Cormorants Cope with Construction

 
Video by Gerald Trumbule - Music by Jaime Rudoff

By Dave Felice

The cormorants at Duck Lake in Denver’s City Park are carrying on with their nesting, despite the disturbance of lake renovation and development of the Asian Tropics exhibit at the Denver Zoo.

The migratory double-crested cormorants nest in the trees on the one-acre island in Duck Lake and feed on fresh-water fish. Observers say more cormorants are flying to find food this year, apparently because of the lower water level of the lake.

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Denver DA Morrissey - Crime Rate Down

Denver's District Attorney Mitch Morrissey spoke at the Dems District 8 Annual Spaghetti Denver reporting that the crime rate, despite the recession, is down.

Councilwoman Johnson Initiates Investigation of Lowry Neighbors (RNO)

from The Lowry News

The Lowry Neighbors received a call from Denver’s Planning office requesting documentation of meetings. When asked, Councilwoman Johnson said she had initiated the investigation into the procedural qualifications of Lowry Neighbors. The Lowry Neighbors is an RNO (registered neighborhood organization) on file with the City of Denver which has followed the Denver City rules regulating RNOs. This has the appearance of using taxpayer dollars to go after those who opposed her on the Lowry Vista rezoning. The Lowry Neighbors [had previously] submitted a letter to city council members opposing the rezoning of Lowry Vista from open space to commercial mixed use.

The investigation of a small registered neighborhood organization contrasts starkly with the Councilwoman’s “see no evil, hear no evil” approach when the LCMA (Lowry Community Master Association) President spoke in support of the rezoning at the Denver Planning Board Hearing Dec. 2nd without following proper procedure to obtain prior approval of the LCMA Board or to notify Lowry homeowners or business owners.

The Councilwoman is apparently eager to spend taxpayer money to investigate an RNO. However, when the City’s likely illegal contract for zoning with IRG (International Risk Group, developer of 8th and Uinta and Lowry Vista) was exposed (The Lowry News: March 2009, page 3 – online at www.LowryNews.com past issues), the Councilwoman defended IRG and this contract, calling the language regarding future zoning an “unfortunate provision” rather than calling for an investigation as to how the City entered into such a questionable contract with one of her campaign contributors. When it became apparent to her that the questions were not going away, she had the City Attorney’s office quietly revise the contract. In this case, no investigation was ever carried out.

Who is Councilwoman Johnson working for?

Denver Councilman Linkhart - We have enough prison beds

Councilman Doug Linkhart wants to divert Better Denver Bond money ($25 million) from re-building the prison on Smith Road to more productive preventative purposes.

Denver Auditor Sings

Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher sang to the Democrats at their Annual Spaghetti Dinner on April 17, 2010. Actually not that unusual, as Mr. Gallagher often sings at public events, and we love it.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Gallagher, could you give us an official statement that the City and County of Denver, or any of its associated entities (Denver Water, etc.), has not entered into any "bank deals" involving credit default swaps, or any other such derivative instruments, like the ones that Senator Bennet disastrously arranged for the Denver Public Schools?

And thanks for your efforts to date to keep tabs on our money.

Update: I was surprised and pleased to learn that Mr. Gallagher has his own blog here.

Locked Gardens

by Denver historian Phil Goodstein

Jim Fowler was a Denver-born communist. In the 1930s, he fought for the Spanish Republicans in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Back in Colorado, he was convinced that corporate agriculture was poisoning the food supply. The solution, he argued, was for locals, especially city dwellers, to dig up abandoned lots and transform them into community gardens.

By the 1970s, the program initiated by Fowler was so popular that the city took control of it. Eventually, it emerged as a self righteous yuppie effort, Denver Urban Gardens (DUG). During the past decades, gardeners participating in it have increasingly locked off their gardens.

This is to be expected since the gardeners are dangerous. suspicious characters. At least Denver Public Schools (DPS) argues as much. It recently ruled that those participating in DUG plots on school grounds must get police background checks.

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Sen. Chris Romer on Education

Colorado State Senator Chris Romer speaks at the Denver Dems Annual Spaghetti Diner on education and SB 10-191, among other topics.

One Thing Leads to Another

Thanks to Wade Norris and UltimatePolitics for posting on YouTube






Also see DPS Board Member Andrea Merida's website for more. Be sure to watch the video Erring on the side of transparency.

Money Can't Buy You Love

I love the Huffington Post, and its creator, Arianna Huffington. She is whip-crack smart, extremely articulate, innovative to the extreme, and runs an outstanding news operation. Although I rely on my own aggregator (Yahoo) to pull together news from the many sources I choose, I always check the Huffington Post for fast breaking news and important opinion, as they have a large stable of great writers.

When Ethan Axelrod rode into town last year with the Denver version of the Huffington Post (DHP) I wondered if it would be of the same caliber. I had heard that Mr. Axelrod contacted many of the local bloggers and news sources and made arrangements with them to feed their stories to him for re-posting. I also noticed that Mr. Axelrod wrote a number of the items at DHP himself. And of course, with a name like Axelrod, it was hard not to notice that Ethan is the son of David Axelrod, a top adviser to President Obama.

When it comes to our local race between appointee Senator Michael Bennet and former Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff, we all pretty much know the score – “Big Money” Bennet v. “Man of the People” Romanoff, headed to a primary to see who shall represent us. Although local Democrats were told not to endorse their favorite before the primary, apparently President Obama did not get the message, as his endorsement of Bennet came out the day after Bennet announced, and his benefit for Michael at the Fillmore was very early in the game and very well attended. This has created a contentious situation for Democratic locals, some of whom are still trying to follow the Party lead by remaining uncommitted until after the primary, but with growing resentment.

When Denver Direct got the exclusive footage of Romanoff blasting the Tea Party last Saturday at the District 8 Spaghetti Dinner, we figured it was very newsworthy and hurried to post it on Sunday, April 18. Thinking it would be a story of some import, we even emailed Ethan a link that day, (after all, he has used our material in the past) but got no response. Maybe it wasn’t that important after all.

Imagine our surprise yesterday (Thursday) when we saw the pathetic piece that the Denver Huffington Post published of Senator Bennet “slamming” the Tea Party. Difficult to understand audio, recorded by sources unnamed, and posted to YouTube by “whosaidyousaidtv” (but with a somewhat different slant at their website). A day late and a dollar short, Bennet once again proved that his money can’t buy him love.

With even more proof in his recent TV ads, Senator Bennet may have the worst media team ever assembled. Even his faithful are choking on the disingenuous ads. And as for Senator Bennet himself, he just doesn’t have “it”. Lacking affect, and often seeming to slur his words, he always seems to be playing catch-up to Romanoff. Now saddled with the colossal financial blunder from his days as DPS Superintendent (costing us $90 million?), I have to ask, Why is this guy Bennet even being considered for this position when we have the stellar Mr. Romanoff who could really represent us?

Compare and contrast for yourself:
Romanoff (posted 4/18/10)


Bennet (posted 4/21/10)