The act modifies requirements for an existing loan program (program) created to assist transitions of businesses to employee-owned businesses. The act repeals statutory eligibility requirements and requires the office of economic development (office) to establish eligibility criteria for the program. The criteria must include an annual gross revenues limitation for participation in the program for businesses, which amount may be set at up to or less than $50 million. The criteria must also establish requirements for the number of employees who will be offered the option to participate in the employee-ownership opportunity.A loan under the program may be used toward the purchase of the business by the employees. The act repeals requirements related to the size of the loans and how the loans must be held and requires the office to establish requirements for the terms of the loans pursuant to existing statutory requirements.Under the current statute, the program is repealed effective July 1, 2022. The act extends the program through July 1, 2025.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act removes the residency requirements for student members to serve on the board of trustees for Western Colorado university.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
An individual or entity must generally notify the statewide notification association of all owners and operators of underground facilities of its intent to engage in excavation so that any underground facilities that the excavation might affect, such as water and sewer pipes, gas lines, and electric or cable lines, can be located and marked before excavation begins. Underground facilities are often located beneath the right-of-way of county gravel and dirt roads, normally at a depth of at least 18 inches below the road surface. Counties maintain the profile and surface condition of county roads and such county road rights-of-way by engaging in routine and emergency maintenance activities that do not disturb more than 6 inches in depth. Before the passage of the act, these maintenance activities triggered the excavation notification requirement, and the related requirement that the location of underground facilities be marked, even though they occur above the levels where underground facilities are located. The act specifies that excavation that is routine or emergency maintenance of the right-of-way of a county-maintained gravel or dirt road and is performed by county employees does not require notification of the notification association or location marking unless the excavation will:Lower the existing grade or elevation of the road or any adjacent shoulder or the designed and constructed elevation of any adjacent ditch flowline; or Disturb more than 6 inches in depth as it is conducted.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Current law allows a voter with a disability to use an electronic voting device that produces a paper record to vote in a mail ballot election. If a voter receives a ballot through an electronic voting device, the voter is required to print the ballot to return it to the applicable election official. The act allows a voter to either print and return the ballot or to return the ballot by electronic transmission if the voter affirms the voter is an "eligible person" as defined in the act. Regardless of the method of return, the act specifies that to be valid, a ballot must include a signed affidavit or a copy of an acceptable form of identification and must be received by the election official in the applicable jurisdiction before the close of polls on the day of the election.The act also requires the secretary of state to establish an electronic transmission system through which a voter with a disability may request and return a ballot.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Under current law, public funds cannot be used to pay for an abortion, except in cases of life endangerment and in cases of rape or incest for medicaid-eligible women. If every reasonable effort is made to preserve the life of the pregnant woman and unborn child, then public funds may be used for medically necessary services. The medically necessary services must be performed only in a licensed health care facility and only by a licensed physician. The act removes these requirements and allows medically necessary services to be performed by a provider who is licensed by the state and acting within the scope of the provider's license and in accordance with applicable federal regulations.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The limited gaming control commission consists of 5 members, 4 of whom are from specified professions and industries and one of whom is a registered elector of the state who is not employed in one of the specified professions or industries. The act requires the governor to prioritize appointing members who are registered electors of Gilpin county or Teller county and allows the registered elector members of the commission from Gilpin and Teller County to be employed in one of the specified professions or industries.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act allows a winery that holds a manufacturer's or limited winery license to maintain licensed premises comprising up to 2 noncontiguous locations within a 10-mile radius. The department of revenue must approve an application for the use of a proposed noncontiguous location if the alcohol and tobacco tax and trade bureau of the United States department of the treasury has approved the description and diagram of the premises at that location, subject to proof of compliance with local codes and zoning requirements. Application and renewal fees are to be established by rule, subject to a limit of $500 per location.Any additional noncontiguous locations that fall outside the approved boundaries of an entertainment district or a common consumption area are excluded from that district or area, and any noncontiguous location that is to be used as a sales room is subject to individual approval for use as a sales room. Only one sales room may be located at a noncontiguous location.To implement the act, $13,247 is appropriated from the liquor enforcement division and state licensing authority cash fund to the department of revenue for use by the liquor and tobacco enforcement division.