Mesa County approves faster review of affordable housing projects
MESA COUNTY, Colo. (KREX) — On Tuesday, the Board of Mesa County Commissioners unanimously approved a new resolution for Proposition 123 to help speed up the review process for future affordable housing developments.
The resolution will allow for faster construction of housing and will keep Mesa County eligible for state funding used for local housing projects.
With the decision, Mesa County has formalized a policy to review all affordable housing applications within 90 days. The changed timeline aims to enable quicker decision-making and support developers who bring affordable homes to the area.
'Communities that implement fast-track policies reduce housing costs and boost supply by eliminating delays that drive up project expenses,' said Mesa County Community Development Director Greg Moberg.
In 2022, Proposition 123 was passed by Colorado voters to create a statewide Affordable Housing Fund. Local governments can access the funding only if they commit to certain requirements, such as promising to increase affordable housing options and to expedite project reviews.
Proposition 123 allows counties to give money to the community for affordable housing projects in two ways. First, the money from the state is funneled through the county to developers to help reduce the costs of affordable housing projects. The other way allows grants to be used for communities to initiate affordable housing projects, such as land acquisition or expedited processing.
Currently, Mesa County is testing out a pilot program through the state to use AI in the review of applications and other processes to make the process quicker and more efficient.
During the Board of Mesa County Administrative Public Hearing, Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel commented about her appreciation for the resolution.
'Greg [Moberg], I appreciate the fact that we didn't need to alter our process because we were already hitting the mark when it comes to streamlining all of the asks the state was asking us to do to make this an expedient process,' said Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel. 'I just want to applaud you guys, applaud our staff and applaud our team, that we were already hitting the mark. This is just a process to formalize it.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
14 hours ago
- Forbes
Leadership Development Is Broken, Because We're Asking The Wrong People If It's Working
Leadership Development Is Broken, Because We're Asking the Wrong People If It's Working The multi-billion dollar global leadership development industry has a dirty secret: most leadership development programs are evaluated by the very people who design and deliver them, not by the employees who are supposed to benefit. It's like asking chefs to rate their own cooking while ignoring the diners who actually have to eat the meal. This fundamental flaw in evaluation methodology explains why leadership training continues to disappoint despite massive corporate investment in developing leaders. After surveying over 150,000 employees, managers, and executives across hundreds of organizations, the evidence is clear: we've been measuring effective leadership development all wrong. While training departments celebrate completion rates and executives praise leadership program design, the people actually led by these "developed" leaders tell a dramatically different story—one that should force every organization to fundamentally rethink how they approach professional development for future leaders. The leadership development industry has perfected the art of creating development programs that feel successful without actually producing effective leaders. Walk into any corporate leadership training session and you'll find enthusiastic facilitators, polished materials, and participants who leave feeling energized about new leadership competencies and methodologies. Post-training surveys show high satisfaction scores, completion rates hit targets, and HR leaders report glowing success metrics to senior leaders. But here's the problem: none of these measures actually indicate whether leaders have developed essential leadership skills or become more effective at leading people. In fact, research from Leadership IQ reveals a shocking disconnect between leadership program satisfaction and real-world leadership effectiveness. Organizations routinely report successful leadership development initiatives while their employees simultaneously report widespread dissatisfaction with their leaders' actual leadership behaviors and leadership quality. Consider the sobering reality uncovered in a study called The State Of Leadership Development. When 21,008 employees were asked to evaluate their leaders across seven critical leadership competencies, the results were devastating for the leadership development industry. STUDY: WHY PEOPLE DISLIKE PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS Only 29% of employees say their leader's vision for the future is aligned with organizational goals. Despite countless hours spent in strategic leadership training programs, communication workshops, and vision-setting seminars for emerging leaders, more than two-thirds of employees see their leaders as misaligned with organizational direction. This suggests that leadership development programs are either failing to teach important leadership capabilities or leaders aren't applying what they've learned in their leadership role. Only 20% of employees say their leader always shares the challenges the organization is facing. Transparency and honest communication represent core components of virtually every leadership development program, yet four out of five employees report that their leaders fail to demonstrate these supposedly "developed" leadership skills in practice. Only 27% of employees say their leader always encourages and recognizes suggestions for improvement. Creative leadership, inclusive management, and employee engagement have become buzzwords in professional development, but the vast