City helps make hiring easier for Denver businesses

(Press release)
Wage subsidies, youth interns available through Denver Workforce Center programs

DENVER, CO ­— Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011 — When it comes to staff recruitment, making the right hiring decision can be challenging at best. And in today’s economy, effective hiring is all the more difficult given the financial strains faced by many businesses.

To make staff recruitment easier, the Denver Office of Economic Development (OED) is offering two programs that connect Denver businesses with trained, pre-screened workers. OED is seeking businesses to participate in its Wage Subsidy and Bridges to Work Youth Internship programs.

Wage Subsidy Program
The Wage Subsidy program offers subsidies to qualified businesses to hire new employees. Funded by the federal Workforce Investment Act, the program offers a minimum of 50 percent of an employee’s wages to be subsidized for a period of up to six months. Subsidies for individual positions cannot exceed $8,000.

“The Denver Workforce Centers are dedicated to serving as an extension of the HR staffing function for businesses across several industries,” said Stephanie Klein, chair of the Denver Workforce Investment Board, which provides program oversight and policy guidance for Denver’s workforce investment programs. “Wage subsidies are one of the many ways we’re making staff hiring, retention and training easier for Denver businesses, while growing our city’s workforce.”

Read more »

Tours by Phil Goodstein

Call Phil Goodstein (303)333-1095 to enroll.

Sunday, March 20: Bicycling Tour of Berkeley
Meet in front of Skinner Middle. School, along the north side of West 41st Avenue, between Julian and King streets. (King street is one block east of Lowell Boulevard.) The cost is $10 per person. This area will be featured in Goodstein's forthcoming book, North Denver Story: Denver's Most Intriguing Neighborhood. A copy of this schedule and information about books by Phil. Goodstein is on the Web site of www.LeonardLeonard.com/neighborhoods. Information on his books is at capitolhillbooks.com.

Saturday, March 26: Park Club Place, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at Leonard Leonard & Associates, a real estate office at 420 Downing Street. This tour is $10 per person.

Saturday, April 2: West Highlands, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet in front of Edison School on the west side of Quitman Street between West 33rd and West 35th avenues. (Quitman is the "Q" street in the alphabet west of Federal Boulevard. It is about ten blocks east of Sheridan Boulevard.) This tour is $10 per person.

Sunday, April 3: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the gazebo along the 12th Avenue loop of the park near Gilpin Street. (This is a quaint wooden structure just south of the RTD bus stop. Park just east of the bus stop. This tour is $10.

Saturday, April 9: Washington Park, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the statue of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod at the southwest corner of Exposition Avenue and Franklin Street.(Exposition is four blocks south of Alameda Avenue. Franklin is eight blocks west of University Boulevard.) The cost is $10.

Saturday, April 16: Park Hill, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the gazebo of Ferguson Park, the southeast comer of 23rd Avenue and Dexter Street-locals call it Turtle Park. (Dexter is seven blocks east of Colorado Boulevard.) This tour is $10 per person.

Saturday,- April 23: Highlands/North Denver, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet in front of the old Granada Theater, 2917-25 West 25th A venue. It is just west of Eliot Street on the north side of the road. (Eliot is one block east of Federal Boulevard.) This cost is $10 ..

Saturday, April 30: Ghost Walk, 7-9 PM
Meet in front of the statue of the Indian on the east side of the Capitol on Grant Street between 14th and Colfax avenues. It will be repeated on May 21, June 18, July 30, September 10, October 21,22, and 28. This tour is $15.

Sunday, May 1: West Colfax/East of Sloans Lake, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet on the west steps of Lake Middle School at West 19th Avenue and Meade Street. (Take Lowell Boulevard north of Colfax to where it dead ends at 18th Avenue. Meade Street is one block directly to the west.) This tour is $10.

Saturday, May 7: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the gazebo along the 12th Avenue loop of the park near Gilpin Street. (This is a quaint wooden structure just south of the RTD bus stop. Park just east of the bus stop. This tour is $10. It will be repeated on September 18 and October 15.

