Five months after Jay Schlaks was sentenced to prison for conning more than 200 people out of $3.2 million in a land-investment scam, his wife and partner in crime, Rebecca Ann Romero, will also face punishment. Romero returned from a thirteen-year self-imposed exile in New Zealand on May 9 but…
Marilyn Forrest managed the Bradley Petroleum filling station at 8875 Washington Street in Thornton for almost three years. She only made $6.50 an hour, but she was a conscientious person who often worked more than sixty hours a week without a day off to cover for employees who missed their…
The driver of a black Ford Bronco heads west toward a traffic circle on 15th and Pine Streets in Boulder. Visibly confused, he fails to slow down to the suggested fifteen-mile-per-hour speed limit, swings around the circle, which has replaced what would be a four-way stop, and heads back east…
Tuesday, September 7, 1999. It’s the beginning of a new school year, and it’s going to be a big one for P.S.1, Denver’s oldest charter school. As P.S.1 enters its sixth year of existence, its charter will be up for renewal by the Denver Board of Education, and teachers and…
When five slow-growth advocates decided to take on town hall in Erie’s April 4 election, they had grand plans for establishing a new order in this old mining community, where particle-board homes have been popping up as quickly as prairie dogs in an open field. But the result is not…
Parents in northeast Denver have had enough. They’re sick of learning every year that their schools are failing, they’re tired of hearing that their kids aren’t doing well because they’re from poor neighborhoods, and they’re fed up with bringing their demands for better teachers and more schools before the Denver…
On December 13, 1999, Scott LeRoy’s seven-year-olddaughter came home from Majestic Heights Elementary with a letter explaining that her school might close. The letter said that in order to save money, the Boulder Valley Board of Education planned to consolidate several schools within the city. The note came as quite…
The strange fate of one of Colorado’s most treasured historic inns is uncertain once again. The Redstone Castle, a century-old bed-and-breakfast in the Crystal River Valley west of Aspen, which was saved from the auction block last summer, is going to be sold to the highest bidder. The sad saga…
One frigid night in December, hundreds of people stood shivering in what seemed to be an endless line outside the Denver Zoo. The people driving by looked on in envy. Sure, they were warm, but they weren’t going to get to see the holiday light display. They were too busy…
People either love them or hate them. And according to the lovers, the haters have spent the last year and a half getting rid of as many Colorado prairie dogs as possible. In July 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would consider listing the black-tailed prairie…
The tiny of town of Erie rests at the end of a long stretch of farmland west of I-25. Signs of expansion in this old coal-mining town are everywhere: Bulldozers grade fields in preparation for new homes; for-sale signs dot vacant pieces of land; and a steady stream of customers…
On nights when the Idalia Wolves challenge the Liberty Knights in basketball, farmers and ranchers get in their pickups and head to town. They pull into the Idalia School parking lot, where they leave their keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. They file into the school’s new gym,…
Nurses at two of Denver’s biggest hospitals, Saint Joseph Hospital and Denver Health Medical Center, are following the lead of nurses at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood by trying to organize to fight what they say are unfair and unsafe working conditions. Nurses at two other metro hospitals are also…
The three-story Victorian house in the Humboldt Street Historic District looks like something out of a fairy tale: Balconies jut out from its upper floors, a turret flanks one side of the century-old red-brick mansion, and the surrounding grounds are fortified by a wrought-iron gate. For a short time in…
The ongoing saga over a proposed northwest Denver elementary school has taken an ironic turn. Parents who spent months trying to convince the Denver Board of Education to offer a dual-language/Montessori program at the new school found out last week that their wishes had been granted when the board voted…
It’s early in July 1997, and Jack has just turned three. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t respond to directions. He can’t sit still for fifteen minutes. He shuns everyone around him, including his parents. On the rare occasion that his dad is able to make eye contact with him, Jack…
After eighteen months of fighting against a proposed gravel quarry in their neighborhood, Coal Creek Canyon homeowners finally blew a hole through Asphalt Paving Company’s plans. Their victory came November 9, on the sixth and final day of public hearings before the Jefferson County commissioners, who were considering whether to…
Maybe it’s the political message of Johnny Cash’s Man in Black blaring from a back room that keeps blood pumping through the veins of the college students answering phones and pecking at their keyboards inside the Westside Outreach Center. Maybe it’s the sharp chill in the building, where the furnace…
Erik Dyce won’t spend the waning hours of December 31 partying like it’s the end of 1999. He’ll be ringing in the new year in a windowless office in the basement of the Denver City and County Building, bracing for the worst. Dyce will be one of hundreds of amateur…
On snowy days, it takes a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get to Bob Allen’s log house off the steep and winding Spruce Canyon Drive. But the same powder that’s such a pain in the winter is welcome come spring when the snowmelt seeps through the soil and enters fractures in the…
Many Colorado nurses fear that if they speak out about improving working conditions, they will be retaliated against by their employers. They feel powerless to change a health-care system they see as flawed. To eliminate their fear so that they can confidently be involved in staffings and other issues in…
Amy Pollman’s life changed one night in January 1995, when a psychiatric patient at Porter Hospital who was known to be suicidal smothered herself with a plastic bag that had escaped the notice of hospital employees. Pollman was at home when the call came. It was the first suicide at…
