Orediggers fly high at Kit Mayer Classic track & field meet

BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

When up against some of the toughest athletes in Colorado and beyond, it helps to have a home track & eld advantage.

Colorado School of Mines hosted its annual Kit Mayer Classic this weekend, drawing NCAA Division I and Division II athletes to the Stermole Track & Field Complex.

On April 7, Mines’ Lexye Wood set a new program record in the women’s long jump, hitting 6.07 meters on her second attempt. She only took home the silver, though, as Colorado’s Avery McMullen edged out Wood at 6.36 meters.

Wood’s jump is still a conference-best for the season and is the fth-best jump in Division II this year.

In the men’s shot put, the Orediggers nearly swept the podium, as Hayden Swim, Brody Welch and Arvid Veidmark IV placed second through fourth in the event.

With the bulk of events scheduled for April 8, the Orediggers had more opportunities to shine. And shine they did, especially in both men’s and women’s pole vault.

Senior Hannah Miller, who’s the reigning NCAA Division II champion in women’s indoor pole vault, took rst with 4.07 meters. Teammates Ava Kowalski and Avery Herbold, both juniors, also tied for third in the event.

For the men’s pole vault, junior Hunter Potrykus also took gold, clearing 5.05 meters.

Mines saw additional success in the April 8 track events. Freshman Lexi Herr placed rst in the women’s 1500-meter race, and junior Everett Delate clinched rst in the men’s 110-meter hurdles, among other accomplishments.

Next on the schedule, the Mines track & eld teams travel to California and Grand Junction before returning to host their pre-conference meet April 21-22. For more information, including all the results from the Kit Mayer Classic, visit MinesAthletics. com.

needle between preventing landlords from imposing retaliatory rent increases and not creating a back-door rent control policy.

Without a de nition for the phrase in the bill, Mabrey said a judge would be the one to decide what “reasonably” means based on the circumstances their jurisdiction is facing.

“To do that in legislation is to invite or force a judge to make their own personal judgment about what’s a reasonable increase in rent,” said state Sen. Bob Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican and lawyer who often picks apart vague language in bills.

Judges would be uncomfortable making that determination, said Jason Dunn, Colorado’s former U.S. attorney and a former state deputy attorney general.

“No judge is going to take on that role of legislating,” said Dunn, a Republican who now works in private practice for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where he focuses on government investigations and white collar defense.

e bill has been approved by the Colorado House and is waiting to be considered by the Senate.

Dunn, who has previously served as an adviser for state legislators during bill drafting, has spent hours trying to understand what lawmakers intended when they approved bills by listening to committees and oor work. at process doesn’t always settle it though, because one lawmaker’s comments don’t necessarily represent the entire legislature’s understanding of a bill.

In one example, Dunn represented a client who shot a man on his patio near Steamboat Springs. Dunn used Colorado’s “Make My Day” law, which allows homeowners to protect themselves from intruders, as a defense.

But Dunn’s challenge was that the law says to legally use deadly force, an intruder must have entered the person’s “dwelling,” which could or could not include a patio. Dunn won the case but said he never got a clear answer on how the legislature de ned dwelling. at’s the case for some parts of Gov. Jared Polis’ recently released local land use bill.

“You can’t always predict what sort of factual events will come up that drive an interpretation of language,” Dunn said.

Sometimes when a bill isn’t speci c, it’s because state regulators, like those at the Department of Local A airs, are charged with developing procedures later.

But Dunn and Gardner caution that lawmakers can’t leave all the speci cs to other authorities or the courts because eventually, it turns into its own version of policymaking.

“Courts really don’t like that at all,” Gardner said. “ ey wish we would be precise all the time so they don’t have to play at politics.” at o er would have to be “substantially economically identical” to the one made by a private buyer, but that phrase isn’t dened in the bill.

Rep. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat and lawyer, would prefer to see direct language in all bills.

“Wouldn’t we rather say what we actually meant in the rst instance?” said Weissman, who is chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

House Bill 1190 is another bill with some vague language. It would give local governments a “right of rst refusal” when multifamily residential properties are put up for sale.

Under the proposal, aimed at boosting a ordable housing, local governments would have the right to match any acceptable o er for the property.

Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill, said the goal is to prevent a seller from favoring an o er from a private buyer over a government buyer without good reason.

“It needs to be reasonably broad in order to give a potential

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