Tuesday, December 31, 2013

NEW HOPE FOR 2014

Opinion by Gerald Trumbule

One tiny change at 16th and Race


I've settled into a reflective mood today, quite fitting for a New Year's Eve Day. Thinking about the past year and wondering about the future. But unusually for me, I'm feeling positive about what is happening now and what may be coming upon us.
Maybe it's because I started off the day with a visit to the doctor after a 4-day bout of diverticulitis. If you don't know what that is, be assured that it involves a lot of moaning gut pain and disruptive effects on the movement system, and let's leave it at that.
Funny thing was, by the time I got to the doctor's office, I was feeling better. My body had apparently won the battle of infection overnight and driven off the dastardly germs ensconced in my gut.
When I left the medical plaza I discovered a brilliant sunny day, of that special Rocky Mountain kind, with winter-thin piercing light, and everything looked wonderful. People were smiling.

This country is on the move. That's what has me smiling. Sure, tomorrow's opening of 14 retail pot stores in Denver is a big move locally, but to me it's not really about the grass. It's about the beginning of the end, or at least a substantial change, in one small part of the Nixonian "War on Drugs".
Nixon himself was an evil, paranoid, drunk actually on drugs. Nixon's War was not about grass, it was about conditioning the American people to the mechanics of violent repression. Once you've seen 20 SWAT teams break down 20 front doors, it's not so shocking. Once you've seen homeowners and/or their dogs shot in their own front yards a few times, the effect wears off. Once you've seen protesters choked, pepper-sprayed, tasered, clubbed, knocked to the ground, manhandled, and kettled, you get used to it.

In Colorado, we voted for Amendment 64, "legalizing" pot, and we got some kind of change. I think that's a good thing. What we got remains to be seen, but it is a change. Maybe there will be more arrests for pot related infractions, I don't know. And this movement is clearly spreading across the country.

Here in Denver, and in Colorado, and in the country at large, I feel there is a bigger positive force moving for more important change, and it takes the form of the Occupy Movement. Occupy this, Occupy that, occupy your mind with what needs to be changed. That's what I see happening in so many ways that I won't even try to list them. Movement here, movement there, but it is movement and it's movement of people who are waking up, figuring it out, and starting to move. Of course it's not organized, but it is self-organizing. It has a lot to do with demographics, grinding away in the background, killing off the old, as the young, screwed worse than most, are waking up to an unsustainable world which must change if they are to survive. Without jobs, with large debts, without a liveable environment, and basically nothing to lose, they must get a move on.

Will anything happen soon enough to prevent wholescale tragedy? Probably not, but a lot of good shit is going to be happening in 2014 in the meantime. I can feel it in my gut.



Attorney forges on in battle to protect Denver parks

By Dave Felice
Exclusive to Denver Direct
 
In a broadcast interview, the attorney for Friends of Denver Parks says he’s moving forward with an appeal involving Hampden Heights North Park and preparing to launch a ballot initiative to protect other park lands.
Attorney John Case appears undaunted by the latest ruling from the Court of Appeals.  The Appeals Court upholds a Denver Court denial of an injunction to protect Hampden Heights North Park from development.  At the same time, Case says Friends of Denver Parks intends to undertake “a ballot initiative to confer official park status on the numerous parks in Denver that the city has neglected to designate by ordinance.”
According to Case, “this is an issue which affects dozens of parcels of land citywide.”  In the interview on KNUS 710, Case expresses concern that “because the city says there is no specific ordinance for certain parcels, that land is threatened.”
Case also told interviewers Chuck Bonniwell and Julie Hayden that he’s not surprised by the difficulty of fighting this case against the city.  “(Assistant City Attorney) David Broadwell is a very good lawyer,” said Case. Bonniwell responded: “Yes, but for a bad purpose.”
In a written statement to supporters, Case said:  “I believe that the Court of Appeals was wrong in concluding that charter section 2.4.5 eliminated common law dedication of parks in Denver.  After considering the work involved in this pro bono effort, my four law partners at Benson & Case voted unanimously to authorize me to file a petition for ‘writ of certiorari’ in the Colorado Supreme Court.  They also authorized me to proceed to trial as scheduled in Denver District Court May 19, 2014.”
Case says he is still working pro bono.  He says Friends of Denver Parks continues to accept donations.  According to Case, expenses are covered, but the lawyers working on the matter are not getting paid.  He says there are also opportunities for volunteer work, and refers people who are interested to the web site www.FriendsOfDenverParks.org.
As an example of the peril facing undesignated park land, Case cites trails from Hampden Heights North Park connecting to other parks in southeast Denver.  Case says even though these trails have signs indicating they are park land, the city now says they are not actual parks by designation.
The court matter challenges the city's authority to transfer 11 acres of Hampden Height North Park, also known as Hentzell Park Natural Area, to the Denver school district. 

