In 2025, Boulder Reporting Lab readers turned to us most often when it mattered most. Our most-read stories were driven by breaking news and public service reporting, moments when people needed clear, timely information. That included this month’s powerful windstorm that triggered widespread Xcel Energy shutoffs, fast-moving wildfire evacuations and local election coverage, including voter guides and candidate profiles. Many readers also clicked on stories about how local leaders are grappling with Boulder’s biggest challenges, from housing policy changes like occupancy limits and a potential vacancy tax to wildfire mitigation, air-quality monitoring, homelessness and schools.
Sometimes a story rises because it’s controversial. Among the most-read pieces of the year was a story by BRL contributor Jenna Sampson examining a local homeschooling operation that shut down after being flagged for code violations. Other top stories included our live coverage of the 2025 local election results and reporting that has followed the windstorm, raising hard questions about whether Xcel Energy and local leaders are adequately preparing for extreme weather in an increasingly hot and dry climate.
The response to that extreme weather coverage is a reminder of the role BRL’s local public service journalism plays in this community. For many readers, the fire danger posed by the windstorm revived memories of the 2021 Marshall Fire, the state’s most destructive wildfire on record. That fire occurred just weeks after Boulder Reporting Lab launched and helped shape how we approach breaking news in a community particularly vulnerable to climate-driven risks.
That approach includes not only what we cover, but how we do it: remaining paywall-free, accessible and available to everyone who needs information. In a fire, a windstorm, a power outage or a flood, service journalism is not a luxury. It can be a matter of safety, and we take that responsibility seriously. When we send an alert, it’s because we believe the information is essential.
But journalism isn’t only about clicks. As we head into a new year, our journalists also wanted to lift up stories that mattered deeply to them. That work may not always draw the largest audience, but it helps explain Boulder, hold institutions accountable, and document changes that will shape the community over time.
Below, we’ve gathered the stories our newsroom is proudest to have brought you in 2025, and why.
John Herrick: How Boulder quietly upended decades of land-use policy
In November 2021, a measure to raise Boulder’s occupancy limits was on the ballot after years of organizing, including efforts dating back to 2002, but it failed.
The city council then spent nearly two years crafting an ordinance to raise the limits from as few as three to five unrelated people across much of the city. More than 65 residents testified on the ordinance before the council passed it on a 6-3 vote.
Then, in 2024, Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a bill that prohibited occupancy limits based on family status, calling them discriminatory. This prompted the council, less than a year later, to unanimously repeal the city’s occupancy limits.
The city was ultimately forced by the state to repeal the limits. But the vote kicked off a year of land-use reforms that would have been unthinkable in 2021, when Boulder Reporting Lab launched.
Following the repeal, the city council moved to make it easier for residents to subdivide single-family homes, allowing homes within 350 feet of a bus line to be converted to duplexes, regardless of lot size, in lower-density areas like parts of Newlands, Old North Boulder and South Boulder.
Later in 2025, the city council unanimously repealed its minimum parking requirements for new developments, a feature of the city’s land-use code rooted in an era when the city was designed around cars, and one that housing advocates argue drives up the cost of building housing. Though prompted by state legislation, Boulder went further, repealing the limits citywide.
These changes faced opposition. Residents attended city council meetings to warn of increased traffic, parking challenges and strain on city utilities. But by the fall, the shift in public sentiment was reflected in a statistically valid survey from September 2025, with more than 600 respondents, which found 82% supported adding duplexes in low-density neighborhoods that historically have allowed only single-family homes.
Many of these reforms were incremental. But taken together, they made 2025 the year Boulder appeared to break from land-use policies that had shaped the city for decades. For journalists who cover Boulder, 2025 was a reminder that even the most entrenched policies can give way, sometimes challenging the narratives we use to explain the city.
Brooke Stephenson: What changed along Boulder Creek, and how we found out
One of my favorite articles I wrote this year covered the City of Boulder’s quiet but significant shift in enforcement of its camping ban along Boulder Creek.
In March, the city began enforcing the ban more aggressively. The ordinance prohibits sleeping in public spaces with any form of shelter, including a blanket.
Before March, police on the Homeless Outreach Team typically gave people three days’ notice before issuing citations in an area. When officers returned, they often directed people to a different location where camping was allowed. This spring, that changed.
The city posted pink “Notices to Vacate” along the creek and began removing people immediately anywhere a notice had been posted for more than three days. People were not told where to go next. The message was, and remains, that camping is illegal everywhere in the city.
People sleeping downtown told me they were sometimes woken in the middle of the night and ordered to move, and that they could be jailed if they resisted. Camping citations increased.
