Denver City Councilman Rafael Espinoza’s call for an investigation over improper texts that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock sent to Denver police detective Leslie Branch-Wise when she was a member of his security detail circa 2011-2012 didn’t gain support from other members of the panel, which issued a joint statement rejecting the launch of such a probe.
Despite having more than seventy years of combined experience working for United Airlines, flight attendants Ruben Lee and Jeanne Stroup were fired by the carrier for watching a video on an iPad for approximately fifteen minutes and failing to wear aprons during one flight in September 2013. But while folks at the company may have thought they’d save money by sacking two veteran employees, they were wrong. A jury has awarded Lee and Stroup $800,000 in damages, and attorney David Lane, who represents them, predicts the final tally will come close to double that amount.
At 11 a.m. today, March 16, at the State Capitol, assorted legislators will be gathering for the introductory meeting of the Colorado Cannabis Caucus, a new group envisioned as a version of the federal Congressional Cannabis Caucus, except for state representatives. According to an executive of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which played a role in organizing the gathering, the caucus will likely be the first of its kind in any state, but it won’t be the last.
Yesterday, following a layoff announcement affecting thirty newsroom employees at the Denver Post, the Denver Newspaper Guild, a union that represents 25 of those marked for pink slips, sent a message to Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns the paper: “Sell The Denver Post Now!” According to DNG administrative officer Tony Mulligan, this salvo was written in part because of the theory that the cuts were made simply to maintain a 20 percent profit margin sans consideration of what the damage might do to the paper’s long-term prospects.
A half-century ago this month, in March 1968, Cinderella City opened in Englewood, and it was much more than a mere mall. An ad from the early days maintained that “Once Upon a Time…Is Now at Cinderella City,” where “Your Shopping Dreams Come True,” and for a generation of Denverites, as well as folks who traveled from all over the region to behold its marvels in person, these pitch lines were on the money. Those glory days ended with the edifice’s late 1990s demolition — but they’re set to make a virtual return. Denver designer Josh Goldstein is currently working on what he calls a “fully-detailed digital recreation of Cinderella City Mall for a Virtual Reality experience” he hopes to complete by the end of the attraction’s fiftieth anniversary year.
The March 15 episode of the rebooted NBC sitcom hit Will & Grace offered a hilarious take on Colorado’s gay wedding cake controversy. And by the end of the show, President Donald Trump wound up as both winner and loser.
The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of iHeartMedia represents a startling descent in fortunes for a corporation that owns more than 800 radio stations across the country, including ten of the most powerful signals in the Denver market. The firm once known as Clear Channel insists that it will be business as usual during the bankruptcy process, but its circumstances are already drastically reduced from the period around the turn of the century, when it was considered an unassailable broadcasting colossus.
Early on March 15, after yesterday’s announcement that Denver Post will lay off thirty employees, the Denver Newspaper Guild, the union that represents most staffers, published a message to Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns the paper: “Sell The Denver Post Now!” In addition, the DNG estimates that the number of journalists at the broadsheet will actually number fewer than fifty once the layoffs are complete.
Our Souls at Night, a 2017 Netflix film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, was shot in Colorado, with communities such as Florence, Colorado Springs and Denver benefiting from the dollars spent by the production, which was lured here in part by a $1.5 million in incentives made available through the Colorado Film Commission. But right now, the commission’s funding looks likely to be limited to $750,000, the same amount to which its $3 million budget was slashed last year. That’s too low an amount to attract major Hollywood films, and as evidence, Donald Zuckerman, the state’s film commissioner, reveals that Redford wanted to make his next movie here but decided against it when he learned no economic incentives were available.
At 10 a.m. today, March 15, the Northern Colorado Shooting Task Force, originally created to investigate a string of 2015 shootings that included two murders, will hold its first media briefing in recent memory. Law enforcers are expected to provide details about the arrest of Christopher Parker, a 35-year-old who made a court appearance yesterday in connection with one of aforementioned killings: the apparently random gun-down of William “Bill” Connole, Jr., 65, on a Loveland street in June of that year.
At a meeting this afternoon, on March 14, Denver Post editor Lee Ann Colacioppo announced layoffs for thirty employees, constituting nearly one-third of the newsroom staff. It’s the largest example of downsizing at the Post in recent memory and leaves the broadsheet with fewer than 25 percent of newsroomers employed during its peak. Less than a decade ago, around 300 journalists were on the job.
For folks in the United States and much of the Western world, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, who passed away early today, March 14, in Cambridge, is the most famous person to die thus far in 2018, and the social media reactions vary from heartfelt tributes to bizarre takes along the lines of a Facebook item that reads, “Stop trolling. Stephen Hawking is not dead. Chairs can’t die.” Such reactions are to be expected according to a recent report by University of Colorado Boulder researchers.