HIGH SCHOOL ASSASSINS - by Phil Goodstein - Naysayer - January 2014

Historian and author Phil Goodstein
The idyllic world of suburban safety and church-going righteousness has been punctured again at
Arapahoe High School.
Of course, the coverage of the attack on the school, where a student killed himself while gunning for a teacher, did not mention this. On the contrary, amidst the haze of hideously bad journalism, the message was the same as ever: it is outrageous that people in the suburbs act the same as the federal government and the supposedly violent world of the inner-city.
Time and again, the establishment’s answer to outrageous shootings is to demand the disarming of the citizenry. Simultaneously, special police units have ever more weaponry. The Pentagon stages endless terror bombings and assassinations. At least in some inner-city schools, students know enough to carry arms for self-defense. But fighting back is the worst crime imaginable. It might lead the populace to see that it needs to take the initiative in shaping its own destiny, not relying on an ever more violent, intrusive government.
Besides no mention how official state violence fosters a climate where killing enemies is primary policy, the sob stories about the Arapahoe County shooting have zero retrospection on the nature of places like Highlands Ranch. The real estate industry has sold affluent suburbs as places of escape, planned villages in which residents can seemingly shut themselves off from the mundane concerns of everyday urban living.
Denver suburbs especially surged in the 1970s in response to the coercive school-busing program forced on the city by the federal courts. The latter did so with the support of reformers who believed that equal education would automatically result by mixing together students of all backgrounds. Against the chaos that ensued, bringing down much of the quality of Denver Public Schools, the suburbs touted their excellent academies. As the shootings at Columbine and Arapahoe high schools have shown, there have been more murders at the suburban schools than anything in inner-city schools which Democratic Party “reformers” have done their utmost to destroy.
As if this is not enough, the entire thrust of media coverage is to advertise how necessary it is to instill the system’s guilt and religion onto students. The thesis is that psychological disturbances, not social problems, are at the root of personal violence. Of course, when a defendant in a shooting, such as the Aurora Midnight Movie Massacre, pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, prosecutors mock such an explanation. They say nothing, however, about the seemingly omnipresent role of psychologists in the wake of these murders exposing the exceeding tensions and dysfunctions of a thoroughly brutal society.
Until there is an open debate about the culture of violence, fueled by the country’s murderous foreign policy, the killings will continue. That this is an unmentionable topic reflects both the frustration and repression of everyday living. Time and again, residents realize that an escape to the suburbs has been no escape at all. They are still part of a system that makes everything into a commodity while honing its powers of repression against all challengers. Consequently, far from being an aberration, the Arapahoe High School tragedy is another peek at the hideous foundations upon which everyday existence flounders.

