While the Colorado AIDS Project faces a unique struggle because of the complex changes in the AIDS epidemic, it’s not alone in its financial predicament. All charitable organizations in Colorado are now hurting as a result of the faltering economy. The National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed on November 26…

Tony Garcia could see the shame and anger on the faces of the men who came to the Colorado AIDS Project to ask for help. They were men who spoke little or no English, men who hadn’t yet told their families they’d been infected with HIV or whose families lived…

The only thing that’s certain about the Central Registry of Child Protection is that it’s not clear whether it’s serving its intended purpose, according to a four-month evaluation by the Office of the State Auditor. The Central Registry was created by the state legislature more than thirty years ago to…

The Denver Botanic Gardens announced this week that it will reorganize its operations, laying off seven employees for budgetary reasons and accepting the resignation of its associate director for operations, Joe Duran, whose position will not be filled. Although the elimination of the positions had nothing to do with employee…

The Denver Botanic Gardens has emerged from a two-month investigation into accusations of “unethical administrative practices” with a promise to “take some action.” But at least one DBG boardmember believes that the organization hasn’t gone far enough to fix the problems. In May, a group of former and current employees…

The 69-year-old woman shuffled into the courtroom slowly, towing an oxygen tank behind her. She’d made the trip to the Chancery building at 1120 Lincoln Street to defend herself, to explain to an administrative-law judge that, no, she hadn’t given her two-year-old grandson a blow job, as her former daughter-in-law…

Ocean Journey is like a ghost town these days. The aquarium just suffered the slowest month ever, and what’s even spookier is that attendance isn’t expected to pick up until March. Just 40,440 people visited Ocean Journey in September, compared to 65,775 last September and 98,324 during the same month…

At the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gary Patton devoted four years to developing conservation strategies for the Canada lynx, a wild cat species on the decline in North America. But this past February, he suddenly found his own job on the endangered list. Patton joined the Fish and Wildlife…

Birgitta De Pree’s garden is a mirror of her eccentric personality. The square piece of land she tends in the Emerson Street Community Garden is circled by a fence of twisted branches; the sticks at the entryway are painted a lapis blue. Tibetan prayer flags tied to the makeshift enclosure…

It’s 11 a.m., and two of the girls living in the treatment center in north Boulder are sleeping. The other four are still in their pajamas, lounging on couches in the living room and laughing hysterically as they recite lines from Sugar and Spice, the movie they saw last night…

Area cultural organizations can stop worrying — for now — about whether Colorado’s Ocean Journey will detract from their sales-tax revenues by becoming a part of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. Instead, they can focus on changing the way that money from the special taxing district is distributed. The…

Colorado’s Ocean Journey will find out this week whether its request for taxpayer support will sink or swim when the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District announces its decision on the aquarium’s eligibility. Whatever the outcome, SCFD boardmembers can safely say they didn’t bow to political pressure — from Ocean Journey…

In the days since Boulder activist John Sherwood jumped off Flagstaff Mountain to his death on July 16, his stunned friends, fellow activists and a local journalist have remembered him as a town hero. The suicide note he left for his family explained that he didn’t want to face the…

The Denver Botanic Gardens is trying to be a better neighbor to residents who have long complained about noise from summer concerts, the high volume of traffic and street parking during DBG events. An apologetic Brinsley Burbidge, the organization’s executive director, made the initial peace offering on July 18, during…

About 80 percent of the time, the companies that contribute to the contamination of Superfund sites pay for their cleanup, according to Barry Levene, director of the Colorado unit in Superfund Region 8. The statistics are even better in Colorado, where the EPA has had to help pay for the…

At first, the townspeople couldn’t believe it. And they didn’t want to talk about it. It is, after all, the heart of their community, the only flat spot in the canyon where people can walk their dogs, the only place where kids can play safely away from the highway that…

For six years, local landscaper and gardening writer John Starnes has been leading summer tours of Fairmount Cemetery, a green thumb’s paradise with 75 varieties of roses. The tours were always presented through the Denver Botanic Gardens, which offers numerous quarterly classes and programs. But this year, after confused rosarians…

The white wood house at 1795 Quince Avenue in north Boulder used to be a hive of activity. Young children came to visit their grandparents. Florists made stops there on birthdays and Mother’s Day and Easter. Doctors and massage therapists, community volunteers and musicians all came and went. The home,…

The members of the Denver Board of Education were so unimpressed by the superintendent candidates that a search firm produced almost two years ago when Chip Zullinger was named to lead Denver Public Schools that they decided to use a different company when it came time to replace him. But…

It’s a Friday afternoon at the Renaissance Children’s Center in Lakewood, and six-year-old Demetrey Fulks is out of control again. First he hit a boy over the head with a plush Pokémon toy. Then he ordered another student to bring him his Game Boy. Now he’s play-fighting with some other…

In the coming years, Denver residents will see some major — and expensive — expansions and renovations at the city’s Big Four institutions. The Denver Art Museum and the Denver Zoo are both using money from a 1999 bond initiative to pay for major expansions; the Denver Museum of Nature…

When schoolchildren visit the Museo de las Américas, one of the first pieces Jacquelynn McDaniel shows them is a contemporary painting titled “Pensamiento,” Spanish for “thought.” The first thing the kids notice is a large skull peering out from the dark background, she says, and they usually hate the piece…