Sunday, May 15: West Sloans Lake, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the torpedo near the northeast corner of West 17th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. A parking lot enters the park at West 17th Avenue and Yates Street, two blocks east of Sheridan Boulevard. The cost is $10.

Sunday, May 22: Harvard Gulch, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the benches in the park at the southeast corner of South Logan Street and Iliff A venue. (Logan is four blocks east of Broadway; Iliff is two blocks south of Evans Avenue.) This tour is $10.

Sunday, May 29: Bicycling Tour of West Colfax, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet in front of Lake Middle School at 19th Avenue and Meade Street. This tour is $10.

Wednesday, June 1: Quality Hill, 6:30-8:30 PM
Meet at the Zang Mansion, 709 Clarkson Street. (Clarkson is eight blocks east of Broadway.) This tour is $10.

Tall Man Sings

People - Power: Denver Solidarity Rally at the Capitol

Today's (Saturday) rally was about twice as big as Tuesday's. Zoe Williams put together an impressive group of Wisconsin/labor supporters. More video coming up...

Is Your Bank in Danger of Failure?

From here:

            Bank of Choice         Greeley           CO

            Advantage Bank       Loveland        CO

            Signature Bank         Windsor          CO

            Rocky Mountain Bank and Trust Florence     Florence         CO

            Community Banks of Colorado       Greenwood Village   CO

            Colorado Capital Bank        Castle Rock   CO

            Champion Bank        Parker            CO

            The Pueblo Bank and Trust Company        Pueblo            CO

            Pikes Peak National Bank   Colorado Springs     CO

            Park State Bank and Trust      Woodland Park         CO

            Premier Bank            Denver            CO

            Farmers Bank           Ault      CO

            Grand Mountain Bank           Granby            CO

Robots for Romer

Last night I got another robocall from the Romer machine (minus 1 for Romer). This one was different in that it wasn't just a pre-recorded call with a human voice, it was actually a  computer-generated voice asking me to "take a survey". The "survey" asked if I intended to vote for Romer or another candidate. When I pressed 3 for another candidate, it gave me 4 choices, and I chose Linkhart. It then asked if I would consider Romer as my second choice. I chose no. It thanked me. Yuck, a new low in robocalling. I guess Jennifer (a real person) at Romer headquarters was not able to actually remove my name from their list to stop the robots.

Although Denver's mayoral race has not yet official started, apparently bankster Romer has so much money to spend that he just can't wait to get started. But Chris, don't forget that the early front-runner in Denver's mayoral race often loses. You don't want to look too eager now, do you? Gives people too much time to run the Google on you ...

From here:

The circumstantial history surrounding Chris Romer is not a pretty one. The fact that he led most, if not all, of JP Morgan's public financial transactions in Colorado is disturbing when coupled with the outcomes of some of those transactions. The fact that he may have had a hand in crafting legislation that helped our now U.S. Senator Michael Bennet hide the costs of DPS' transactions is more than disturbing. The fact that he was willing to bully officials responsible for our state's retirement fund, all of which is funded by taxpayers' money, is outrageous.
Most troubling is, however, Romer surely understood the ramifications of the 8.5% deduction. If Romer was involved in crafting SB 09-282, he should have known the deduction's effects on the DPS' retirement system. As a Colorado State Senator, doesn't Romer have a responsibility to protect assets built up by, ultimately, taxpayer contributions? After all, the taxpayers actually fund DPS' existence, and that existence funds the pension via employee and employer contributions. Romer's apparent disregard for this taxpayer-supported asset seems to be the height of disregard for his responsibilities as a public official.

Grew-some

Clip from Channel 8 coverage of Denver's City Council Legislative meeting.

Please don't ask me to explain the current situation regarding medical marijuana in the City of Denver. I understand the State of Colorado is considering another bill, HB 1043, to "clarify" certain issues. Denver's City Council, with the exception of Councilmen Linkhart and Brown, seem mute, but will vote yes on just about anything. Even attorney Broadwell seems perplexed.

This is not what "business-friendly" looks like.