Monday, December 30, 2013

MARIJUANA DESTROYS THE BRAIN by Phil Goodstein - Naysayer - January 2014

Historian and author Phil Goodstein
There is no doubt about this, at least in terms of public policy. Since the 1930s, the federal government has been particularly hysterical about the substance. Politicians have shown themselves willing to spend limitless amounts to crack down on the drug and imprison its users. Others have so seen marijuana as salvation that they have risked virtually everything so they can consume it. The current debates about legalizing cannabis, moreover, reflect that the mind-warping debate continues unabated.
In part, the war against marijuana in the 1930s was among Franklin Roosevelt’s intense strengthening the forces of federal repression. The president saw the vast expansion of the powers of the FBI whereby J. Edgar Hoover established himself as the nation’s leading policeman. Simultaneously, the attack on marijuana was also a means of social control. Advocates of banning the substance argued grass was primarily associated with blacks and Hispanos. Rather than seeing that racism was firing their revolts against the status quo, the righteous guardians of bourgeois civilization attributed the protests of these victims of everyday discrimination to their use of pot.
Shallow critics of the status quo have since been of a like mind. This especially stood out during the upheavals of the 1960s. At that time, the counterculture emerged. Unlike the civil rights movement or the New Left, which challenged power and offered programs for political and economic change, there was the Timothy Leary crowd. Drugs were its answer and the alternative to a hideous social reality. Potheads saw no hope of changing the world through conscious mass action designed whereby everyday people could collaborate and forge their own destiny. Drugs, rather, were to provide an exhilarating alternative to a thoroughly irrational world.
From the beginning, this drug culture was as shallow as the most avid advocates of the J. Edgar Hoover police state. The embrace of marijuana and other substances was a parasitical growth on movements of social change. More than that, it was quickly part and parcel of a criminal underworld. The government, in turn, seemingly readily encouraged the use and sale of illicit substances. This not only gave it a pretext to target those whom it did not like, but Washington drastically increased the penalties for drug use while vastly enlarging the prison system. In the process, individuals who had embraced marijuana and other substances as their veritable religion became unwitting political rebels and victims of a vindictive government. A protest against the insanity of the war on drugs, consequently, was a protest against the world that both banned drugs and made recourse to them a most logical option in an alienating, repressive, culturally empty society.
The war on drugs also reflected the pompous hypocrisy of those with power. Now that they had the laws, the police, and the prisons, they had no desire to let go of them. Indeed, the more the government warred on drugs, seemingly the worse drug use and abuse became, particularly with the rise of crack cocaine. Increasingly, anybody with the slightest spunk or integrity saw that the drug-suppression machinery was far more dangerous to the health of the body politic than anything banned substances might produce.
Simultaneously, a rich drug lore grew up. At a time when the medical machine was ever more dependent on fancy, high-priced pharmaceuticals, the more hearsay evidence grew that marijuana might have some excellent medicinal benefits. Far from launching the vigorous tests necessary to substantiate whether there was any validity to these assertions, Washington responded with yet more hypocrisy and further crackdowns. In face of this, the legalization of marijuana started to become the center of a movement of revolt against big government. Ever more citizens, including far more than those who found their religion in opium, saw that an attack on marijuana laws was a tiny wedge through which they could protest the increasing coercion of Big Brother. Added to this, they had the wonderful legacy of Populist and Progressive revolts whereby, through the initiative process, they could challenge state laws against marijuana.
Medical marijuana was the spearhead in the effort. Its success, in turn, revealed another of the mind-warping characters of hashish. No sooner did marijuana dispensaries open than it was obvious they were not places to help the ill, but shops profiting from selling weed. This part of the counterculture so showed itself fully in tune with the worst of American capitalism.
Now, with Colorado’s outright legalization of marijuana, the money-making possibilities of the drug seem unlimited. Promoters have openly and eagerly embraced the tobacco industry as their model. In the name of profiting from growing, processing, and selling marijuana, they want to make it as omnipresent as tobacco was in the mid-20th century. In the same way that the tobacco crowd long touted their drug as a healthy, nerve-calming habit, the marijuana entrepreneurs are oblivious to what the health consequences of marijuana consumption might be. They are as ready as the most obnoxious of tobacco consumers literally to blow smoke in everybody’s face.
Nor do marijuana champions, including those touting its supposed medicinal benefits, ponder that a user constantly drawing smoke into his/her lungs could be direly impairing his/her health. This is not surprising. Many of the self-avowed New Age proponents of the counterculture not only had places filled with drugs, but also with tobacco pollution, including self-described healthy dining establishments. They made it clear that they embraced Jim Crow: those not wanting to breath clouds of smoke were not welcome to their thoroughly phony world.
Given this, the debate over marijuana regulation has been as empty as the rest of the discussion of drug policy. It reflects both an empty civil culture and the utter shallowness of the marijuana crowd. The latter have no concern with why drugs have had such a powerful allure; they simply demand the right to use and abuse them. Opponents, in turn, do not even have the wit to realize why many so want to escape from the distress, alienation, and misery of a heartless society. As such, the whole controversy is apropos of people caught in a miasmic cloud of marijuana smoke combined with the fog and confusion spewed forth by those who accept the status quo as so eternal there is no escape from it but in more drugs.

AND THE ANSWER IS....

3D Cannabis Center, 4305 Brighton Boulevard
Citi-Med, 1640 East Evans Avenue
Dank Colorado, 3835 Elm Street
Denver Kush Club, 2615 Welton Street
Evergreen Apothecary, 1568 South Broadway
The Green Solution, 2601 West Alameda Avenue
The Green Solution, 4400 Grape Street
The Grove, 74 Federal Boulevard
The Haven, 777 Canosa Court
The Healing House Denver, 2383 South Downing Street
Kindman, 4125 Elati Street
LoDo Wellness, 1617 Wazee Street
Medicine Man Denver, 4750 Nome Street
The Shelter, 4095 Jackson Street

The question was "Where can I buy pot in Denver?"

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Merry Christmas - Family gets $10,000 for expense of moving to Colorado for medical marijuana to treat daughter's seizures.


This should win the "Doing Good with Advertising" award of the year. MagicButter.com will reap abundunt reward.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Remember when Gov. Hickenlooper said he didn't want Colorado to become known as the MARIJUANA STATE? HoHoHo! That gift has already been delivered! Retail stores (Medicine Man and 3D mentioned so far) will be open next Wednesday. If you know of others for sure, please add them in the comments.

