Opinion & Commentary

It was a year ago today that Denver woke up to discover that upstart Aurora had rustled a major deal in the metro area: a massive, $800 million hotel/spa/convention complex that Gaylord Entertainment would build near Denver International Airport…

Jeff Peckman thinks outside the box — in this case, the “tinder box.” Two years ago, he asked voters to approve a UFO welcoming committee, an idea he pushed further as a 2011 candidate for mayor of Denver. And now he wants to help end the High Park Fire…

Colorado has dozens of museums devoted to unusual items — bells, washing machines. Some are temporary, some permanent. But no museum promises to have the half-life of the Rocky Flats Cold War Museum, devoted to the plant that manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs just sixteen miles northwest — upwind…

The city once thought it had the solution to Triangle Park — unofficially known as the Bumuda Triangle because of all the homeless who gathered there during the day, when the nearby shelters were closed. But five years and more than $300,000 later, Denver admitted its plan hadn’t worked and…

The smell of smoke is in the air. It could be a long-distance reminder of the High Park Fire still raging outside Fort Collins. Or it could be your next-door neighbors here in Denver, lighting up their illicit fire pit. Or their completely illegal chimenea…

Happy anniversary, Mayor Hancock. A year ago, Michael Hancock defeated Chris Romer in the Denver mayoral runoff, capping an unlikely campaign that saw Hancock polling at just 10 percent two months before the May 3 election, then trouncing Romer in the runoff. But where were the big stories taking note…

Colorado cantaloupes are ripening quickly this season, and so are concerns that the listeria hysteria over last year’s outbreak could put a damper on sales of the fruit. So the Colorado Department of Agriculture, headed by commissioner John Salazar, is pushing a project to improve the image of the vilified…

Why are the choices for the ninth One Book, One Denver so much better than the previous eight rounds? That’s the question I asked Kristin Rust, spokeswoman for Denver Arts & Venues. She pointed to the commitment of Mayor Michael Hancock, as well as a hard-working committee that came up…

The ninth time’s the charm. After years of serving up the literary equivalent of a Happy Meal for the One Book, One Denver program, the city finally has three great choices for 2012: Through June 22, you can vote for Denver, Enrique’s Journey or The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan’s…

I live in the belly of the beast, Denver’s hottest restaurant neighborhood: Lower Highland, or LoHi, as developers have dubbed it. (In response, I refer to my particular block as SoLola — south of Lola.) And with the news that Tavern Hospitality Group plans to put a Tavern LoHi here,…

Congress won’t pass the DREAM act and the Colorado Legislature killed ASSET. But Metropolitan State College (soon to be Metropolitan State University of Denver) is ready to do the right thing for would-be students who are living here illegally, kids who were brought to this country by their parents years…

There were definitely signs. When Westword was working on “Mr. Right?,” our cover story on Ali Hassan, the son of a political powerhouse couple who was recruited by the Republican Party to run for the House District 56 seat in 2008, the 27-year-old candidate took a break from the interview…

“Wilderness, Wildlife and Wonder.” That’s the slogan the feds chose to mark the centennial of Rocky Mountain National Park, which was founded in 1915. Personally, we’d have gone with “Crags, Crowds and Crappy Souvenirs” or “Treks, Tics and Traffic,” but they didn’t ask us. Not for a slogan, at least…

“I wonder how newspapers like Westword survived without weekly stories promoting gay, marijuana, and goth newslines! Patty, you should be ashamed!” So writes The Wilk in response to our current cover story, “Over the Rainbow,” which details efforts to stop the bullying of gay teenagers…

While the city contemplates what to do with Triangle Park, the sliver of land at Broadway and Park Avenue West that was officially renamed Eddie Maestas Park and is now a mess known as the Bumuda Triangle, the Stout Street Children’s Park just a few blocks away makes urban planning…

Gustavo Arellano, author of Ask a Mexican, returned to the Su Teatro stage last night, where eighteen months ago he’d discussed immigration with Tom Tancredo. Before that debate, Tancredo and Arellano had met across the street for dinner at El Noa Noa. And no matter how he feels about Mexicans,…

“Denver has the most gabacho gabachos in the United States,” Gustavo Arellano, author of Ask a Mexican, proclaimed yesterday, name-checking Tim Tebow (briefly), John Elway and Tom Tancredo, with whom he’d debated immigration eighteen months ago on the same Su Teatro stage…

The list of Colorado celebrities is short. John Elway. Don Cheadle. Jessica Biel. John Elway. Amy Adams. Judy Collins. John Elway. Tim Tebow didn’t last a season as a Broncos starter; John Denver has been dead more than a decade, even if he keeps getting added to local halls of…

Artist Richard Vincent was memorialized at a service Saturday at the Denver Arts Student League. His sculpture that once graced the 16th Street Mall is just a memory, too, as is the legendary landmark it was designed to complement. Both are consigned to the storehouse of history…