Evict ICE! Turn Off the Cameras! The People of Glenwood Speak Tonight!
by Jacob Richards
Tonight’s Glenwood Springs City Council meeting should be spicy. Locals are organizing to speak on two separate but closely linked issues.
The first is the city’s seven weeks of inaction after the Planning and Zoning Commission voted 5 to 1 to revoke the Glenwood Springs ICE Substation and hold room’s occupancy permits at an April 28, meeting, (a first in the nation victory).
But the city has done nothing, its city attorney, Karl Hanlon flatly refusing to do his job enforcing the cities laws, hiding behind a misapplication of the supremacy clause, and advising inaction.
“For too long, too many of our neighbors have been left behind, and the people held on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at 100 Midland Avenue are among them. They were placed in a building that does not meet the fire-safety and evacuation protections our law requires whenever a person is held against their will,” wrote State Representative Elizabeth Velasco who represents the Glenwood Springs area in the Colorado State House in a letter to the city council.
The grassroots Substack Roaring Fork Tranny published a call to action that sums up the situation:
“The Commission revoked the permit. But the City is now refusing to enforce its own decision, and its own building and fire codes, against the landlord who owns the building. At the hearing, the City Attorney told the Commission that the Supremacy Clause, the part of the Constitution that gives federal law priority, prevents any enforcement action.
That argument is aimed at the wrong party. The building at 100 Midland Avenue is not federally owned. It is private property, owned by an out-of-state company. Federal protections shield the federal tenant. They do not shield a private landlord from local building, fire, and zoning rules. The federal government’s own regulation says so in plain language: leased buildings are subject to local code requirements and inspection. Every other business in this town has to follow these codes. This one does not, only because its tenant carries a federal badge.”
Mountain Action Indivisible is calling out its members to ask:
“How does the City typically respond to an unauthorized land use within its boundaries?
Does COGS plan to do their job and enforce their municipal code as they would against any property owner who violates municipal land use, building, and fire codes?
COGS has numerous potential remedies against JG Housing Solutions, including serving it with a Cease and Desist for unauthorized use and life safety violations, and fines of $1,000 per day for non-compliance. Does COGS plan to pursue any of these remedies?”
The other issue on the docket is the recent $2.43 million contract for a platform of AI powered surveillance services by Axon. Axon has come to dominate the Body Worn Camera market (arguably the only real winner of the George Floyd Summer of Rage) and is out picking up business as outrage is hyper- focused on Flock Safety.
At the end of March, Denver’s City Council signed a deal with AXON after caving to public pressure against Flock Safety’s AI camera system, for example.
But Axon is the same thing but arguably worse.
Glenwood is in the same boat as Denver, after Flock audit logs were released via Colorado’s Open Records Act, which found outside agencies accessed Glenwood’s Flock Cameras data at an astonishing rate, some 516,892 queries in just January of 2025. Some queries clearly related to immigration enforcement and others clearly targeted protestors at Indivisible events.
After this came to light the City restricted its data sharing within the Flock system but continued to receive public pressure about the Flock Cameras on the grounds of basic fourth amendment protects, documented security flaws in Flock’s system, and the surveillance state writ large,.
And while we were focused on Flock, Glenwood’s city council quietly, and with a lack of public process or competitive bidding, authorized a 10-year deal with Axon for the same services and some Orwellian extras.
An objection filed by a local attorney state: “On June 4, 2026, the Council approved Resolution 2026-10, authorizing a sole-source contract with Axon valued at $2,439,840.45 over a 120-month term, with annual payments of $243,884.04 in years two through ten and a term running from September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2036. The Council acted on a five-sentence staff report from the City Manager, with legal review still in progress, after a single public comment, and without continuing the item.”
“They are all over the place,” said one Glenwood Springs resident that didn’t wanna be named because they don’t want “ICE all up their ass,” we are calling Austin.
“This is the same city council that bravely withdrew from SPEAR, the Garfield County Task Force that has been illegally helping ICE,” said Austin. “This is the same council that rightly limited their Flock Data sharing when it was exposed how it was being used.”
“Now they go full police state with this AXON contract, while doing nothing about Midland,” Austin continued.
The fence sitting must be getting uncomfortable for the Glenwood Spring Council. The people want ICE evicted and the cameras turned off and they are getting organized. On the other hand, Garco Sheriff Lou Vallario has threatened to withhold aid to Glenwood Springs in emergencies in a childlike tantrum after they withdrew from his SPEAR task force in April.
“As a result of your decision to remove the GSPD from SPEAR … SPEAR will not be able to assist the GSPD with their criminal cases, or when those cases exceed their local capacity. You chose to quit the team and sever the teamwork, not SPEAR,” he wrote in a public letter.
Powerful precedent setting work is being done by the people of Glenwood Springs many from across the state will be watching with interest.
Evict ICE! Turn Off the Cameras!
Watch here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84177031085?pwd=4a3ySYZMJaPzuROBjz1RL4w7NxatTr.1#success
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