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act authorizes the commissioner of agriculture (commissioner) to:Enter into an agreement with any person or local government to provide pest control services. The department of agriculture (department) may provide pest control services directly or through a local government and may require remuneration for providing pest control services. The remuneration is deposited in the emergency invasive-pest response fund (fund) created by the act, and the commissioner is authorized to expend money in the fund to implement the act and emergency measures to control or eradicate invasive pests. Work cooperatively with the United States secretary of agriculture to implement a joint phytosanitary program if the program would economically or environmentally assist with mitigating or eradicating the spread of a regulated nonquarantine pest; Quarantine anything that harbors a pest if the pest has an economically unacceptable impact and if the measures to control the pest may achieve an acceptable level of official control; If the commissioner determines that a public nuisance creates an unacceptable risk of spreading a pest, coordinate with industry, support local governments, and make grants to take emergency action to quarantine, control, or eradicate an invasive pest; Request that, at the end of each fiscal year, money in the plant health, pest control, and environmental protection cash fund be transferred to the fund; and Seek and expend gifts, grants, or donations from private or public sources for the new fund, and requires the department to annually report to the general assembly regarding the amount and source of any gifts, grants, or donations received. A board of county commissioners may declare a pest to be a public nuisance and require its control or eradication.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act provides additional options for financing forest health projects by authorizing:A separate legal entity created by a combination of local governments as authorized by current law to establish special or local improvement districts within the boundaries of the combination and levy special assessments on property specially benefited by improvements, functions, services or facilities, including forest health projects, that the separate legal entity is authorized to provide; Counties, municipalities, special districts, water conservancy districts, the Colorado river water conservation district, and the southwestern water conservation district to conduct or participate in and finance forest health projects; and Authorizing a forest improvement district to use its sales tax revenue for forest health projects. The act also adds to the definition of "forest health project" management actions that improve the ecological health of a forest or reduce the threat of forest disease epidemics or high-intensity wildfires, and postpones the scheduled repeal of the statute that authorizes the Colorado water resources power and development authority to issue bonds to fund watershed protection projects and forest health projects from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2033.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Current law allows qualified peace officers to stop a conveyance, including a boat trailer and a boat, and inspect the conveyance for the presence of aquatic nuisance species before the boat is launched onto waters of the state and before departing from the waters of the state or a vessel staging area, and to impound and quarantine a conveyance that is contaminated until it is decontaminated. Authorized agents can detain and inspect conveyances but cannot impound or quarantine conveyances.Section 1 of the act directs the division of parks and wildlife in the department of natural resources to investigate the methods that other states are using with respect to the location and operation of check stations and report regarding its investigation and the operation of check stations pursuant to the act to the general assembly's committees with jurisdiction over wildlife.Section 2 authorizes a qualified peace officer to stop and inspect for the presence of aquatic nuisance species a conveyance that has encountered an aquatic nuisance species check station.Section 3 prohibits a person who encounters a check station from knowingly or willfully failing or refusing to stop at the check station while transporting a conveyance during the check station's hours of operation without presenting the conveyance for inspection and specifies that doing so is a civil infraction with a $100 fine.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
For a mutual ditch corporation, the act clarifies that, subject to the articles of incorporation and bylaws of the corporation:When stockholder demand exceeds supply, the corporation may limit or otherwise rotate delivery of water ratably among the stockholders; and When a stockholder is not using some of or all of the available water under the stockholder's shares, the remaining stockholders taking delivery of water through the ditch may use any unused portion of the water that would otherwise have been available to the first stockholder. The act specifies that it is not intended to prevent a stockholder from changing the use of the water rights represented by the stockholder's shares, create any impediments to changes in use, affect storage water rights, or change the standards for water court approval to change a water right.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act eliminates the marijuana possession offense for possession of 2 ounces of marijuana or less.The act raises the limit for illegal possession of marijuana by an underage person from one ounce of marijuana or less to 2 ounces of marijuana or less.The act requires the court to seal a conviction record, without opportunity for the district attorney to object, for a marijuana possession offense that is otherwise not sealed, if the person files documents with the court that the person has not been convicted of a criminal offense since the final disposition of all criminal proceedings or release from supervision, whichever is later.The act allows a person who was convicted of a class 3 felony marijuana cultivation offense to petition to have his or her conviction record sealed.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
