Vince Bzdek

By Vince Bzdek I once took on an hourlong hike with the great naturalist writer Terry Tempest Williams, and we traveled all of 10 feet. That’s because Terry saw so much more than the rest of us that was worth noticing and elucidating: a meadow regreening after a fire, aspen sprigs searching for sunlight in […]

By Vince Bzdek It’s really not a headline you want to see in the national press:  “Entrepreneurs Flocked to Colorado. Now Red Tape Is Driving Some Away” warned a recent Wall Street Journal article. “A vocal band of Colorado software engineers and venture capitalists,” wrote the author, “are increasingly grumbling that their tech haven in […]

By Vince Bzdek It’s really not a headline you want to see in the national press:  “Entrepreneurs Flocked to Colorado. Now Red Tape Is Driving Some Away” warned a recent Wall Street Journal article. “A vocal band of Colorado software engineers and venture capitalists,” wrote the author, “are increasingly grumbling that their tech haven in […]

The Gazette’s David Migoya was recently recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists for his investigative reporting on Colorado’s $110 million charitable gaming industry. “Fascinating report on a loosely regulated industry, well-researched and investigated,” said the judge of Migoya’s story.  Migoya found that a number of charities receive very little if any of the proceeds […]

By Vince Bzdek Fifty years ago this month, a 72-year-old first-time novelist published what may be the best-written, truest book about the West ever penned. If there is one novel every Westerner should read, I’d say “A River Runs Through It” by Norman Maclean might be it. It was shunned by all the East Coast […]

By Vince Bzdek Colorado’s 5th Congressional District has one of the highest concentrations of military facilities in the country — Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, Fort Carson, Air Force Academy, NORAD, the headquarters of Northern Command, Space Force and Space Command. Yet, ironically, the district has not been represented by someone with […]

In September 2019, 523 Americans traveled to Dallas for an experiment called “America in One Room.” The gathering was designed to test a theory: Could representative citizens deliberate productively even in an era of intense polarization? The event took place soon after the presidential primary and it focused on policy proposals in five polarizing issue […]

By Vince Bzdek It’s finally happened. Buried in all the self-congratulatory reports about Colorado reaching the 6 million mark in population last year was news that should be keeping our political leaders up at night. For the first time in 20 years, more people left Colorado to go to other states than moved here from […]

Colorado could do a lot more to save newspapers – and democracy – in rural areas By Vince Bzdek As another new year and another legislative session dawn for Colorado, it’s a good time to ask what the absolute most important things are for our state to focus on in the coming year. Affordability is […]

By Vince Bzdek When I was a kid going to St. John’s Catholic grade school in Denver, I remember asking my mom if she and dad minded paying taxes for public schools since all her kids attended Catholic ones. We don’t mind, she told me. It’s our choice to send you to St. John’s for […]