part 1 of 2 Nick Avila’s graduation from the University of Colorado’s law school in 1976 and subsequent career, no matter how short-lived, were nothing short of a miracle. A product of the city’s lower-class Globeville neighborhood, he seemed that rare person: someone who had stuggled to make good–and then…
How the drugs ended up in Avila’s hands is undisputed. According to federal investigators, Phil Guerrero was driving in Louisiana on August 21, 1987, when he was pulled over by state troopers who observed him making an illegal lane change. The troopers noted that Guerrero was acting nervous, and asked…
Clearing the air: Denver’s weekly mayor/council meeting tackled a particularly tricky issue at the January 25 session: what to do with Paradies, the DIA concessionaire whose owner had just been found guilty of bribing Atlanta officials for deals at their airport. While councilmembers moved into executive session to discuss Paradies’s…
Michael Jordan has already tried to play major-league baseball. And failed. You can look it up. Back in 1890, The Baseball Encyclopedia informs us, one Michael Henry Jordan, the pride of Lawrence, Massachusetts, appeared in 37 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 125 at-bats, the 27-year-old outfielder managed to get…
Denver deputy mayor Bruce Alexander, the city’s chief negotiator in the Winter Park deal, is the ski area’s former banker–a tie that has remained undisclosed throughout months of debate on the proposed sale of the resort. Also the city’s manager of parks and recreation, Alexander has been Mayor Wellington Webb’s…
No More Mr. Ice Guy Regarding Bill Gallo’s “Thin Ice” in the January 19 issue: I’ve got news for Mr. Gallo. Maybe his macho mind doesn’t regard figure skating as a sport, but any intelligent individual can obviously see that it is not only a sport, it is an art…
The birthing process for Sue Ratcliff lasted 25 months. Laid off from her job as a Sheridan police officer after becoming pregnant in late 1991, Ratcliff sued the little southern suburb, citing sex discrimination and failure to follow the outline of the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The waiting ended just…
Michael Jackson always said he loved the children of the world; now he’s paying the price. On January 25 an estimated $10 million of Jackson’s money settled the civil suit of a fourteen-year-old boy who had claimed the singer molested him. But Jackson still can’t rest easy–he has another litigant…
part 1 of 2 He enters the room slowly, gripping his gnarled cane and a colleague’s arm for support. But don’t be fooled. He may be 78, with bad knees in the bargain, but Howard Higman–University of Colorado professor emeritus, chairman of the Conference on World Affairs and living legend–doesn’t…
part 2 of 2 For two of the past three years, the Conference on World Affairs has been the target of protests by a small group of women calling themselves, among other things, Women in Support of Castration. The women are deeply offended by the CWA program, which lists the…
The cat in the hat: Local viewers might have had some trouble recognizing the self-proclaimed “Black Avenger” as he appeared on Eye to Eye with Connie Chung last Thursday night. Gone were the black leather chaps, the stylin’ beret–and much of the attitude. Ken Hamblin looked–and sounded–like he’d just left…
First night on the new job, Calvin Natt called a couple of his guys by the wrong names, and he found himself constantly amazed. “I had no idea the kids had so much athletic talent,” he said the next day. “I’d only watched them on tape from the East game,…
Hamblin on Wry Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “The Smother Brother” in the January 12 issue: In my opinion, the central point that most stands out about Kenny the Negro (as he sometimes calls himself) is not his newfound rap that mimics and cashes in on the success of the real star,…
A $7.50 can of sale paint was no bargain for 44-year-old Denver antique dealer Myke Johnson: She might wind up mortgaging her house to pay for it. But Johnson won’t find a lot of sympathy in Edgewater. The little suburb’s police force reportedly turned out en masse for Johnson’s trial…
One of the few undisputed facts about Denver International Airport is that the new automated baggage-handling system must succeed. Should the computerized network fail, there’s no backup. And that’s not good news. Because despite last week’s rosy reports that claimed the system was a hit, its batting average was actually…
Back on October 3, when the Denver International Marathon was still just a race and not a synonym for negative balance sheets, Leslie Fuller, who helped organize the event, was ecstatic. “It was fantastic,” she says, recalling her feeling on the day of the race. “It was one of the…
part 2 of 2 With Poundstone out of the picture in the 1989 election, longtime Greenwood resident Rollie Barnard was elected mayor. And for a couple of years things stayed quiet. Seeing an opening when the Poundstone group lost power, Myrna Poticha had run again for council and been re-elected…
The noises coming from Unit #69 are ominous: a few loud bangs, then a sort of dragging sound. The smell, too, is intense–it has floated up from the threshold to sock Dave Emge squarely in the nostrils. To his educated palate the odor appears to be a combination of unwashed…
part 1 of 2 If it’s true that, as one resident says, God has smiled down on the city of Greenwood Village, he must have turned a blind eye to the local government. In this wealthy Denver suburb, a quiet community split between modern upscale tract homes and 1950s ranch…
Bonds on the run: Denver officials may not know how to open an airport on time (much less on budget), but they clearly understand how to stop certain complaints before they ever get off the ground. For proof, check out one of those pesky property-tax notices popping up in mailboxes…
Figure skating isn’t exactly a sport, and it isn’t Swan Lake. It is, rather, that frozen netherworld where community theater meets the double axel, in costumes on loan from the floor show at Caesar’s. It’s no wonder that the skaters themselves are often quivering bundles of nerves and that their…
“I don’t give up very easily,” says Stephen W. Smith. “No matter what, I keep making things happen.” Smith’s claim is no idle boast. He is currently a resident of the Jefferson County jail, where he is awaiting trial on a potpourri of charges, including first-degree forgery, criminal impersonation, issuing…