Strangely, a cloud hangs over this joyous occassion. As if to precipitate a calamity, these businesses have been denied banking services, armored trucks, and off-duty Denver police as security. This almost looks like a set-up for disaster.

"We'll let you open up for retail sales, but, hehe, cash only, and by the way, no armored trucks or off-duty cops."

I hate to say it, but it sounds like an open invitation to every meth-head with a gun. Perhaps Denver cops will be lurking nearby to nab those eager citizens "smoking in public" and will lend a hand in the event of any attempt at robbery.

Two questions come to mind: WHY are the citizens running a pot store being denied services available to all other citizens running stores? And WHY doesn't someone start a Pot Bank and include all of these services for hire? Oh, I forgot, that would take lawyers and lawyers have already been warned about providing services to this industry.

It takes a while to reverse a TABOO, but, taking the plants point of view as in "The Botany of Desire", cannabis is winning the battle. HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

UPDATE: 

State-owned bank won't work for marijuana cash

UPDATE 2:
Denver police won't actively seek pot-smoking scofflaws, chief says


Thursday, December 26, 2013

DID YOU KNOW?

The sidebar "What we are reading now" feature changes 10 or 15 times a day? We tag articles we find interesting and think you might find them interesting as well. Refresh your browser to get the latest.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

COLORADO'S SEPARATED FIRST COUPLE SENDS WEIRDEST CHRISTMAS CARD EVER

Anyone care to psychoanalyze this?

WOW! DENVER CITY COUNCIL HAS ITS OWN BLOG

Nothing new in the land of NO.

CAN WE AT LEAST SEE WHAT THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP IS BEFORE IT GETS VOTED ON?

by Dave Felice
Colorado consumers who care about origin and quality, reported by the Denver Post’s Dave Burdick on 12/23, will be shocked by the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade treaty.  The secretive TPP, being negotiated by President Barack Obama’s trade representative and 600 multi-national corporations, reduces standards and creates difficulty in determining where and how goods are produced.
The toxic TPP eliminates country of origin labeling.  The TPP would send more American jobs to countries with lower wages and poor labor conditions.  A totalitarian nation such as Vietnam, which allows child labor, would export more food and consumer goods to Colorado with an unfair pricing advantage.
Dog food from China has already killed animals in the U.S.  Under TPP, humans face the same threat.
Congress is obligated to protect and stimulate the domestic economy.  By constitutional authority (Article 2) our elected representatives must see and fully debate the complete Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty.

Monday, December 23, 2013

LIST OF LICENSED RETAIL MARIJUANA STORES (SO FAR)

Ed. Note: Getting the license doesn't mean they can open on Jan. 1. As I understand it, they must then pass 5 inspections before they can actually open. We will let you know when we find out which ones will be able to open Jan. 1.





Final shout out of 2013, last call for cake!‏ - Jessica LeRoux - December 23, 2013

Editor: Thanks to Jessica for sharing her thoughts and flames over this past year at Denver Direct. We hope she has more time for writing now and can maybe take life a little easier. Nah, that wouldn't be Jessica, would it.

Hey Now, 

So here we are rounding out the year, and i want you to know what an interesting year it has been… Im proud of you all for making it to the finish line like champs. I will be wishing each and every one of you the very best in the coming year and from time to time I will be writing to you to update you on my personal plans for the future, or even worse to alarm you about political skullduggery at the capitol and beyond… 
I have a loosely formed plan to use a kitchen that has a current Medical MIPs license (and maybe a future rec kitchen, under application...) a few days each month so as to keep my most loyal supporters and patients i really care about covered with the Twirling Hippy Confections products they suddenly realize they can't "live" with out… my plan is to blanket the state with a once monthly run, so you guys are gonna need to be organized when the time comes in February or so and you will be given a couple weeks notice in advance…. 
Freezer space might become a premium so you probably won't be able to get the banana's n apple crisps so stock em up now! 
I hope you've all absorbed if not understood the new production cap rules, if not check this out
and this: item D in the link above begs the question of when will & how will the one time transfer be excised, if at all, on those products transferred to recreational inventory and plant count?  
But thank god so many of industry asses pandered to the falsehoods and ponied up a vote for more taxation with out representation: 
9 million on the state wide 3.2% tax of just medical patients and you still cant get a badge... yet now we need to tax every damn recreational gram at 25% to improve "police efficiency?"....6 million the year before, and since 2010 approximately 26 million in licensing fees have come due (but were they all paid?) and we are paying another 2 million for MITs on top of all this waste... huzzah!
meanwhile: 
behind the wheel… 
not exactly sure how we should collectively handle this???