majority of employees report that their leaders don't actually encourage their input or ideas—fundamental aspects of effective leadership. These findings become even more damning when we examine the business impact. Employees who believe their leaders demonstrate strong leadership are dramatically more engaged and productive. The study 'The Risks Of Ignoring Employee Feedback' revealed that those who say their leader always shares organizational challenges are 10 times more likely to recommend their company as a great employer. Employees whose leaders encourage suggestions for improvement are 12 times more likely to recommend their organization. The ROI potential is enormous—if leadership development actually produced effective leaders. STUDY: THE RISKS OF IGNORING EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK The disconnect reveals itself most clearly in an analysis of leadership training effectiveness across 18 critical leadership skills that every good leader should master. While organizations invest heavily in developing these leadership competencies through various leadership initiatives, the results show systematic failure: The pattern is unmistakable: leadership development programs are producing future leaders who may understand concepts intellectually but cannot apply them effectively in real-world leadership situations. The traditional evaluation approach—measuring leadership program satisfaction, knowledge retention, and completion rates—completely misses this application gap that prevents emerging leaders from becoming truly effective leaders. This failure is particularly concerning when we consider that even senior leaders struggle with fundamental leadership capabilities. For example, when looking at deficiencies in essential leadership skills: These gaps suggest that leadership development programs focus on theoretical knowledge while ignoring practical application skills that employees actually experience. The result is a generation of potential leaders who have attended extensive leadership training but lack the leadership behaviors necessary for successful leadership in their leadership journey. The most revolutionary aspect of the research cited above involves asking the people who actually experience leadership on a daily basis: the employees being led. This employee-centric evaluation approach reveals truths that traditional assessment methods systematically miss, providing crucial insights into whether leadership development programs actually develop effective leaders. In the oft-cited research on performance appraisals, involving 48,012 employees, managers, and CEOs, only 13% of employees and managers think their organization's performance appraisal system is useful, and a staggering 88% said their current performance review negatively impacts their opinion of HR. Even more telling, only 6% of CEOs think their performance appraisal process is useful. STUDY: WHY PEOPLE DISLIKE PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS These results expose a fundamental failure in developing leaders and leadership development programs. If leaders cannot conduct meaningful performance conversations—one of their most basic leadership responsibilities—then what exactly are leadership training programs teaching? The data suggests that professional development focuses on theoretical knowledge while ignoring practical application skills that employees actually experience from their leaders. For instance, the analysis identified two primary problems with leader development that traditional leadership development programs fail to address: Despite 96% of employees agreeing that effective leaders should differentiate between high and low performers, only 22% believe their leader actually distinguishes between high and low performers. This failure creates a cascade of disengagement, particularly among high performers who see their excellent work treated the same as mediocre effort—a clear sign that leadership development programs aren't producing good leaders. The business impact is profound. High performers who see their leaders failing to differentiate performance are significantly more likely to become disengaged and eventually leave the organization. Leadership development programs teach recognition and feedback as core leadership competencies, but employees report that these leadership skills aren't being applied effectively in practice by emerging leaders or senior leaders. Only 14% of employees believe their performance appraisal provides relevant and meaningful feedback, despite feedback being a cornerstone of leadership development curricula and an essential leadership skill. This gap between leadership training content and practical application suggests that leadership programs teach feedback concepts without ensuring leaders can deliver them effectively—a critical flaw in developing leadership capabilities. The employee perspective reveals additional leadership failures that traditional evaluation methods miss entirely. The research on employee engagement shows that in 42% of organizations, high performers are less engaged than low performers—a stunning indictment of leadership effectiveness and the failure of leadership development programs to create effective leaders. High-performing employees report feeling less motivated, less recognized, and less supported than their lower-performing colleagues, suggesting systematic failures in organizational leadership. When we dig deeper into employee experiences, the leadership development gap becomes even more apparent across multiple dimensions of effective leadership: Recognition and Motivation Failures: High performers consistently report feeling underrecognized while low performers receive positive reinforcement. This pattern indicates that leaders often lack the practical leadership skills to identify and appropriately reward excellent performance—despite recognition being taught in virtually every leadership development program. The failure suggests that leadership training doesn't adequately prepare future leaders for this fundamental