The taxman cometh: Twenty years ago, former state senator Ben Klein was sentenced to prison on five counts of income-tax evasion. At the time, he blamed his tax problems on mental illness–which subsequently led to Klein becoming Colorado’s first politician to be officially declared sane. This time, Klein–now chair of…
Psychology professor Arthur C. Jones stepped onto the stage of a University of Denver auditorium as some 200 students and teachers grew silent in anticipation. But instead of a lecture on Jungian philosophy or Freud’s interpretation of dreams, Jones opened his mouth and began to sing. Sometimes I feel like…
Western Pacific Airlines, the media darling that captivated the public by offering a low-cost alternative to high prices at Denver International Airport, has hit heavy turbulence in its effort to become a homegrown success story. While other airlines have been reporting record profits, the Colorado Springs-based carrier has been flying…
In the Acme Oyster House on Iberville Street, three big fellows wearing muddy aprons and yellow rubber gloves were shucking as fast as they could. The Sunday afternoon hangover crowd was packed cheek-to-jowl inside the Acme, harbored now from a steady, gulf-blown rain, but not from the whips and jangles…
Strike While the Irony is Hot Patricia Calhoun’s October 10 column, “The Road to Ruin,” hit just the right note. Central City has only itself to blame for its precarious position. Be careful what you wish for, indeed. Jane Sidwell Denver I am one of the “pigeons” that frequently has…
More than $5 billion worth of property in this state is exempt from taxation but still receives the services that every other piece of property does. Since you–the upstanding and law-abiding Colorado taxpayer–are bankrolling police and fire protection for these properties, you deserve to ask a few questions. Such as:…
In the weeks before her adopted son died, Greeley business owner Renee Polreis told friends she had come to fear David. Where others saw a delightful two-year-old towhead, she saw a monster who was destroying her marriage and making life, in her own words, a living hell. David’s tantrums were…
Denver mayor Wellington Webb’s campaign to revitalize the South Platte River has sent currents of currency flowing to a veteran Democratic operative–and it’s reopened the floodgates in a dispute over the city’s hiring of outside law firms. Ken Salazar, who served in Governor Roy Romer’s cabinet for three and a…
Call Rick Trotter the poster boy for brand loyalty. The owner of Horizon Computers, the last remaining exclusive Atari dealer in Colorado, Trotter has stuck by his beloved computer no matter what. In the mid-Eighties, when fourteen-year-olds dumped their Atari 2600 consoles in favor of Nintendo, Trotter didn’t flinch. By…
Congress passed a Republican-sponsored bill last week that will cut down administrative costs for ski resorts and the U.S. Forest Service by untangling the complicated formula under which the resorts pay for the use of public land. The so-called Ski Fee Bill sparked opposition from Democrats on financial grounds. But…
After summer-long accusations of incompetence and mismanagement, the federal government has just completed its second audit in four years of Denver’s Weed and Seed anti-crime program. The results have improved this time around, but the audit indicates that nearly one-fifth of the program’s funds are unaccounted for, and it confirms…
Sneak attack: The Denver District Attorney’s office is in hot water over an incident involving a chief deputy DA and a Japanese-American lawyer under his command. Deputy DA Geanne Moroye has filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming that District Attorney Bill Ritter demoted her after…
The City of Denver’s dream of creating a string of parks along the South Platte River came true last month when it announced the purchase of most of the land for the thirty-acre Commons Park. While Denver will have a new showpiece park right downtown, some key political supporters of…
That sound you hear deep in the night is the Titanic hitting an iceberg. The passengers don’t know it yet, and the crew isn’t talking, but she’s going to the bottom. The worst-case scenario for major-league baseball is that the fans are finally so fed up with the loudmouthed martinets…
I’m OK, You’re Hokey Regarding Kenny Be’s September 19 Worst-Case Scenario, “It’s OK Not to Play Football”: Give it a rest, Kenny! Even Dan Rather was more original when he went after Newt Gingrich. Bruce V. Bracken via the Internet Homo Neurotic After reading your piece on Paul Cameron (“Fatal…
Be careful what you wish for. You may get it. On October 1, five years to the day after gambling became legal in three Colorado mining towns whose finances were as shaky as the abandoned houses that dotted their hillsides, the city council of Central City convened in its new…
Paul Cameron was about four years old, he recalls, when a young man accosted him in an apple orchard and ordered him to perform oral sex. The memory makes him chuckle. “I must have been a beautiful and charming little boy,” says Cameron. “But I didn’t like it much. He…
The road to Leyden, Colorado, isn’t much wider than a trail. A simple sign on Highway 93 a few miles north of Golden points east, directing motorists onto a narrow gravel road that twists through a break in the dun-colored rock formations of the hogback. For more than two miles,…
Colorado’s governor and lieutenant governor have waded into the fight over the proposed Animas-La Plata water project in southwestern Colorado. And some of those opposed to the project see the move as a step toward a pared-down version of the oft-delayed government endeavor. After Governor Roy Romer sat down with…
Growing up in the 1950s on the outskirts of what was then east Aurora, Robert Michael Pyle discovered a child’s paradise a short walk from his home: a wide ditch brimming with muddy water, its banks covered with thick weeds and stately cottonwoods that sheltered magpies and butterflies. As a…
As far as US West is concerned, no news is good news. The telephone monopoly is asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to deny public access to information on the number of delays customers are experiencing in getting new service, as well as information concerning the salaries it pays top…
That takes the cake: The sordid details continue to pile up in the sorry saga of Spicer Breeden and Peter Schmitz–the two occupants of the car that killed Rocky Mountain News reporter Greg Lopez on St. Patrick’s Day. After popping into several LoDo bars early last week, Schmitz, facing vehicular…