FINAL DELIVERIES:  supply is limited, orders will be made and honored on a 1st come 1st served basis so call ASAP: 
We have roughly a dozen Apple crisps at 275 mg active THC this week 1st come 1st served Im selling em for $8 each… 
We also have roughly 15 chocolate covered Frozen Bananas at 100 Mg THC discounted to $5 each… 
you can pretty much get what you want of Kinship Bars (we are out of nantucket)  
plenty of Confucious Crunch (other Nuts are limited in supply, but ask if i still have em!) 
My supply of chocolates is down to about 75 assorted units, 1st come 1st served, 
I also have a small stock of Bites N Nips in various flavors… 
Im pretty limited on what i can make cheesecake wise but feel free to ask and I will try to get you at least a couple in with the rest of your order.  
delivery dates: all orders due by 12/26/13! 
Boulder & Points North: Friday the 27th
Denver proper: Saturday the 28th 
Mountain Towns (including Divide) Sunday the 29th & Monday the 30th (*let me know if you are closed early) 

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Mayor Hancock and our Parks

From Larry Drake on FB: Quality. One wonders how the business model, and writing, of Westword appears so superior to the Post when it comes to these sorts of issues. This article does point out that those of us opposed to City Park Loop cannot lower our guard ‘cause they are gonna keep comin’ and comin' at least if Scott Gilmore has anything to say about it.
From Westword:

 "The parks are under siege," says longtime park activist Dave Felice. "We have an omnipotent mayor who thinks he can do whatever he wants with the parks. And he's getting strong support from some people on the city council. He may have the legal authority to do it, but he's violating the social contract.
Tom Morris, a retired architect who's tussled with several city administrations on behalf of the South City Park Neighborhood Association, describes Hancock as the least-park-friendly mayor since Bill McNichols. "It's the same attitude McNichols had, that parks are cheap development land," he says. "This administration doesn't talk to people. They give away park land, and then they say it's none of our business."
Hancock is keen on boosting park use, and some of the fee hikes have helped to develop a program that provides free access to rec centers for thousands of schoolchildren. The mayor has declared that he wants to "activate" the parks, in much the same way that he talks about activating neighborhoods, the downtown core and the South Platte; his tenure has been a daily scurry in search of buttons to push and levers to pull. The plan for City Loop didn't originate on his watch, but the notion of an outdoor extravaganza in Denver's busiest park, packed with features to lure young and old, fits neatly with his declared mission of creating — sorry, activating, — a "world-class city."
But in the details, park lovers are finding more crass than class. "At some point, you need to let a park be a park," Felice says. "We don't need to have the city dictate what we should do in a park, what constitutes 'activation' and what we need to achieve it. Frankly, I think this mayor is intent on destroying the parks."
It should be pointed out the Hancock reportedly distanced himself from City Loop.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Dustin Redd Playground Redesign Redux

by Linda Drake 12/17

Proposed
Four members of Denver Parks and Rec, including Manager Lauri Dannemiller, came to a meeting of neighbors concerned with further development of City Park on December 6th - and they listened. See the letter from “Denver Parks and Recreation Leadership Team” in today's post at Denver Direct.

We could thank them, issue a huge sigh of relief, and go on and enjoy our holidays; however a breach of trust takes longer to heal than can be resolved by a letter. By that I mean that our disagreement with the scope and complexity of the Dustin Redd redesign was so huge, that it’s difficult, from this side of the fence, to trust that they have done an about-face. In analyzing the letter, they said that for now, they have dispensed with fundraising. That’s smart.

They also noted that they have done tons of outreach prior to our recent meeting with them. I wish they’d stop saying that; it reminds me of the old saw,“If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Please. Most of us knew that Dustin Redd Playground (DR) was in the process of a redesign; we just didn’t know that the eons-old concepts of play and parks were also being redesigned. The full extent of the redesign became clear to many only very recently. As I noted in a recent email to Councilman Albus Brooks, “If you're really wanting to make a big change in City Park, then thorough communication is essential, and that requires a lot of time, on all our parts - and the time period for consideration needs to be extended.” It does look like this is occurring now.

From the letter it sounds like they will do some necessary research on general City Park maintenance, and that is new. That might directly answer the concern voiced on Dec 6th: “How can you raise money for and maintain a huge new project when you can’t even maintain current City Park structures?”
Lauri said on Dec 6th that they have already done a Parking study - with the result that no parking was provided for in the 3 and 13-acre design (3 developed acres connected by a track around 13 acres) for what they have dubbed a “regional park.”

The size of the playground was not addressed in the letter, other than the City Design team, with the assistance of Tina Bishop of Mundus-Bishop Designs http://www.mundusbishop.com will discuss changes to size and scope of the project. IMO, they would immediately dispense with the 13-acre concept and I hope that they will seriously reconsider the three-acre concept.