leadership ability. Accountability Gaps: Employees report widespread failures in leadership accountability, a cornerstone of strong leadership. High performers become frustrated watching low performers face no consequences for poor work, while they themselves receive little recognition for excellence. This suggests that leadership development programs teach accountability concepts without ensuring leaders can implement them effectively—a critical gap in developing leaders. Career Development Neglect: When it comes to career growth, a survey of 3,577 employees revealed that only 18% are always excited about their career growth and progress, and only 19% see a path to advance their career at their current employer. These findings indicate that leaders consistently fail to develop their people effectively—another core leadership responsibility that leadership development programs apparently aren't addressing successfully. Good leaders should excel at developing future leaders, but the data suggests this essential leadership skill is underdeveloped. The employee perspective also reveals significant gaps in change leadership capabilities among organizational leaders. Leadership IQ's analysis of over 79,000 employees found that only 15% of employees always understand the rationale behind their organization's strategy. This communication failure suggests that leadership development programs aren't producing leaders who can effectively explain strategic decisions and build employee buy-in for organizational changes—a critical aspect of successful leadership in today's environment. Perhaps most telling is the recent discovery that only 36% of employees are perceived by their managers to be delivering great work. This finding suggests either that leadership development programs aren't teaching leaders how to inspire great performance, or that leaders lack the leadership competencies necessary to recognize and develop great work in their teams. Either explanation points to fundamental failures in how we approach developing leaders. The solution to broken leadership development lies in fundamentally restructuring evaluation methodology to prioritize employee experience over leadership program satisfaction. Organizations must create systematic feedback loops that measure leadership effectiveness from the bottom up rather than the top down, ensuring that leadership training actually develops effective leaders rather than just satisfied participants. Instead of relying on post-training surveys that measure participant satisfaction with leadership development programs, organizations should implement continuous employee feedback mechanisms that assess leader behavior change and the practical application of leadership skills. For example, monthly "Shoves and Tugs" conversations can identify specific leadership behaviors that motivate or demotivate employees, providing immediate data on leadership development program effectiveness. This approach involves asking employees two simple questions monthly that reveal the true impact of professional development initiatives: These conversations surface real leadership behaviors that impact employee experience, providing leadership development programs with actual performance data rather than theoretical knowledge retention. This feedback helps identify whether emerging leaders are actually developing the leadership competencies necessary for effective leadership. Traditional 360-degree feedback focuses on gathering input about leadership potential. Employee-centric evaluation examines leadership impact through measures that matter to business results and assess whether leadership development programs are creating effective leaders: The research shows that when employees feel their leaders encourage suggestions for improvement—an important leadership capability—they are 12 times more likely to recommend their organization as a great employer. This metric provides a clear, measurable outcome for leadership development effectiveness and demonstrates the business impact of developing leaders effectively. Organizations should track employee experience with specific leaders over extended periods to identify development program impact and assess whether leadership training is producing the leadership quality organizations need. Key metrics include: Our research reveals that only 48% of leaders have mastered conducting successful performance reviews, despite this being a fundamental leadership responsibility and essential leadership skill. Employee-centric evaluation would assess whether leadership development programs actually improve these practical leadership capabilities: While executive coaching can provide valuable one-on-one leadership development, research suggests that even senior leaders who receive intensive coaching often struggle with basic leadership behaviors. Organizations should evaluate executive coaching effectiveness through employee experience measures rather than just coach satisfaction ratings or leadership potential assessments. The most sophisticated evaluation approach connects employee experience data with business outcomes, ensuring that leadership development programs contribute to organizational goals. Organizations should track correlations between employee-reported leader effectiveness and: Employee-centric evaluation must include systematic responses to negative feedback about leadership effectiveness. When employees report leadership failures, organizations need structured approaches for: The evidence is overwhelming: leadership development often fails because we've been measuring the wrong things. Leadership program satisfaction and knowledge retention don't predict leadership effectiveness. Completion rates and facilitator ratings don't indicate behavior change. Training department success metrics don't correlate with employee experience or the development of effective leaders. Organizations serious about developing effective leaders must abandon feel-good evaluation methods in favor of employee-centric assessment. This means measuring leadership development