We learned about the shift almost by chance and confirmed it by talking directly with people experiencing homelessness near the creek path.
The article was published in late April. Since then, Police Chief Stephen Redfearn has spoken publicly several times about the department’s “different stance” on homelessness, aligning with broader efforts to move homelessness services away from downtown.
At the time of publication, however, the city had not announced the changes, which had already been in place for about a month. When asked, officials denied altering enforcement protocols, saying instead that they had merely “refined their strategy.”
I like this story because it so clearly illustrates the value of local journalism. The city was making significant changes in how it interacted with homeless residents, but no one was really hearing about it. It wasn’t documented publicly. The only way to find out what was changing was to talk with our neighbors in Boulder.
I made calls to city staff — many of whom patiently answered questions all year — and spent time along the creek speaking with people directly affected. Every person who shares their story with a reporter takes a risk. We take that trust seriously, especially when barriers like limited internet access make it harder for people to see how their voices are represented.
Stories like this are impossible without our neighbors. They aim to put information, and power, back in your hands.
Regardless of your views on homelessness policy, one of BRL’s core beliefs is that our community deserves to know what’s happening in its own backyard. You can’t engage if you don’t have the information.
Por Jaijongkit: Following the air, from Boulder Reservoir to Valmont
The year came full circle for me. I began 2025 covering the end of an air-monitoring program at Boulder Reservoir. Previously operated by Boulder AIR, the program tracked methane, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides — data used to identify sources of air pollution.
Reporting on the program gave me a behind-the-scenes look at air-quality science and the intensity of data collection. Boulder AIR’s equipment, for example, collects more than 8,500 methane data points per year, compared with about 60 collected by the state, allowing for far more detailed analysis.
After joining BRL full time, I turned to developments at Valmont Station, just east of Boulder, where more than a million tons of toxic coal ash await excavation. Xcel Energy’s plan is to reuse much of the ash as a concrete ingredient, with processing done on site.
That plan raises concerns because coal ash contains heavy metals, can be radioactive, and poses serious health risks. Processing it on site increases the risk of airborne exposure for nearby communities.
That’s where air monitoring comes back in. As the year drew to a close, I checked back in with Boulder AIR, which is exploring options to monitor air quality around Valmont. More reporting on that is coming soon.
Xcel’s latest operations plan for Valmont remains under review by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and I’ll be watching closely as we head into 2026.
Beyond Valmont, conversations about Boulder’s electrical grid and Xcel’s undergrounding efforts intensified after two public safety power shutoffs during periods of extreme fire risk. While some undergrounding work has begun, questions remain about the grid’s resilience as climate-driven fire danger increases.
Stacy Feldman: Reporting tragedy from inside the community
When I talk about a “favorite” story, I don’t mean the best or most enjoyable one. For me, the most profound was our coverage of the June 1 antisemitic attack on Pearl Street, which killed a beloved member of our community and injured others.
Covering a deadly, senseless tragedy like that is fundamentally different when you live in the community, report for the community, and are only one degree of separation from the victims. When you live so close to the site of the attack, it’s not parachute journalism. It’s personal, and it’s heavy. I spoke about that experience on a podcast, but it also changed our small newsroom in very real ways.
Most practically, it was the moment we knew we needed a physical newsroom, a place to convene during sustained, urgent breaking news over many hours and days. You may have noticed it since then, or at least our sign, while walking along the Pearl Street Mall. It’s the first time in a long time a Boulder newsroom is back in downtown Boulder. But the impact went much deeper than that. As we watched so many outside narratives get key details about Boulder wrong, my own sense of what we’re building here at BRL sharpened. The value of deeply rooted, local reporting for local people became unmistakably clear. (And just this month, as we reported on power outages while without power ourselves, we were reminded again how unique and vital local journalism is, and how nothing replaces it when it’s gone.)
I also watched our team navigate one of the most difficult moments imaginable with focus and purpose. John Herrick, in particular, did something extraordinarily hard: reporting on reporting. It was impossible not to see what he saw, journalists from outside coming in and, at times, making the pain worse for those involved. For what? To get the story? To be first? He covered that story, the story of journalists who parachuted in and, according to victims of the June 1 attack did more harm, which also helped spark broader conversations about how journalists can do better when covering trauma in their communities.
Separately, and very different in tone, two of my favorite areas of coverage this year were food and local history. In 2025, we were able to give a home to two incredible longtime writers: John Lehndorff, who launched the Nibbles newsletter, and Silvia Pettem, who began writing a new local history section. Both have been documenting Boulder County for years. We’re honored to help sustain their work and to bring their voices to our readers.