An acre is about the size of a football field without the end zones. Does City Park really need to increase the size of DR from one acre to three acres, regardless of the Denver Parks Master Plan for Play Areas (2008)? Do we want those potential three acres connected through 13 acres with a rubberized 8-foot track?

Why are so many of us against playground size expansion? A local naturopathic doctor/ author Jacob Schor addresses the value of green space vis-à-vis Justin Redd Playground in his latest newsletter:
“Community groups are making a clamor about this remodel, fussing about parking, maintenance costs and a host of other details.

I worry about something else, whether these changes will deprive people of the benefits of having an accessible green space?

According to epidemiological research there is a positive relationship between the amount of green space in the living environment and physical health, mental health and overall longevity. [citation] Exposure to ‘Green Space’ improves health but the extent of this effect has been under-appreciated. The impact of exposure to nature is so powerful that it may negate harmful influences on health. Most strikingly, exposure to green space erases the harmful influence caused by disparities in income. “
At the beginning of the article, he describes his own experience of walking through the Park. You may find this newsletter here, well worth the read.

StopCityLoop would like to have two representatives from each of the surrounding neighborhoods, selected by the neighbors, along with a recognized Early Childhood Education expert on the team that will reevaluate the redesign of Dustin Redd Playground in the next few months. Some sort of community participation would certainly help in rebuilding the trust between the City and our community.

One thing is for sure: if you are concerned about City Park, keep your March schedule as open as possible. Parks and Rec will hold a community meeting (just one??) to obtain our feedback on Dustin Redd Redesign Redux; they just don’t know the exact date yet. We need to be there. Also, watch for an upcoming community forum sponsored by City Park Alliance, not yet scheduled.

And to Denver Parks & Rec: Thank you for listening; thank you for your letter! Thank you for remaining open to further comments.

Monday, December 16, 2013

DPR: CITY PARK "SILLY" LOOP ON HOLD


With an email press release, Denver Parks and Recreation seems to be taking a step back from the City Loop project after much public outcry, which included rebranding City Loop as Silly Loop. From the press release:

City Loop is intended to be a new, multi-generational activity and play area that would replace the existing Dustin Redd playground, which is in need of significant repair or replacement after nearly 20 years of use. The goal behind the current City Loop concept is to create a new area that gives everyone using the park - from small children to older adults - an opportunity to remain active and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

While the project design was chosen through a very public process that started more than 18 months ago, it is clear that our outreach requires more work. Denver Parks and Recreation leadership attended a meeting on Friday, December 6th at the Ford-Warren branch of the Denver Public Library, which was attended by many residents from neighborhoods that surround City Park. In that meeting we heard many concerns and received some very good feedback regarding the current City Loop concept.
As such, we wanted to let you know what DPR's next steps are with regard to this project:
* Effective immediately, we have put all fundraising efforts on hold for City Loop.
* Our Parks planning and maintenance staff is evaluating all maintenance and renovation needs in City Park and putting a plan in place to address those issues moving forward (this includes general maintenance and other projects such as the renovation of the Sullivan Gateway and other features in the park).
* With assistance from Tina Bishop, of Mundus-Bishop Design Inc., the City design team will meet before the end of the year to evaluate the current concept and discuss changes to the overall size and scope of the project to attempt to better integrate the project into the park. (Tina Bishop is a local landscape architect who has worked all over the City and specializes in designing projects specifically to integrate into historical parks and landmarks.) The team will also evaluate other locations around the City to determine if the project, as planned, would have a more appropriate fit elsewhere.
* Once those evaluations have been completed and any other potential design concepts are available, Parks and Recreation will hold a community meeting to collect your feedback. We anticipate scheduling that to take place in the early spring (March), but exact timing cannot be determined just yet.
* After that meeting, DPR will evaluate the level of support/opposition for the project and determine how/if it will move forward.

THE ABDUCTION OF A DENVER PARK


Done deal?

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Friday, December 13, 2013

A SCHOOL IS NOT A DOT

With all of this talk (and implementation) regarding "1000 ft from a school", it seems appropriate to point out that a school is not a dot, as it has been shown on many maps. I take East High as an example of what 1000 ft from a school really means.


East High occupies 4 square blocks, from Colfax to 17th and from Josephine to Detroit (center lighter squares) Within 1000 ft of a school encompasses an additional 32 blocks of surrounding neighborhood. Get a pedometer app for your cellphone and walk it off in your own neighborhood to be certain of the effect this might have on your property and your rights. 

ON BEHALF OF MMJ PATIENTS

WHAT IS LEFT OF YOUR "LEGALIZED" MARIJUANA

Thanks to Councilwoman Robin Kneich for her efforts. We look forward to the next "City Park Jazz" event where alcohol is often openly consumed.