Denver City Councilman Rafael Espinoza’s call for an investigation over improper texts Denver Mayor Michael Hancock sent to Denver police detective Leslie Branch-Wise when she was a member of his security detail circa 2011-2012 is not being echoed by other members of the panel. The Denver City Council has now issued a joint statement that essentially shrugs off the need for such an inquiry while calling for greater transparency related to any assertions of sexual harassment by officials. Yet the information that led to this decision was dispensed at a closed-door meeting, during executive session.
Last night, on the eve of planned gun-control-related student walkouts at schools throughout the Denver area and the nation, Adams 12 Five Star Schools superintendent Chris Gdowski sent a letter to parents warning about “a high volume (over 40 at this time) of anonymous Safe2Tell reports…raising safety concerns at each of our five comprehensive high schools (Horizon, Legacy, Mountain Range, Northglenn and Thornton) for tomorrow, March 14, 2018.” Gdowski added that “we have been in contact with neighboring school districts in the Denver-metro area and this is consistent with what they are experiencing.”
Denver City Councilman Rafael Espinoza has asked for an independent investigation of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock following his video apology for sending inappropriate texts to Denver police officer Leslie Branch-Wise in 2011 and 2012, when she was on his security detail. But the controversy has also sparked renewed interest in stories from that same period suggesting that Hancock had been a client of the Denver Players/Denver Sugar prostitution ring, originally headed by former professional skier Scottie Ewing. The latter tale got another workout yesterday, March 12, when Ewing took to the local airwaves to attack a weekend column by Chuck Plunkett, the Denver Post’s editorial-page editor. Plunkett had co-starred alongside Ewing in a recently broadcast recording from the period when the newspaper was investigating the Hancock claims. In the piece, Plunkett called Ewing a “professional liar” while detailing the Post’s investigative process, and in conversation with KNUS talk-show host Peter Boyles and me, Ewing returned the favor.
Shortly before news broke last night that the Denver Broncos plan to sign free agent quarterback Case Keenum, the team was forced to respond to a much unhappier development: the arrest of defensive lineman Adam Gotsis for an alleged rape back to 2013. It’s one of the most serious charges this century against a member of the Broncos, a team with more arrests than any other NFL squad since the year 2000. See the documentation below.
In a strongly worded letter accessible below, Denver City Councilman Rafael Espinoza calls out Denver Mayor Michael Hancock over improper texts he sent to Denver police detective Leslie Branch-Wise when she was a member of his security detail circa 2011-2012. Espinoza refers to the actions as sexual harassment, an assertion Hancock has denied, and advocates for “an independent investigation by an outside party, selected by Council, to delve into this matter and provide a full accounting,” with particular focus on settlement payments made to Branch-Wise and former Hancock friend Wayne McDonald.
At the highly unusual time of 11:10 p.m. on Monday, March 12, news broke that the Denver Broncos plan to ink Minnesota Vikings quarterback Case Keenum on Wednesday, March 14, when the free agency period is set to begin. As such, Keenum, the most prominent Broncos signing since Peyton Manning six years ago this month, will be charged with returning the squad to glory after an utterly pathetic 5-11 season. Unlike Manning, however, Keenum’s résumé to date is thin and the jury is still out as to whether he’ll be a top-tier NFL quarterback or a journeyman who managed to parlay a single good season into a giant payday.
The morning after last week’s Colorado caucus, we knew that former Colorado treasurer Cary Kennedy was the big winner among Democrats running for governor. Days later, however, there are still no definitive results in regard to Republican gubernatorial hopefuls, since the Colorado GOP hasn’t released official statewide totals regarding the straw poll conducted on caucus night, nor does it plan to do so. But based on information shared by some key counties, as well as a recent survey, it appears that Colorado treasurer Walker Stapleton currently leading the pack.
The skier who died at Breckenridge on March 8 has been identified as Derek Cressey, a 38-year-old “gentle giant” from Windham, Maine. And the outpouring of love and loss that followed the news of this young father’s passing speaks to the impact he had on friends and loved ones during his too-short life.
The March 2 resignation of Manual High School principal Nick Dawkins and his subsequent assertion that he “was targeted by those that called me a nigger and vowed to bring harm to me” after reports of a confederate flag at a Manual-Weld Central High School football game last September was preceded by a Denver Public Schools investigation into an alleged hostile work environment, as he has acknowledged. According to multiple sources, staff concerns about Dawkins included inappropriate sexual and racial comments, his lack of discretion about sensitive personnel matters (including copying others on an implicit job threat to a staffer on family medical leave), and his disappearance after a meeting in which he accused DPS of compiling a secret dossier on him due in part to complaints from white women.
Gary Cruz, a popular Denver sportscaster during a reported seventeen-year run that included parts of three decades, has died of cancer in Arizona at age 68. And while he’s been off the Mile High City airwaves for more than a generation, he remains well remembered among many local viewers.
