News

• Mountain Village Offers Business Relief Grants
• David Seligman Vies for Attorney General Nomination
• Ramadan Brings Fasting, Prayer, and Charity

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Mountain Village Offers Business Relief Grants

The Town of Mountain Village is looking to support local businesses during current economic uncertainty.

Last week, the town, in partnership with the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association, launched the Short-Term Economic Assistance for Disrupted Years Grant Program, or STEADY program.

The program will provide one-time emergency grants to small, locally owned businesses.

“The purpose of the program is to provide grant funds directly to small businesses that were impacted throughout the labor dispute and ski area closure,” said JD Wise, Mountain Village economic development director.

“Really the goal of this program is to help stabilize our businesses that are hurting after the economic impact related to the labor dispute. Both the town and TMVOA really recognize the importance of our small business community, and we also recognize that they are really in a tough position after taking a significant economic hit,” Wise said.

To be eligible, businesses must be independently owned brick-and-mortar establishments located in Mountain Village. Grants can go toward things like payroll, rent, utilities and other essential fixed costs. Award amounts will, in part, be determined by demonstrated economic harm and business size, and will be proportionate to revenue loss and risk of business failure.

“The idea behind this program is really just to help stabilize those businesses. We don’t have the available funds to make every business whole, and provide funds that would truly make up for that impact. But we do hope that these funds can help businesses that maybe at risk of having to take drastic measures or even looking at having to close their business. So we hope that these funds can really help stabilize those businesses and help them kind of weather this storm and remain viable as they move into the recovery phase,” Wise said.

The grant committee will include Mountain Village Town Council members, town staff and TMVOA representatives.

Grant amounts will be determined by March 6 and distributed by March 31.

Applications are open and will remain open through Sunday, Feb. 22. Full applications are available at townofmountainvillage.com/steady.

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David Seligman Vies for Attorney General Nomination

David Seligman is one of five Democrats running to serve as Colorado’s next attorney general.

Raised in Denver, he lives there with his wife and three daughters. Seligman is the executive director of Towards Justice, a nonprofit law group representing workers in Telluride in a class-action lawsuit against the Telluride Ski and Golf Resort.

Seligman was in Telluride this week as part of a trip across the Western Slope. He stopped by KOTO to share more about his campaign.

Story begins at 3:10.

David Seligman (DS): My entire legal career, I’ve dedicated to fighting in court on behalf of working people, taking on the corruption, the corporate abuse that’s squeezing us all dry.

I’ve been the executive director of a nonprofit legal organization called Towards Justice for many years now. We represent Amazon delivery drivers and meatpackers and nurses and people across Colorado that are buried in junk fees to corporate landlords. We’re fighting on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans drowning in medical debt. We represent, do a lot of work in ski country, in particular on behalf of working people taking on ski resort monopolies and other abuses that we see in this industry.

I’m running for attorney general because for a very long time now, we have seen how the law really has been rigged in favor of those with wealth and power. The elite and powerful play by a completely different set of rules than the rest of us, and taking that on, I think, is absolutely essential to addressing the immediate pressing crisis that we’re in right now – the face of which is the president of the United States, and as we see, a lawless, masked army invade our streets, and the keys to our democracy handed over to the wealthiest people on the planet.

We’re going to have to use the law to take on all those problems. But fundamentally, we’re also going to have to use the law boldly and courageously to take on the rigged system that gave rise to this current moment of crisis.

Julia Caulfield (JC): As attorney general, that’s a big responsibility and weight to have in this state. If you were to be elected, how would you want to use that office, that position, to create change that you see as necessary in Colorado?

DS: The attorney general’s office is immensely important. I think over the next 10 years, it’s going to have to take on an even more important role in our lives.

Fundamentally, so many of the challenges that we’re running into right now — whether it’s the proliferation of autocracy and corruption that we’re seeing come from Washington, or the challenges that we all face in our daily lives — a world where it’s so hard for many people in Colorado to afford the basics, child care, health insurance; where working people don’t have power and voice on the job; where we’ve got corporate polluters making billions of dollars in profits and polluting our environment and getting away with it. So many of those problems come back to this core challenge: that the wealthy and powerful play by a different set of rules.

The good news is that we have so many tools to take that on. The most important tool is our ability to come together and fight shoulder to shoulder. But in addition to that, we’ve got the laws on the books that we’ve fought for for centuries in this country — the laws that created our country, the laws that ended slavery and the Gilded Age, the laws of the New Deal and the Great Society and the Civil Rights Movement.

All of those laws promise to protect the powerless and hold the powerful accountable. We just need to enforce them with courage and with vision and with boldness. We need to make them real in people’s lives in ways that they aren’t now. That is core to the job of the attorney general’s office. That is core to my vision for this office.

JC: I think that there’s going to be a lot of people in the state, in the country, who hear that and maybe agree and like that message, but also feel like we are, as you’ve talked about, seeing that not be fulfilled. What would you say to those folks who maybe hear that and say, ‘yeah, it sounds great, but that’s not the reality of what we’re seeing. That’s not what’s happening. People aren’t playing by the same rules. And so why should we trust you to be able to make that different?’

DS: I think fundamentally this is the work that I’ve done my entire career, using the law to take on these fights on behalf of working people. We’ve recovered nearly $100 million stolen from working people, forced the biggest corporations in the world to follow the law, used the law boldly and courageously to take on these fights. I like to say, we’ve sued the Trump administration and won, and we’ve also sued the Polis administration and won.

