News

Walk softly and carry a big schtick: Say! Wasn’t that renowned waffler Bill Clinton plunging head-first into the fray outside Denver’s Planned Parenthood clinic? Not quite. It was actually presidential look-alike Michael Newell, a Littleton security consultant who’s poofed up his hair to play Clinton at venues ranging from a…

Amendment 16, the innocuously worded anti-obscenity measure on November’s ballot, has the potential to stir up more passion than most blue movies. And in a strange twist that recalls Victorian-era anti-smut crusades, Denver’s bluebloods have been recruited to bankroll the amendment and serve as foot soldiers. While proponents say the…

Clothes Encounters Thanks for Robin Chotzinoff’s article on vintage clothing, “The Thrifters,” in the October 5 issue. I’ve been into vintage since high school, and I’d hate to tell you how long ago that was. I’ve shopped at all the stores in Denver and Boulder, and I’m glad to see…

One year after 2,000-odd runners sprinted or limped across the finish line, the defunct and discredited Denver International Marathon continues to keep the pulse of Denver city officials pounding. The most recent headache comes from south of the border. Three weeks ago Mexico’s consul general in Denver, Ambassador Leonardo Ffrench,…

An advisory board recently created by the U.S. Army to increase public participation in deciding how to clean up the Rocky Mountain Arsenal is compromised by the Army’s influence over it, say environmental activists. The thirty-member Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), which held its first meeting two weeks ago, is part…

Once it appears, it’s a difficult image to shake: The friendly skies filled with thousands of iced kidneys, livers, hearts and lungs crisscrossing the country on red-eye shuttles. It’s more than just a reason to hope for a turbulence-free flight, though. A group of the country’s largest surgical centers recently…

part 2 of 2 Chris tried to commute between Denver and Atlantic City for a few weeks, but soon realized this was not possible. After losing his job at a laboratory where he had been hired several weeks earlier to assemble iron lungs, he moved to Atlantic City and found…

The elderly man on the phone explained that his wife was distraught. It had been ten days since they buried their loved one at Evergreen Memorial Park, and she had since learned that the casket wasn’t airtight. There would surely be seepage when the mountain snow melted in the spring–and…

Six-year-old Alexis Storkson emerges from her first-grade classroom, scanning the greenery that surrounds her Arvada elementary school in search of a familiar face. She soon finds one: Chris Perry, her father, is standing beneath a small tree, wearing a broad smile and holding out his arms. Within five seconds, a…

Guv, American-style: Even before Bruce Benson did his petulant Ross Perot imitation last Thursday, presenting incumbent Roy Romer with a bowling trophy and pulling out of any future debates because “we want to go back to our game plan and play by our rules,” the Colorado governor’s race had attracted…

Last year, when Bruce Benson had the court records of his divorce from his former wife, Nancy, sealed, he became a member of a very elite club. Of the 36,250 couples who filed for dissolution of their marriages in Denver County District Court between 1986 and 1993, only 68 have…

A national watchdog of charitable donations on behalf of the nation’s disadvantaged trotted into town Tuesday to sink its teeth into one of Denver’s largest philanthropic foundations. But Robert Lee, the executive director of the Denver Foundation, says it was a case of a bark being worse than a bite…

Glenda Swanson Lyle struck a blow for good government last year when she introduced a bill in the Colorado legislature to prevent dishonest politicians from taking office. But Representative Lyle, a Democrat who represents voters in northeast Denver, is now fending off questions about her own integrity. The state has…

A Public Nuisance Patricia Calhoun certainly got herself worked up over the Denver City Attorney’s decision to make supposedly public documents private (September 28’s “The Client” and October 5’s “Open and Shut-Up Case”). But I, for one, applaud Daniel Muse’s attempt to keep the city’s legal contracts confidential. It is…

Ronnie Crawford and Russell Enloe are making their semi-annual trip to see Vic. Although their quest for cool old stuff continues every day of the year, taking them to thrift shops, basements and attics all over town, a visit to Vic’s department store in southern Colorado is more of a…

part 1 of 2 The cancer, Brian Rusca remembers, seemed to devour John Savage from within, like a weevil inside a boll of cotton. In May, when Rusca flew out from Fresno to Colorado Springs for a final visit, his normally robust, six-foot-one-inch friend was down to a wire-thin 140…

part 2 of 2 During the late 1980s and early 1990s Savage spent a lot of time jetting back and forth between England and Colorado, where he had also developed a number of business contacts. One was Michael Bergman, a Fort Collins man who hoped Savage would provide him with…

Fly-by-night operation: Bad enough that four Denver City Council members–Cathy Reynolds, Tim Sandos, Joyce Foster and president Debbie Ortega–got caught accepting a city concessionaire’s overnight junket, but to the Broncos-Buffalo game? The only thing more embarrassing than Denver’s performance on the football field is Denver’s performance on its new airfield–but…

Listening to Denver city officials, residents might be tempted to conclude that the missteps and delays plaguing Denver International Airport are rare blips on the clear screen that is city government. As any city hall veteran can confirm, however, DIA’s holding pattern is unique only in its scale. Consider the…