Wednesday, December 11, 2013

MISINFORMATION ON OUTDOOR POT GROWING IN COLORADO



Well, somebody must be wrong. Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell says unequivocally (at 1:00) that outdoor home grows are against the law, but when Councilwoman Kneich asks where it is so stated (4:39), Broadwell admits that Amendment 64 doesn't make it illegal to grow outside. Broadwell eventually calls for NEW legislation to make it illegal to grow outside.

AND, the City's own new website says

Amendment 64 says "an enclosed, locked space". Watch how this morphs into " a completely enclosed, locked structure". If the framers of the amendment meant to prohibit outdoor growing, wouldn't they have said simply "indoors"?

It appears to me to be legal to grow marijuana outside at this time. 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Break-ins - City Park West

in my experience, a "crime wave" such as this is usually one guy. From Facebook:

Attempted break in at 24th & Race, successful break in at 26th & Race, another one at 24th & Humboldt. Alleged suspect in several cases identified as a tall African-American male in his early 20s, rings doorbell to see if anyone home, then goes around back of house, either trying to open the door or kick it in (as happened in one case).

Electrical system boxes are being torn completely off of exterior walls in an attempt to shut down alarm systems. Large, loud dogs were also not a deterrent in the case of one of the above instances. These thugs are getting to be much bolder and much more aggressive/destructive in their attempt to ruin lives.

Stay alert, call in ANY suspicious activity - no matter how seemingly insignificant - to DPD (720 913 2000 Non-emergency, or 911 if imminent danger present) and report detailed physical descriptions and circumstances to the police as well as posting those descriptions here.

Doing so may just save yourselves - and your neighbors - a ton of heartache and a ton of cost of repairs this holiday season.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Sunday, December 8, 2013

StopCityLoop Meeting with Denver Parks & Recreation 12/6/2013

by Linda Drake
3pm at Ford-Warren Library 2825 High
About 5º outside.
Organized by Stop City Loop Org
Moderated by Nancy Francis of StopCityLoop

Present from the City: Scott Gilmore Asst Manager Denver Parks & Recreation
Lauri Dannemiller, Manager City Parks and Rec
Gordon Robertson - Director of Park Planning
Jeff Green - Marketing
75 - 80 concerned neighbors
Absent: Many neighbors who were unable to attend the meeting given timing and weather and District 8 Councilman Albus Brooks.

Please note: This report hinges on a single person’s hearing, interpretation, and typing. Please feel free to email me with any corrections/additions (ljbdrake@gmail.com). These are not standard minutes. Ideally the meeting would have been recorded, and perhaps that is something to think about going forward. There are undoubtedly mistakes and omissions. Notes taken by Linda Drake.

THC NEWSLETTER by Jessica LeRoux - December 8, 2013

Hey NOW, 


Biggest news Ive ever had to write to you all… at the end of this year I am wrapping up, and selling my dual state and local business licenses and Denver kitchen lease with fire suppression equipment to an extract maker. I apologize to everybody who finds this news disappointing, but the future of the industry does seem to be stacked in favor of a new focus on concentrates. Long time clients and newsletter readers will not be shocked to learn that a variety of factors both political and financial (not to mention taking the bunk ass MITs class) have contributed to a long thought out decision to take advantage of the current near peak interest in a fully licensed Denver kitchen. Now is the time to turn my liabilities into an asset and I am planning to buy a building in my rural roots which gives me much more flexibility to re-enter the industry in the spring (unless I really find i have no desire to rejoin you all, a prospect which seems unlikely by the day). I will always own the name Twirling Hippy Confections as well as all associated recipes and intellectual property, so if you have clients who love the brand, I won't sell that and compromise the quality they trust, but you might wanna tell them to stock up on their favorites now.  

(Not Too) Smart Colorado

from the comments inspired by this piece
by AnAdult on Today, 8:48 am #3247717
Well, nice to see Diane Carlson from (Not Too) Smart Colorado still hasn't given up. Of course, with the money generated by drug testing, why would she? Before believing the load of garbage Diane has introduced in this piece, please do some of your own research. This load of garbage has about as much objectivity as the pro-fracking commercials run by the American Petroleum Institute. You see, "Smart" Colorado's administration and financial donors are rife with people who have a financial incentive to either get people in drug testing programs or to incarcerate them.

About 95% of "Smart" Colorado's financial donations have come from a Florida couple, Mel and Betty Sembler. The Semblers have been waging a war on marijuana for decades. This is the same Mel and Betty Sembler who were at the helm of Straight Inc., which operated drug abuse treatment centers, mostly for teenagers, from 1976 through 1993. Former clients of the rehab center recount episodes of brutal beatings, rape and systematic psychological abuse.