"We are One" Solidarity Rally - Denver 2-22-2011

The Colorado labor unions rally on the West Capitol Steps in solidarity with the Wisconsin movement to stop union busting. Counter-rally Tea Party members (yellow flags) rally below on Lincoln St. Police encourage two of them to go back down the steps to their group, but they insist on coming back to argue with willing union members. A good time was had by all on a bright and sunny Colorado day.

Editorial - Tom Anthony from Elyria

For background see Tom's article "Stomped" here.

During the heyday of independent thinking which spawned the American Revolution and subsequent New Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, the Founding Fathers came up with “certain inalienable rights” among which were “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” One can imagine the arguments, both practical and philosophical, in defense of “life” being an inalienable right. After all, to whom would you sell newspapers expressing such a concept if nobody survived the pogram? The right to Liberty is a more avante garde assertion; on the other hand it’s hard to keep more than half the population locked up at any given time since technically, if they do have the right to life, you have to feed them and pay Xcel, not to mention buy the occasional roll of toilet paper, so let’s admit a certain social cost if we keep Life and don’t excise Liberty. And perhaps that’s why it made the final cut.

The Pursuit of Happiness though, has got to be as “out there” as you can get. I mean, look around you and count the smiles. Let’s face it, if you’re more than five years old you probably can’t manage much more than a smirk. Trying to make the argument that anyone had the right to pursue happiness, especially in 1776 while winding down the Georgian era and hoeing corn on the outskirts of a town of Puritans dressed in homespun; ok, we’ll have to come to grips with the fact NOBODY proof-read the final draft. Which is probably why, after the uprising and ultimate dominion over the field of battle, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention left it out.

Nonetheless, when we grow up here in America we do have a fundamental belief that we have a right to pursue happiness, and the history books conveniently let us indulge it. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t. Take life here in Elyria, as an example. Here we are, scratching our heads about all the yard dirt that got moved to ASARCO (except ours) sort of happily eating dinners that smell like Purina (ok, our dogs are happy) ignoring the constant roar of traffic and trains, stoically accepting the lack of virtually any retail and service businesses or environmental advocacy, but sort of happily taking the kids to the Johnson Recreation Center and Elyria Park and meeting the neighbors when: VOILA, the City Councilwoman pulls a vanishing act on the Johnson Rec Center between October of 2009 and March of 2010, calling it a “repurposing.” And now El Centro Su Teatro, which has used the Elyria School to springboard to the Big Show on Santa Fe, suddenly has a plan for “affordable housing and offices” mainly paid for with our tax money, no notification, not so much as napkin sketch to show what to expect. Frankly, most of us would be happy to get our school back. What business does the City have paying to install "affordable housing" units full of families looking for a recreation center the City just closed?

But there is no guarantee of happiness in this world, much less this country, although the Clarence Darrows among us could possibly dredge up an affirmative defense of the right to “pursue” it. And here in Elyria, such pursuit is much like chasing a lawn sprite at Riverside Cemetery: way too little green grass and too many places to hide. Which is why the seasoned veterans of Elyria tend to wear a look of haunted indifference: Happiness, when she does show herself, is glimpsed from the corners of the eyes, fleetingly.

Tom Anthony

Chris Romer's Call for Transparency - Is he kidding?

Bankster Romer

Mayoral candidate (with the most money) Chris Romer is now calling for more transparency in City government. What I'd like to see is more transparency from the candidate himself. Former bankster (with JP Morgan) Romer was involved in a New Mexico deal that resulted in Richardson's withdrawal from consideration as Commerce Secretary in the Obama cabinet, and Romer was also involved in the Bennet-DPS-bankster deal that resulted in a $750 million debt coming due in March for DPS. Total cost to date for DPS is said to be $151 million with an estimated upcoming price tag of $81 million just to roll the debt over. How much did you make on those two deals, Chris?

From here.

And don't get me started with the mess that Romer made of the State marijuana laws before he skipped away to run for Mayor.

Bennet was elected despite his involvement in the DPS fiscal mess - let's not make the same mistake twice. In my opinion, Doug Linkhart is the only honest one among the pack leaders. He's experienced, dedicated, and believes marijuana should be legalized. What more could you ask?