The baggage system from hell at Denver International Airport still isn’t working properly–but the lawsuit it spawned has turned into lawyer heaven. The case, which fills a two-foot-thick file at Denver District Court, is generating sky-high fees for some of Denver’s most powerful law firms. And it promises the potential…

Stockholders are not usually a hostile crowd, especially when a company is posting record profits. At annual meetings, where the audience typically is made up of men in Brooks Brothers suits and women in pumps and pearls, the emphasis is on making money, not storming the barricades. Conservative investors complain…

So far, the only organized opposition to the Public Service Company merger is coming from environmentalists, who fear that one consequence of tying Colorado’s power supply to Texas could be more air pollution in Denver. To link the two utilities, a $150 million power line will have to be built…

The Colorado governor’s mansion is the closest thing to a palace the Centennial State has, and a silk-stocking state commission aims to keep it that way. Members of the Executive Residence Advisory Commission meet periodically to pass judgment on draperies and fuss over frayed carpets. For example, the commissioners recently…

Solomon Trujillo, president and chief executive officer of US West Communications Group, is known for blunt talk. Trujillo, who started with the phone company in 1974 in an entry-level position, worked his way to the top through a combination of long hours and fierce dedication to the company. Those qualities…

In its advertising, US West boasts about how the phone company is making it easier for its customers to gather information. But there are some things US West doesn’t want its customers to know–such as salary levels for its top executives. Westword believes US West’s ratepayers in Colorado have a…

Aurora officials believe they’ve found an ideal mountain hiding place for part of the city’s future water supply, but residents of rural Park County are promising a fight before they let the fast-growing suburb tap into the huge aquifer that underlies the county. The controversy centers on a plan by…

The Turntable Restaurant is in a squat gray building that sits along the railroad tracks running through the small mountain town of Minturn. Just a stone’s throw from the Eagle River, the Turntable will never be mistaken for one of the many shops and cafes in Minturn that sell howling…

The most bitter newspaper war in Denver right now is between two papers most people have never heard of. The dispute pits the publisher against the former editor of the Women’s Business News, a biweekly paper that has offered profiles of local businesswomen and articles on workplace issues for the…

The Lone Tree Golf Club describes itself as “a public country club,” and the oxymoron seems entirely fitting. The gabled roof of the 50,000-square-foot clubhouse looms over the fairway, and the club boasts a full-service restaurant and bar, a parquet dance floor, a boardroom, and even suites for overnight visitors…

The metro area’s startling growth rate has alarmed Coloradans the past few years, as new subdivisions and mini-marts crowd valleys and hillsides from Longmont to Castle Rock. But a little-noticed effort by local cities to constrain urban sprawl–by drawing a line around Denver and daring developers to step across it–may…

Officials at Denver International Airport are moving forward with plans for major work on the baggage system in Concourse A, even though the carriers who use the concourse say they’re happy with the system they have and don’t want to pay for new construction. The expenditure also comes amid persistent…

Kiowa, the county seat of Elbert County, is tucked in a cottonwood-lined valley half an hour east of Castle Rock on state highway 86. The town of 300 consists of a few blocks of homes on each side of the highway, which also serves as Kiowa’s main street. On a…

It takes money to make money, but Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz has gotten so good at pulling money out of unlikely situations, he’s starting to look like the King Midas of 17th Street. When he’s not out raising funds for Bob Dole’s campaign or talking to the president of Mexico…

Denver General Hospital and the city’s neighborhood health clinics will soon launch their first-ever marketing campaign, but don’t expect to see it in high-rent neighborhoods. It’s aimed at Medicaid recipients–many of them poor people and minorities. The $200,000 marketing program also is supposed to provide a “corporate identity” to the…

Kim Eli, a 39-year-old single mother with two daughters, knows firsthand just how compassionate Colorado’s workers’ compensation system is toward people who are injured at work. For years she worked in the delicatessen departments of area King Soopers stores, including the Mayfair branch at 13th Avenue and Krameria Street. Slicing…

Douglas County legislators led a fight to kill a bill that would have warned their own constituents about the county’s rapidly declining water supply. The lawmakers–who count developers among their largest campaign contributors–recently joined with the real estate lobby to kill the legislation. And one lawmaker, Doug Lamborn, even insists…

A half-dozen concrete bridges span the streets of downtown Denver, eerily lacking the one thing they were designed for: pedestrians. The bridges are the legacy of a 1960s urban renewal project that came up with the bizarre goal of getting pedestrians off the streets, but almost no one uses them,…

It’s a busy Sunday evening at Denver International Airport. Dozens of flights have arrived within the past hour, and now those passengers are trying to make their way home. A row of red brake lights on the western horizon signals a line at the toll plaza, and hundreds of drivers…

A simmering dispute between lower-downtown residents and developers may soon become a full-fledged battle. With LoDo poised for a wave of development not seen since the days steam engines huffed into Union Station, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the place where Denver was born. The controversy is over a…

part 2 of 2 Douglas County officials believe they’ve come up with a solution to the water problem. But their reliance on Denver to help them out of their dilemma may lead to the county’s biggest battle yet. The county commissioners want to spend as much as $600 million to…

part 1 of 2 Driving into Douglas County on Interstate 25, the metro area’s future unfolds before your eyes. Thousands of new homes march up the hillsides, their pastel shades glinting in the Colorado sun. “Douglas County: Where Quality of Life Comes First” says the sign that greets motorists at…