We recently stopped the governor from turning over Coloradans’ personal information to ICE in service of Stephen Miller and Donald Trump’s absurd immigration enforcement agenda. We see that now more than ever, these fights aren’t just about the blue team versus the red team. This is about the many versus the money.

I’m running for attorney general because I am fed up with this system that has allowed this to persist. I believe in my bones that this office is core to our ability to fight back.

JC: Within the context of the Office of Attorney General, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing for the state of Colorado, what would you want it to be?

DS: Colorado is one of the wealthiest states in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. [But] we have almost a million people drowning in medical debt. In so many parts of our state, we’ve got people who are struggling to get by, who in our mountain communities are driving from counties away just to get to their jobs — as teachers, as health care workers. We have polluters making billions of dollars a year and getting a slap on the wrist.

Fundamentally, in our state, working people, ordinary people, do not have enough power and voice. Part of the core of that is our incredibly low private-sector union density. We have about 6% to 7% union density in Colorado. In states like Washington, for example, it can be three times that much.

So the very bare minimum that we need to do is fight for a world right here in Colorado where working people have power and voice. One of the core ways we could do that is to make sure that we pass the Worker Protection Act here in Colorado, which would make it easier for workers to unionize. That bill passed out of the General Assembly last year and was vetoed by the governor.

If I could wave my magic wand right now, one of the most important things that I think we can do for the future of Colorado — to build a state where we can succeed in the long term, where there is a real, meaningful path here for working people — is to make the Worker Protection Act the law of the land. I think it is absurd that we can’t get the Democratic Party behind that fight.

David Seligman is running in a crowded Democratic primary for Colorado attorney general against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, state Rep. Crisanta Duran, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hetal Doshi and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty.

The winner of the primary will face the Republican nominee in November.

Colorado District Attorney Michael Allen and Conner Pennington are running for the Republican nomination.

The winner of the race will succeed Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is term-limited and is running for governor.

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Ramadan Brings Fasting, Prayer, and Charity

In the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, beginning Tuesday evening, Muslims around the world began observing Ramadan with fasting, prayer and charity.

Tabassum Saddiqui is a community member, activist and organizer. She is Afro-Indigenous and Muslim. This year, she will observe Ramadan with her husband in Norwood.

Saddiqui spoke with KOTO News about the importance of Ramadan and what the month means to her.

Story begins at 11:30.

* This story originally aired during Ramadan in 2025.

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Backcountry Chats Focus on Avalanche Close Calls

Recreating in the backcountry can bring stoke and adventure — but also accident and heartbreak. To help individuals stay safe this winter, Telluride’s Backcountry Chats continue.

Whether a seasoned backcountry skier or new to the terrain, the talks are designed to help recreators and interested community members learn more about snowpack, snow science and safety.

This month’s chat is a Close Calls Forum, sharing real and raw stories from locals who have experienced brushes with avalanche hazards. Individuals will share firsthand accounts of local avalanche accidents and lessons learned.

Backcountry Chats are a collaboration between the Peter Inglis Avalanche Education Fund, the Telluride Mountain Club, Mountain Trip, Telluride Mountain Guides, San Juan Outdoor Adventures and Telluride Helitrax.

The next Backcountry Chat of the season will take place at the Wilkinson Public Library on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 6 p.m.

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Colorado Democrats Propose New Child Tax Credit Funded by Business Tax Rollbacks

A new proposal from Colorado Democrats would end a series of tax breaks for businesses to help pay for a new child tax credit.

As Lucas Brady Woods reports for the Colorado Capitol News Alliance, the move is largely a response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed into law last year. The measure significantly reduced Colorado’s tax revenue, triggering a temporary pause in the state’s Family Affordability Tax Credit, which provides up to $3,200 per child for families earning $95,000 a year or less.

Now, Democrats want to create a second, similar credit to fill the gap. To pay for it, they would roll back state-level business tax breaks that were created or expanded by the federal legislation. They are also proposing several other tax code changes, including a measure that would block businesses from deducting the salaries of their highest-paid employees, which they can currently do up to $1 million.

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Democrats Raise Concerns Over Freedom 250 Donations

Congressional Democrats are concerned that celebrations of the United States’ 250th birthday are being used to move money to the benefit of former President Donald Trump.

The concerns follow a New York Times report detailing anonymous donations to Freedom 250, an LLC housed within the National Park Foundation, that secured donors access to the president.

The foundation is a congressionally chartered nonprofit that allows anonymous donations.

Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, testified before a House Natural Resources Committee on America 250 last week.

“The issue is there’s no accountability, there’s no transparency, and there’s no guardrails, and there’s no oversight. … This sets a terrible precedent, and I want to say this is an effort by the Trump administration to move money off the books and to mix public money and private funds for partisan purposes,” Whitehouse said.

The National Park Foundation’s executive director told the committee that they would keep Freedom 250 donations anonymous if donors requested it and would not commit to providing Congress with any contracts signed as part of Freedom 250.

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Fort Lewis College Recognizes the Constellations of Place

While the U.S. is honoring 250 years as a nation, Colorado is celebrating 150 years of statehood.

Last month, the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College in Durango opened its most recent exhibition, Constellations of Place. For Rocky Mountain Community Radio, KDUR’s Jamie Wanzek reports.

Story beings at 20:15.