success through the eyes of the people being led, not the people doing the leading or designing the leadership development programs. The transformation requires fundamental shifts in evaluation methodology for all leadership initiatives: From Satisfaction to Impact: Stop measuring how participants feel about leadership training and start measuring how their teams feel about their leadership effectiveness and leadership quality. From Knowledge to Application: Stop testing what leaders know about leadership competencies and start assessing what they actually do in real workplace leadership situations. From Completion to Change: Stop counting leadership training hours and start measuring behavior modification and the practical application of essential leadership skills. From Internal to External: Stop relying on self-assessment and peer evaluation of leadership potential and start gathering systematic feedback from the people who experience leadership behaviors daily. The business case for this transformation is compelling. The research shows that employees led by effective leaders who demonstrate strong leadership are dramatically more engaged, productive, and likely to recommend their organizations. The ROI potential of truly effective leadership development far exceeds the cost of implementing rigorous, employee-centric evaluation methods that actually measure leadership effectiveness. But the change requires courage. It means acknowledging that many expensive, well-designed leadership development programs have failed to create effective leaders or develop the leadership competencies organizations need. It means accepting that satisfied participants and enthusiastic trainers don't guarantee business impact or successful leadership. It means admitting that the leadership development industry has been selling the illusion of effectiveness while ignoring actual results and the real experience of developing leaders. The organizations that embrace employee-centric evaluation will develop genuinely effective leaders who create engaged, productive, innovative teams. Those that continue asking the wrong people if leadership development works will continue investing billions in leadership programs that fail the people they're supposed to serve, missing opportunities to develop great leaders who can drive organizational success. The choice is clear: continue the comfortable fiction that leadership development works because trainers and participants say it does, or embrace the uncomfortable truth that effectiveness can only be measured by the employees who experience leadership every day. Whether leadership development programs actually develop good leaders with the essential leadership skills needed for their leadership journey can only be determined by those they lead. The billion dollar question facing every organization is which path they will choose in their approach to developing leaders and leadership development programs. The answer will determine whether their investment in professional development creates effective leaders capable of strong leadership, or simply produces another generation of well-trained but ineffective leaders who fail to demonstrate the leadership behaviors and leadership quality their organizations desperately need.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Aptevo Participating in the BIO International Convention
SEATTLE, WA / / June 13, 2025 / Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:APVO), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel immuno-oncology therapeutics based on its proprietary ADAPTIR® and ADAPTIR-FLEX® platform technologies, today announced that the Company is participating in the BIO International Convention occurring June 16-19, 2025, in Boston, MA. The conference is known for being the largest biotechnology industry conference of the year and is expected to attract more than 18,000 attendees from around the world. Attending from Aptevo are Michelle N. Nelson, Ph.D., Director of Immunobiology and SoYoung Kwon, SVP, General Counsel and Head, Business Development. About Aptevo TherapeuticsAptevo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:APVO) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel bispecific immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The Company has two clinical candidates. Mipletamig is currently being evaluated in RAINIER, a two-part Phase 1b/2 trial for the treatment of frontline acute myeloid leukemia in combination with standard-of-care venetoclax + azacitidine. Mipletamig has received orphan drug designation ("orphan status") for AML according to the Orphan Drug Act. a bispecific conditional 4-1BB agonist, only active upon simultaneous binding to 4-1BB and 5T4, is being co-developed with Alligator Bioscience and is being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of multiple solid tumor types likely to express 5T4. The Company has three pre-clinical candidates with different mechanisms of action designed to target a range of solid tumors. All pipeline candidates were created from two proprietary platforms, ADAPTIR® and ADAPTIR-FLEX®. The Aptevo mission is to improve treatment outcomes and transform the lives of cancer patients. For more information, please visit Safe Harbor StatementThis press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, Aptevo's expectations about the activity, efficacy, safety, tolerability and durability of its therapeutic candidates and potential use of any such candidates, including in combination with other drugs, as therapeutics for treatment of disease, its expectations regarding the effectiveness of its ADAPTIR and ADAPTIR-FLEX platforms, statements related to the progress of Aptevo's clinical programs, including statements related to anticipated clinical and regulatory milestones, whether further study of mipletamig in a Phase 1b dose optimization trial focusing on multiple doses of mipletamig in combination with venetoclax + azacitidine on a targeted patient population will continue to show clinical benefit, whether Aptevo's final trial results will vary