News

Of human bondage: “No airport bonds are paid by these taxes”–that’s the word (offered in capital letters and underlined to make sure you get the point) from the Denver Department of Revenue in its form letter that accompanied tax bills sent to property owners last month. But the city’s butt-covering…

The Meter’s Running Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Call Me a Cab,” in the January 31 issue: What’s next for the publicity wizards in our fair city? Monitoring playground talk to make sure that no kids criticize Denver Public Schools? Spying on fans at Coors Field so that no one boos when…

Jim Deden could be a composite character invented by the U.S. Postal Service as part of a public-relations blitz. Now age 53, he has worked for the agency for 28 years as a window clerk, happily selling stamps, handling packages and generally serving the mailing public. For the past ten…

A simmering dispute between lower-downtown residents and developers may soon become a full-fledged battle. With LoDo poised for a wave of development not seen since the days steam engines huffed into Union Station, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the place where Denver was born. The controversy is over a…

When artist Barbara Jo Revelle won a $200,000 commission in 1989 to create a two-block-long mosaic mural at the Colorado Convention Center, she learned that dealing with politicians was itself an art. Revelle, head of the photography program at the University of Colorado-Boulder, spent more than a year collecting stories…

part 1 of 3 What was left of forty-year-old Jeff Dahl was placed in an incinerator, reduced to ash and poured into a modest urn. That didn’t bother Gary Watson, Jeff’s best friend. He believed that Jeff would have okayed the cremation of his remains. But Gary didn’t like Jeff’s…

part 2 of 3 Jonathan had spent most of 1990 talking about Jeff, and his conversation with Mrs. Watson convinced him that he was closer to finding his brother than he’d been all year. He thanked her, then drove to Kitty’s, where Gary was working that day. As Jonathan remembers…

part 3 of 3 At first, Michelle says, everything was perfect. Jeff displayed his sensitivity, his humor, his good-heartedness. But he was keeping a lot of secrets. She didn’t learn much about the horrors of his homeless period until months later, and she discovered only after he died that Jeff…

“I’m not very good at making a long story short,” begins Douglas Pichon. “I am, however, really good at making a long story longer.” This quickly becomes clear. The first thing you notice about Douglas Pichon, though, are his startling lettuce-green eyes, which makes it understandable why the police picked…

Making book: Anyone want to bet on the outcome of the current Menendez brothers trial out in L.A.? It could all ride on what older brother Lyle is reading. According to The Private Diary of Lyle Menendez: In His Own Words, a new tome by Norma Novelli, a court reporter…

Addicted to Love Regarding Steve Jackson’s story on Debrah Snider and Tom Luther, “A Wanted Man,” in the January 24 issue: What an excellent yet sad example of what happens to some adults who were abused as children. Maybe a quarter of what they shared was love; most of it…

The City of Denver’s plan to donate ninety acres of public land to a for-profit real estate venture at the Winter Park ski area got the green light from a Grand County district judge. But as the city prepares to transfer the deed on the taxpayers’ land to the Winter…

Reyel Simmons knew he was in trouble when his mother-in-law told him about the poster she’d seen at her nail salon–the one that screamed “Hardbodies Presents the Best Built Male Revue in the U.S.A.” Featured were six male strippers in various stages of dishabille, including one naughty number who looked…

The teenage snowboarders lie scattered under the lift like discarded socks. “Count them,” Myron Knapschafer suggests. “At any given time, 25 percent of all snowboarders are sitting down. Victims of the wet-butt syndrome. Count them, multiply by four, and there you have the number of snowboarders out here today.” His…

part 2 of 2 On April 20, Debrah came home from work and found Tom pacing about in her kitchen. Over the preceding weeks, she’d heard him make a number of calls to his mother and sisters, all insisting that he was being made a scapegoat for the disappearance of…

part 1 of 2 Debrah Snider dozed fitfully on the couch, imprisoned by a dream. She was back in Colorado, on the side of a mountain, on the run with Tom Luther, the man she loved. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. The man…

Ardor in the court: “Choose Your Attorneys Carefully,” urges the announcement placed by Purvis Gray Schuetze & Gordon in the new Yellow Pages. And apparently your proofreaders, too, since the ad goes on to note that the “firm includes layers listed in the Best Layers in America.” But not Andre…

Grammy Crackers Regarding Michael Roberts’s “The Envelope, Please,” in the January 17 issue: Come on, Michael, the Grammys are way too easy a target. You probably did that one in your sleep. P.T. Murray Denver I’m glad somebody else finally noticed how truly disappointing this annual record-company crime spree has…

A long-standing race for business between Colorado’s new-car dealers–Dealin’ Doug, John Elway, Phil Long and the rest of the guys–and the state’s automobile brokers, the telephone jockeys who promise a lower price than dealers and without the showroom jive, is rapidly headed for a collision. In the past two months,…