. All runners, pros and amateurs alike, finished inside Folsom Field on the CU Boulder campus. For the first time ever, registration was cut off before race day as runners exceeded the operational capacity of the race. More than 52,000 people ran, walked, or rolled the iconic 10K, and many Boulderites provided beer, bacon, cold water, and entertainment for the jogging and slogging masses. A special frequency shout out to Aiden Reed, who was the first American across the finish line in the men's pro race. He finished third overall. Aiden was a reader and supporter of Boulder Beat, my previous news outlet. He won the Citizens Race two years ago, and it was great to see him with the pros this time. Congratulations, Aiden. That's all for today. Join us next week when we go inside a youth art class. A little note for our summer listeners. We hope you keep tuning in, but we also understand you have a life. I've always encouraged readers, and in this case, listeners, to take a break from the news. Rest assured we will still be here, watching everything closely and reporting what you need to know. As always, thanks for listening. Before you go, here's one more thing.

AI is here and it's here to stay. So you either get on board or you get left in the past.

See, that is a big part of why I hate it. This forced inevitability. People like you are always saying that it's happening whether you like it or not, but you're the ones making it happen, okay? And you could easily stop it if people could say that they didn't want it, but you don't want to give people a choice. So you just say, oh, the train's already on the tracks, and you don't let people decide for themselves. Now, why should we believe that this app is this amazing thing that is gonna change the world? Obviously, you want us to believe that because you stand to profit from it. So of course you're gonna tell us that it's happening no matter what and it's inevitable, okay? Oh my god, this is exactly like when like a fing random ass diner puts a sign up front that's like best waffles in America, and it's like, yeah, according to who the people trying to sell the fing waffles.