from its earlier assessment, the possibility and timing of interim data readouts for statements related to Aptevo's ability to generate stockholder value, whether Aptevo will continue to have momentum in its business in the future, and any other statements containing the words "may," "continue to," "believes," "knows," "expects," "optimism," "potential," "designed," "promising," "plans," "will" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Aptevo's current intentions, beliefs, and expectations regarding future events. Aptevo cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will be accurate. Investors should realize that if underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could differ materially from Aptevo's expectations. Investors are, therefore, cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. There are several important factors that could cause Aptevo's actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including a deterioration in Aptevo's business or prospects; further assessment of preliminary or interim data or different results from later clinical trials; adverse events and unanticipated problems, adverse developments in clinical development, including unexpected safety issues observed during a clinical trial; and changes in regulatory, social, macroeconomic and political conditions. For instance, actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the uncertainties inherent in the results of preliminary or interim data and preclinical studies being predictive of the results of later-stage clinical trials, initiation, enrollment and maintenance of patients, and the completion of clinical trials, the availability and timing of data from ongoing clinical trials, the trial design includes combination therapies that may make it difficult to accurately ascertain the benefits of mipletamig, expectations for the timing and steps required in the regulatory review process, expectations for regulatory approvals, the impact of competitive products, our ability to enter into agreements with strategic partners or raise funds on acceptable terms or at all and other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of Aptevo's product candidates, business or economic disruptions due to catastrophes or other events, including natural disasters or public health crises such as the coronavirus (referred to as COVID-19), geopolitical risks, including the current war between Russia and Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas, and macroeconomic conditions such as economic uncertainty, rising inflation and interest rates, continued market volatility and decreased consumer confidence. These risks are not exhaustive, Aptevo faces known and unknown risks. Additional risks and factors that may affect results are set forth in Aptevo's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, and its subsequent reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. The foregoing sets forth many, but not all, of the factors that could cause actual results to differ from Aptevo's expectations in any forward-looking statement. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this press release, and, except as required by law, Aptevo does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect new information, events, or circumstances. CONTACT:Miriam Weber MillerHead, Investor Relations & Corporate CommunicationsAptevo TherapeuticsEmail: IR@ or Millerm@ 206-859-6628 SOURCE: Aptevo Therapeutics View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Sen. Michael Bennet holds virtual roundtable for 'Republican Dangers to SNAP'
WESTERN SLOPE, Colo. (KREX) – Lately, there has been speculation from the federal level that there will be funds cut from SNAP benefits. On Thursday, Senator Michael Bennet held a virtual roundtable to discuss the quote 'Republican Dangers to SNAP.' Bennet states, 'I hope for the smaller cut; it would be better, you know, if we had to take one and not the other.' Communities around Colorado are on their toes regarding the outcome of possible SNAP benefit cuts. The virtual roundtable included community members around the Centennial State alongside Senator Bennet. 'As I said earlier, [SNAP] is going to be on the receiving end of this unfunded mandate,' Bennet said. Bennet says the president passed the bill, which will need 51 Senate votes to pass in the Senate before being finalized. 'I don't know what the choices that he's going to be able to assemble to get that majority vote are, but I will keep everybody on this call informed as I begin to hear what's going on,' Bennet said. WesternSlopeNow reached out to the Mesa County Department of Human Services, and the Economic Assistance Director, Melissa Schierland, sent a statement saying, 'This is pending federal legislation, and no changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have been finalized. We are closely monitoring the situation. If the program changes, we will communicate directly with our clients to ensure they receive clear guidance and support. Our priority remains helping families meet their basic needs and access the resources they rely on.' State Senator Janice Rich of District 7 states, 'I think that it has been a successful program, and I guess I would hate to see it be cut, you know, a lot, because over the years, it has lifted over 70,000 people out of the poverty line.' State Senator Rich says it's been reported that 9.9% of people use the SNAP program in the state. Meanwhile, WesternSlopeNow reached out to the Colorado Department of Human Services about how these cuts could affect the rest of the state. A representative sent us a statement saying in part, 'As of March 2025, approximately 334,000 Colorado households and 617,000 people receive monthly benefits. In 2024, almost one million individual Coloradans received SNAP, half of whom were children, 10% of whom were older Americans, and 15% of whom were Americans with disabilities. Minimizing food insecurity has positive impacts, including increased physical and mental health.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
