Opinion & Commentary

In politics, timing is everything. Timing and money — big money, in the case of anyone who’s going to take on barely incumbent Senator Michael Bennet, who’s already raised over $2 million to retain an office he’s held for fewer than eight months. The money was a major obstacle in…

I’m looking across the highway at the Pepsi Center and Invesco Field at Mile High, the settings for so many memorable sights during the Democratic National Convention, which kicked off exactly a year ago today. And between them — at least from this vantage point — is Elitch Gardens, where,…

I was running late for a plane and needed some cash very early last Thursday, so I stopped by a local Wells Fargo, put my bank card in the ATM and keyed in my PIN. And nothing happened. Beyond a notice that occasionally blinked “Your PIN must be between 4…

This week’s Time magazine story on “America’s Food Crisis and How to Fix It” cites Chipotle, Denver’s homegrown success story, as one of the companies doing things right — which made yesterday’s petition delivery to Chipotle headquarters in LoDo, calling on the company to work with the Coalition of Immokalee…

As Denver struggles to close its budget gap, ideas are flying. In his monthly e-mail to constituents, Doug Linkhart, an at-large member of Denver City Council, offers this: “How can a bunch of quarters help fill our $120 million budget gap? By doing what Chicago recently did, and letting someone…

First Data has flown the coop. The financial firm that moved its corporate offices to Greenwood Village in 2001 is now moving those offices back to Atlanta. First Data certainly made its mark while it was headquartered here. With its then-subsidiary Western Union doing a booming business in sending money…

We just heard that tonight’s LoDo Bites is sold out — bad news for procrastinators, great news for the LoDo District, which is putting on the event. It also says a lot about how far this part of town has come from the days when the Wazee Supper Club was…

At a round of town-hall meetings on health care that kick off today, first-term congresswoman Betsy Markey will hand out copies (abridged) of a George Washington favorite, “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,” originally a 110-item list of Jesuit guidelines for civil behavior. Great idea, but…

Past, present and future all meet in Civic Center, the park at the heart of the city. To get a real feel for the park now, head to Civic Center Eats, the weekly marketplace that runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Tuesday in the summer. But stick around,…

Kenny and Kristin Johnson have lived in their northeast Denver neighborhood for six years, raising a young family (Rayah, three, and Dominick, fourteen weeks). One day on a walk around the area, they passed a vacant storefront beside a thrift store that was only open once a month, and Kristin…

I’m at Northwestern for a writing conference that the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies hosts at the Medill J-school, which is also home to the Academy for Alternative Journalism, a summer program for budding journalists that AAN sponsors. Jared Jacang Maher, a Westword staff writer, is a veteran of this program,…

The Denver Public Library has about 4,000 collections donated by corporations, organizations and individuals, but even so, archivist/librarian Roger Dudley recognized that there was something unique about the collection he was sorting through: sealed court records, many of them involving Colorado special grand jury 89-2, which U.S. District Court Judge…

Life is lonely in the Beauvallon, where every restaurant and eatery has closed up shop — except for Aviano Coffee at 955 Lincoln Street. Nine75 is gone, Mr. Coco’s is gone, Aqua is gone. (Brandon’s, which closed at the end of June, has a sign up advertising its reopening on…

On Friday, Kelly Brough, Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff, was named the next head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce — the winner in a horse race with Tom Clark, the chamber’s eco-devo head. On Saturday, I ran into Brough at a concert in Civic Center and asked…

Politicians were out in force at the Arapahoe County Republicans fundraising roast of former congressman Tom Tancredo on Saturday. John Suthers, the only GOP member currently elected to a statewide office. Mike Coffman, who moved from a statewide office to fill Tancredo’s seat in the Sixth Congressional district. U.S. Senate…

Do you think the old Carnegie Library, now known as the McNichols Building (144 West Colfax Avenue), would make a great restaurant? If so; you’re not alone; that’s one of the concepts that’s come up frequently for the circa 1909 building, which now houses city offices, as assorted committees and…

You don’t need to work too hard to roast Tom Tancredo: The man roasts himself. Google the name of the former Sixth District congressman and your computer starts smoking, then spits out story after story, quote after quote, that prove truth is indeed stranger than fiction. A few of Tancredo’s…

I am listening to Tom Tancredo filling in for Peter Boyles on KHOW radio, marveling at how the former congressman is maintaining a one-man monologue that, in the past five minutes, has touched on illegal immigration, healthcare, how Republicans need a speaker as slick as Barack Obama, illegal imigration, Harleys,…

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the Republication National Convention host committee, asking me to fill out a survey that would help ensure “that future visitors to Minneapolis Saint Paul have the best possible experience in our cities. A key component to continuing our efforts to become a destination of…