Michael Hancock.

Denver residents have roamed, biked and ridden horses along the natural area adjoining Paul A. Hentzell Park for decades. Now, Denver District Judge Herbert Stern must decide if that usage -- along with some signage, maps and other historical reference points -- do indeed make a park out of a much-disputed, much-maligned eleven-acre sliver of vestigial prairie that Mayor Michael Hancock is eager to turn over to the Denver Public Schools, in exchange for an office building downtown.

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Earlier this week, defense attorneys weighed in on a damning report aimed at the state toxicology lab, which conducts blood tests for cases of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. Attorney Rob Corry thinks officials may have waited until June to release the document (it was finished in March) for fear it would undermine the THC driving bill, which passed last month after two failed attempts. Now, NORML wants the state legislature to revisit the law -- and the head of the health department, which oversees the lab, has resigned under pressure.

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Video below.

This week's cover story, "The Insider," profiles Colorado Oil and Gas Association president Tisha Schuller, whose efforts to defend her industry's strong presence in the state have been made tougher by the fallout from Josh Fox's antifracking documentary Gasland. That film "has really changed the conversation" about using hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas," Schuller admits -- especially a scene showing a Fort Lupton homeowner setting his tap water on fire.

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Photos and more below.

There was an uproar immediately after Governor John Hickenlooper granted a temporary reprieve to Nathan Dunlap, the condemned killer who murdered four people and badly injured a fifth in 1993 -- and not just from critics like Colorado Attorney General John Suthers or Tom Tancredo, who said he's running for governor in part because of Hick's decision. A new poll (see it below) shows a large majority of Coloradans disapprove -- and suggests that the issue could loom large in Hickenlooper's 2014 reelection bid.

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Cindy Burbach.

Any government functionary worth his or her bennies knows that the ideal time for a document dump -- a release of some embarrassing matter you really don't want to talk about -- is late on Friday afternoon. And that goes double for the report Colorado Attorney General John Suthers saw fit to send along to the state's prosecutors and the criminal defense bar in the waning minutes before the close of business on June 7, detailing sizable problems in the state toxicology lab that may have an impact on the outcome of hundreds, if not thousands, of DUI cases.

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Photos, video below.

How unhappy is Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway about the political direction in which Colorado is heading?

So unhappy that he and several of his colleagues are gathering support among officials in other nearby counties to form what he calls the "51st Star Committee."

Its mission: to secede from Colorado and become a separate state.

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A long-awaited report by the National Academy of Sciences on the federal government's efforts to manage herds of wild horses across the West is finally out, and it confirms what mustang advocates have been saying for years: The Bureau of Land Management program is poorly managed, relies on an unsustainable series of roundups to control the population that's left thousands of horses in costly holding pens, and needs a major overhaul.

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On Monday, Denver City Council members held a straw poll to determine if they wanted to continue toward regulations for the recreational marijuana industry made possible by the passage of Amendment 64 -- and a 10-1 vote showed the majority did. Also shared was a draft of a proposed local licensing ordinance (see it below) that would prevent people who don't already have a licensed medical marijuana business from applying until January 1, 2016. Why? To keep out the "idiots," says councilman Chris Nevitt.

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Michael Hancock.

A lawsuit filed by a citizens' group, seeking to put the brakes on a plan by Denver city officials to swap an open space area in the Cherry Creek corridor for an office building, contends that Mayor Michael Hancock's administration has violated a provision of the city charter that prohibits selling park land without a vote of the people. It's the city's position that the land in question was never designated a park. But the deal's opponents say that public records suggest otherwise.

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The City of Longmont has been criticized and sued -- once by the state, once by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association -- over its citizens' decision last fall to ban fracking within the city limits. That's discouraged other local governments along the Front Range that have been thinking about getting tough on oil and gas drilling in their backyards, too. But it hasn't scared a group of activists in Loveland, who are pushing for a two-year moratorium on the practice despite reluctance from town leaders to enter the fray.

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