Scott Franz
Scott Franz is a government watchdog reporter and photographer from Steamboat Springs. He spent the last seven years covering politics and government for the Steamboat Pilot & Today, a daily newspaper in northwest Colorado. His reporting in Steamboat stopped a police station from being built in a city park, saved a historic barn from being destroyed and helped a small town pastor quickly find a kidney donor. His favorite workday in Steamboat was Tuesday, when he could spend many of his mornings skiing untracked powder and his evenings covering city council meetings. Scott received his journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an outdoorsman who spends at least 20 nights a year in a tent. He spoke his first word, 'outside', as a toddler in Edmonds, Washington. Scott visits the Great Sand Dunes, his favorite Colorado backpacking destination, twice a year. Scott's reporting is part of Capitol Coverage, a collaborative public policy reporting project, providing news and analysis to communities across Colorado for more than a decade. Fifteen public radio stations participate in Capitol Coverage from throughout Colorado.
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Democrats who control the state legislature are increasingly using a survey they fill out in secret to help determine whether bills live or die. The results are kept from the public, raising questions about transparency and potential violations of the state’s sunshine law. -
Sen. Kevin Priola blasted his Republican colleagues for what he called their indifference toward the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and refusing to take action on climate change.
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Colorado’s trails, campgrounds and parks are getting more crowded. But surveys show the droves of visitors are overwhelmingly white and wealthy. A new initiative launching this summer hopes to change that.
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Service organizations in Colorado and beyond say they are ready to help residents who are grieving after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
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Meteorologist Coleen Haskell says the grim fire forecast for this summer has been years in the making.
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Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, says the new law will put the state’s voting equipment under permanent video surveillance and lock it behind doors that can only be opened with keycards.
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State legislatures are considering election security bills in reaction to false narratives about voter fraud. But local election officials have a different security concern: increased harassment.
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Colorado voters have a chance to cut property taxes in November. But Proposition 120 is complex. Scott Franz reports on how the ballot question is pitting…
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Proposition 119 supporters eye marijuana tax hike for new tutoring program. Opponents call it a scamProposition 119 would raise taxes on marijuana sales by 5% over the next three years. Nonpartisan analysts at the Capitol say the Learning Enrichment and Academic Progress Program – or LEAP for short – would net more than $100 million for the program during the next fiscal year.
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Amendment 78 is a conservative-led effort to make the executive branch a little less powerful by giving state lawmakers more control over emergency spending.