At one facility in Yorba Linda, California, state investigators found that STRAIGHT Inc. subjected children to "unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threats, mental abuse, and interference with daily living functions such as eating, sleeping and toileting." Samantha Monroe, who was placed into a STRAIGHT Inc clinic in Tampa at age 13, says she was locked in a room, and forced to wear a clothes stained with urine, feces and menstrual blood, a punishment her counselors called "humble pants". Richard Bradbury, a former STRAIGHT patient and counselor-turned-whistleblower, told the St. Petersburg Times that Monroe's experiences weren't unique. "It was pure child abuse," Bradbury told reporters. "Torture."

In 1988, Fred Collins, an 18-year-old college student, paid a visit to his brother, who was in treatment for drug abuse, at an Orlando STRAIGHT Inc. clinic. Counselors accused Collins of being high on marijuana because his eyes were red, and held him against his will for months. The abduction, strip-searches and other abuses ended when Collins managed to escape. He was one of many to win judgments against the chain of drug rehab clinics before it was forced to close after investigations and lawsuits began to mount in several states.

Though the STRAIGHT drug rehab clinic no longer exist, the Sembler network of anti-drug nonprofits have proliferated, in part because of the family's extensive political connections. Mel, who served as a major fundraiser for George H.W., Jeb and George W. Bush, was appointed as the Ambassador to Italy in 2001. Betty Sembler, awarded "honorary agent status by the DEA," has led various anti-drug commissions and task forces on the state and federal level.

Three years after STRAIGHT shut down, the Semblers changed its name to the Drug Free America Foundation, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The Drug Free America Foundation, a nonprofit that shares resources, an office and staff with the Save Our Society group financing the Amendment 64 opposition in Colorado, has a contract with the federal government to help small businesses develop their own drug-testing programs for employees. In 2010, taxpayers forked over $250,000 to a Sembler group to oversee a drug-free workplace program for the Small Business Administration. It also helps produce anti-marijuana literature and promotional campaigns.

So it should be clear to anyone with half a brain what the motives of organizations like "Smart" Colorado, Drug Free America Foundation, and Straight Inc., are. Their motives are financial, pure and simple. The only real concern people like Diane Carlson and Mel and Betty Sembler have for your kids is how much money they can make off of them in drug "treatment" facilities.

While no intelligent person would argue in favor of recreational teen marijuana use, it would cause far less harm to your children than people like the Semblers and Diane Carlson would. Protect our youth from evil profiteers like Diane Carlson and Mel and Betty Sembler, because they can do far more harm to our children than "the tsunami of marijuana" ever could.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

REPEAL THE URBAN CAMPING BAN

Photo and text by Tanner Spendley


Anons took to the streets of Denver the night of December 5th under the call out of Help the Homeless/OpXmas. Temperatures dropped to -5 as about 30 people handed out jackets and blankets to all who needed them.
Across the country the elites and their protectors are criminalizing homelessness while robbing people of their homes. "Shits fucked up. Shits fucked up and bullshit" as well as chants of "Repeal The Urban Camping Ban" and "Sleeping Is a human right" echoed throughout downtown. Our high spirits kept us warm as over 25 cop cars idled near by to "protect and serve" the shit out of us. There was an abundance of donations, one passerby even took his jacket off and handed it to an anon for donations."

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED A TELEPHONE TOWN HALL MEETING?



December 6, 2013
Dear Friend,
I hope you and your family have had a wonderful start to the holiday season. I know many of you have questions and concerns about some of the challenges we are facing as a community and nation. That is why on Monday, December 9th at 7:00 PM MT, I will be hosting a telephone town hall, where you can directly ask me questions about those concerns from the comfort of your own home.  
This town hall will provide me with an opportunity to update you about the latest activity in Washington and discuss important issues like our economy, the budget, and the latest information about the Affordable Care Act and Connect for Health Colorado
If you would like to participate, please follow the link below to sign-up on my website.
Hearing directly from you about the issues you care about the most is vitally important to how I represent you in Washington.  If you are unable to join the town hall on Monday, please contact my Denver office at 303-844-4988 if you have questions  
As always I encourage you to follow me on Facebook and Twitter to stay up-to-date on the latest news from Washington and in the district. Also, you can visit my website at www.degette.house.gov, where you can read my positions and learn about the different ways my staff can assist you. While there, be sure to visit the “Contact” page and send me an email about the issues that matter most to you and your family. Finally, be sure to share this email with your friends, family, and neighbors so that they too can be a part of this important dialogue.
Sincerely,

Diana DeGette
Member of Congress