Scott Franz
Reporter, InvestigativeEmail: scott.franz@kunc.org
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.
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Pano AI, a San Francisco company installing dozens of the cameras, has been busy this summer working to expand coverage from the Front Range to Routt County. -
Some cottontail rabbits in Fort Collins, have been drawing attention because they have wart-like growths on their faces that look like horns. The rabbits are infected with the relatively common Shope papillomavirus. The virus likely inspired the centuries-old jackalope myth. -
In the last two years, the state has shifted most of its grant funding in its Persons Who Wander Program to a new technology that’s bringing more buzz, along with some concerns about privacy rights and the reactive nature of the devices. -
They are the One Ear Pack in Jackson County, the King Mountain Pack in Routt County and the Three Creeks Pack in Rio Blanco County. -
As some communities in far northwest Colorado discuss hosting a temporary nuclear waste storage facility, western leaders are reaffirming they want a say. -
Colorado's Secretary of State's office confirms the state's campaign finance website is down to block personal information of state lawmakers. This comes after a lawmaker in Minnesota was shot and killed, while three other people were injured in what police believe was a politically motivated attack. -
Federal agents killed 6,421 wild animals at Denver International Airport last year and hazed away more than 130,000 in their quest to protect airplane passengers from wildlife strikes. Despite these efforts, the airport reported a record-high 878 wildlife strikes with planes last year. -
Nearly a third of the wolves Colorado has reintroduced in the last two years have died. They’ve lost battles with mountain lions and been struck down by a bullet from an unknown shooter.But one wolf encountered an even more sophisticated hunter: a government agency that specializes in killing hundreds of thousands of wild animals each year to protect livestock and airplane passengers. -
Bill sponsors stood by their measure and vowed to seek an override, saying governments in Colorado need relief after being “inundated” with requests for public records in recent years. But the override vote was repeatedly delayed, suggesting the sponsors lacked the two-thirds support they needed in both chambers to force it into law. -
SB25-077 would have given governments more time to respond to records requests from the public and businesses while exempting journalists from the delays.The bill’s sponsors said governments were being “inundated” with records requests and needed relief with longer deadlines to respond to them.
