DENVER — There’s at least one booming industry in Colorado right now, desperately looking for workers:  the construction industry.  After a decade of doldrums, Colorado construction is hot again. 

Between February 2011 and February 2012, the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area added 6,300 construction jobs, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.  That’s more than anywhere else in the United States. 

Right now, about 137,000 Coloradans are working in construction.  Times are good.

“The first quarter of 2012, we will equal the construction volume and revenue that we had in all of 2011,” said David Sinkey, managing director for Boulder Creek Builders.  His company is hard at work developing the Steel Ranch neighborhood in Louisville.  But there’s a problem.  He can’t find enough construction workers.

DENVER – Angel Montoya, a Denver man found guilty of killing his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole.

Earlier this month, Montoya, 27, was convicted of first degree murder, child abuse resulting in death and abuse of a corpse for the 2007 slaying of Neveah Gallegos.

He also received 48 years in prison for the child abuse resulting in death count and 12 months for abuse of a corpse, but the sentences were ordered to run concurrent with the life term.

According to the Denver District Attorney’s Office, Miriam Gallegos left her daughter in Montoya’s care on Sept. 21, 2007, and then went to work at her job at Sports Authority. When she returned to their Capitol Hill apartment later that day, she found her daughter’s body under a blanket.

Montoya, according to prosecutors, kept telling his girlfriend “I didn’t do it,” but then organized a plan to conceal the crime with Gallegos’ help.

Small businesses in Colorado are getting a $17 million boost through two new capital access programs announced by Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT), and Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA).