The planned sixth runway at Denver International Airport is in a holding pattern, blocked by congressional politics and doubts about whether it’s needed at all. But a fire station designed largely to serve the phantom runway is already up and running–courtesy of a $1 million city contract that went to…
Democrats and Republicans united? Campaign reformers and fat-cat insiders agreeing on something political? It’s true. Button-down conservatives and ponytailed liberals are coalescing around one common theme: Secretary of State Vikki Buckley is doing a rotten job of interpreting Amendment 15. “She’s dropped the ball completely,” says Pete Smith of the…
Taken for a Ride Regarding Alan Prendergast’s “Beating the Train,” in the July 24 issue: As a Colorado native who moved to New York City in 1979 and who has both driven in areas without decent mass transit and enjoyed effective mass-transit systems, I disagree with those who are anti-rail…
In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream. But that’s not stopping Robert Lewis. The Web publisher has been howling bloody murder since Monday, when he learned that the Colorado Rockies have gone to court seeking a preliminary injunction that would essentially throw him out at home. Home page, that…
On his deathbed in 1880, the great Ute chief Ouray instructed a protege named Buckskin Charlie to stay with the Utes and help lead the tribe through the difficult times ahead. It was a lousy last request. The Utes, seeking a permanent place to call their own in Colorado, were…
A maverick member of the board that oversees the metro sewage system has managed to shake up that once-sleepy body with charges of a conspiracy to run radioactive waste through Denver-area sewers. Some say boardmember Adrienne Anderson is a paranoid nut, while others cast her as an environmental crusader. The…
What’s their beef? Even though he’s head of the Denver Water Department, Chips Barry has a reputation for being far from your average boring bureaucrat. And now he’s added to the legend–and gained a new nickname, “Cow” Chips Barry–by buying his agency a cow. Not just any cow, mind you…
Sal Martinez wants the homeboys to know that he isn’t talkin’ to 5-0. Never has. Never will. His talkin’ to 5-0–a gang-slang reference to the television police drama Hawaii 5-0–was just a vicious rumor put out on the streets by his enemies. The same enemies who tried to silence him…
Chuck Corry is an ex-Marine and a Buddhist, which means he doesn’t want people telling him not to swear and he doesn’t want people telling him to act like a Christian. Nor does he appreciate people firing him. And two years ago, he claims, he lost his consulting job with…
Shortly before six on a Wednesday evening, the first wave of derailers arrives at the charmless offices of the Independence Institute, the conservative think tank in Golden (sign in the window: “Will do public policy for food”). Stragglers come in over the next half-hour. There are eleven of them in…
That rumble of discontentment down in the Rockies clubhouse can now be heard in the cheap (and not so cheap) seats up above. Last Tuesday, for instance, midway through the club’s disheartening and premature fiftieth loss of the year (to the Dodgers, 6-5), you could, for the first time, hear…
Child’s Prey Bravo, Patricia Calhoun. Your column about Colorado’s children (“Raised From the Dead,” July 17) was right on the mark and had a very important message. If Renee Polreis is not convicted in the death of her son, it will be an outrage. And if no one is ever…
We can sit out here,” Becky Estrada says from her front porch. She shrugs and shakes a cigarette out of its pack, pausing a moment to stare down the street as though looking for someone. Then she lights up. “The house is a mess.” Small wonder. An endless parade of…
The line of tap dancers stretches out in front of the mirror in the basement studio. There is some sort of confusion over the rehearsal hats–a motley assortment of battered New Year’s Eve party bowlers. You’re supposed to take them off and put them back on–on the beat. This is…
Eighty-year-old Jane Spence of Denver didn’t plan on dying. But when she caught a fatal case of pneumonia this past March, her lack of foresight resulted in her estate losing a $3,500 damage deposit she had put down at the Golden Orchard assisted-living home in Littleton. Golden Orchard, which offers…
The future looks bleak for what is perhaps the most unloved courthouse in Colorado. Empty for a decade now, the ninety-year-old Arapahoe County Courthouse sits on the east side of downtown Littleton, hemmed in by a jail and a decrepit office building and partially hidden by an asbestos-tainted addition. Aside…
Rocky Mountain guy: A hung jury left John Denver hanging Saturday night, when six Pitkin County residents couldn’t agree on the fate of the singer–charged with driving under the influence after he wrapped his car around a tree in Aspen’s Starwood subdivision three years ago. In defending his celebrity client,…
When Richard Brady pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last month in the death of security guard John Adamo, he was playing the odds: He could accept the plea bargain from the Denver District Attorney’s office or take the chance of losing his first-degree-murder trial and ending up with an automatic…
The hardened baseball fan’s devotion to statistics–most home runs hit, most hot dogs eaten–has long since taken on the unearthly glow of religion. A thirsty man can no longer enter his corner saloon without being accosted by some bright-eyed wonder stuffed full of minutiae from The Baseball Encyclopedia–a glut of…
It wasn’t so very long ago that Governor Roy Romer wanted to promote Colorado as the “best place to raise a child.” Just a few murders ago, in fact. The state couldn’t buy the attention that’s been focused on Colorado children lately–but it’s hardly the promotional coup that Romer envisioned…
Lust Horizons The only thing more horrifying than reading Scott Yates’s article about the Ava Owens case (“Little Boy Lust,” July 3) was reading John Lombardi’s letter about the article last week. I am appalled that anyone could think the Tran family looks at the situation as a “lottery win.”…
James Carey is in the hole again. He moves slowly into the visitors’ room, hands cuffed and tethered to his waist, his stride reduced to a shuffle by the shackles around his ankles. He sports a full head of hair, whiter than a new pair of Keds. A grin flashes…
