When is a hospital not a hospital? That’s the heart of a little-known tax battle in Jefferson County that could have multimillion-dollar consequences for Colorado’s taxpayers. Two years ago Lutheran Medical Center purchased three office buildings adjacent to its sprawling Wheat Ridge hospital complex. Although Lutheran is one of the…

On a warm winter morning, Spencer Bridges looks out across a wide stretch of the Arkansas River churning through the grasslands outside Rocky Ford, and memories float up. “I grew up out here on this land,” he says. “Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn didn’t have nothing on us. I’d be…

If there are two things the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center ought to understand, it’s death and education. The first it sees every day. The second is its reason for existing (its motto: “We practice what we teach”). The two topics have even been part of the hospital’s employee…

Sooner or later, just about every politician vows to “close loopholes.” This is important so “the rich don’t get richer” and people “pay their fair share.” But ever wonder how such holes become looped in the first place? A visit to the state legislature last week helped explain it. In…

Jim Deden could be a composite character invented by the U.S. Postal Service as part of a public-relations blitz. Now age 53, he has worked for the agency for 28 years as a window clerk, happily selling stamps, handling packages and generally serving the mailing public. For the past ten…

“I’m not very good at making a long story short,” begins Douglas Pichon. “I am, however, really good at making a long story longer.” This quickly becomes clear. The first thing you notice about Douglas Pichon, though, are his startling lettuce-green eyes, which makes it understandable why the police picked…

A long-standing race for business between Colorado’s new-car dealers–Dealin’ Doug, John Elway, Phil Long and the rest of the guys–and the state’s automobile brokers, the telephone jockeys who promise a lower price than dealers and without the showroom jive, is rapidly headed for a collision. In the past two months,…

In honor of Congresswoman Pat Schroeder’s impending retirement next year after 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, her staff compiled a Harper’s-like list intended as a testimony to her accomplishments (e.g., hours spent working for constituents: 78,000) and integrity (political consultants hired: 0). Parts of it were published…

Jack Vickers has a new interest. It’s beekeeping. It’s very profitable. Vickers, who built his vast wealth by developing such projects as the exclusive Castle Pines residential area in Douglas County (the golf course there was designed by Jack Nicklaus), keeps the bees in an unlikely place. Here are the…

When the patriarchs of two of Colorado’s most powerful families joined forces over two years ago, it wasn’t for another megamillion-dollar business deal, or a shared sinecure on a corporate board, or even one of those glittering charity events. It was disease that brought Chuck Stevinson and Bill Coors together…

To most people, having their phone service “cut off” means simply that they didn’t pay their bill. Not to Bruce Kronberg, who lives in a modest house along an isolated stretch of highway northwest of Fort Collins. A little over two weeks ago a worker for the state highway department…

You’re an average guy, which is to say, occasionally you like to be tied up and whipped. But you have questions. For example: “How do Colorado’s self-defense laws apply to me if things get out of hand?” Fortunately, there is precedent. Unfortunately, it’s not very encouraging. Say that you were…

Next week William Gates will celebrate his fortieth birthday. The products sold by his company, Microsoft, are used in an estimated 80 percent of the world’s personal computers. Recently, Forbes magazine named him the richest man in the country, again, with a personal fortune of about $15 billion. The other…

It’s becoming a familiar story: A Colorado municipality tires of the increasingly frequent traffic snarls and tract-home developments popping up on the edge of town. Residents’ complaints grow louder, and sooner or later somebody proposes passing a law limiting growth. Except this time, it’s not just Boulderites complaining. It’s the…

This year is one of big changes for the University of Colorado Buffaloes football team. Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Rashaan Salaam is gone. The team has a new coach for the first time in a decade. And, starting with the game against Colorado State University four weeks ago, each player began…

Jon Dickerson’s job reminded him a lot of Glengarry Glen Ross. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning David Mamet play, frantic salesmen scramble for good leads–prospective buyers–doled out by their boss so they can sell dubious timeshares. Instead of selling real estate, though, Dickerson sold education. Beginning in 1989, when he was…

part 1 of 2 A quarter of a century ago, Lauren Watson organized the Denver chapter of the Black Panther Party. For a little over two years he led the local arm through the party’s familiar litany of threats, arrests and occasional riots, and at his peak in 1970, Watson…

part 2 of 2 Watson’s primary public role, it seemed, was to get arrested. “I spent a lot of time spread-eagled over somebody’s hood or trunk,” he says. Today many of the charges appear foolish, and the whole dance–provocation, arrest, rhetoric–reads like a game in which both sides agreed to…

In case you missed it, Lewis and Floorwax, the morning DJs on KRFX/103.5 The Fox, held a contest on July 28. It was called “Denver’s Biggest Butt.” Coming in third was Jackie. Despite the disappointing finish, Jackie had no reason to be ashamed. She was prodigious. She was the first…

The government’s latest reports show that crime is down in major cities across the nation. Not since before the advent of crack have the mean streets been so mellow. But don’t you dare relax! Westword has examined police blotters in small towns throughout Colorado and found disturbing evidence that crime…

Seldom is the legal rule of innocent until proven guilty so ignored by the public as in cases of ethnic and racial hate crimes. The charges are toxic enough to begin corroding the accused immediately, and for a crime that is enormously difficult to prove–was he a black victim, or…

This week marks a potentially momentous shift in how the poor and uninsured receive their health care in Denver–and, possibly, in the way all hospitals try to attract patients in Colorado. Fanning the winds of change is a new Colorado HMO called Community Health Plan of the Rockies and its…