Think firefighters want Senate Bill 25, which would allow collective bargaining, to go through the Colorado Legislature? According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, the Colorado Professional Fire Fighters group was the single-biggest donor to current legislators in 2011-12, pouring out $140,325…
Before John Evans moved west in 1862 to become the first territorial governor of Colorado and found the school that grew into the University of Denver (as well as inspire the naming of streets, towns and a mountain), he was among nine founders of Northwestern University north of Chicago, in…
As the Colorado Senate begins debating gun bills, the Capitol should be filled with enough opinions today to blow the dome right off. But you can shoot your mouth off on the future of this state without even leaving your couch or kitchen table: Starting today, TBD Colorado is bringing…
Cabinet members Ken Salazar and Ray LaHood were at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal last week, announcing a deal that adds 1,200 acres to the Rocky Flats wildlife refuge and stretches the Rocky Mountain Greenway. But some weren’t celebrating the announcement…
Governor John Hickenlooper is just back from the National Governor’s Conference in Washington, where he did not talk about drinking fracking fluid, as he had during Senate testimony two weeks ago. Hick’s quip about his sip of frack fluid made headlines, but there are at least six Colorado drinks we’d…
JetBlue brought me to Denver last night only a few hours late. But even though we landed at Denver International Airport, with its all-weather runways, I felt transported back to another airport — the old Stapleton International Airport — and thirty years back in time, to the Blizzard of 1982…
Denver is full of aesthetic adventurers and artists who are changing the cultural landscape. They’re among Denver’s greatest assets, the reason this city attracted more of the desirable 25-to-34-year-old demo than any other area in recent years. They’re Colorado’s creative capital…
The story of the Sand Creek Massacre is a difficult one to tell — but also a critical one to tell, and tell right. That’s why the Northern Cheyenne are so disappointed with Collision, the History Colorado exhibit, that they have asked it be taken down. That’s why two lectures…
At 2 p.m. today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will join Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Governor John Hickenlooper to make a “major announcement” about the Rocky Mountain Greenway, and also celebrate the recent expansion that added 1,200 acres of wildlife habitate to Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge…
With all its fancy production — a soundtrack with barking dogs, gunfire, screams; misty quotes appearing and disappearing, mysterious red, white and blue lights illuminating artifacts — the single-most stunning item in Collsion: The Sand Creek Massacre, 1860s-Today at History Colorado is a single-page letter from Captain Silas Soule…
The Prius was one of the great automobile success stories of the last decade. Toyota’s hybrid took off very fast — too fast, it turned out, when owners found their accelerators sticking. And now, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has announced that Toyota had agreed to a $29 million settlement…
This morning the Colorado Economic Development Commission will hear an update on the Regional Tourism Act award made to Aurora last May, two weeks before Gaylord Entertainment pulled the plug on an $800 million convention/hotel complex, sending the city scrambling for a replacement that’s yet to appear. But Pueblo, the…
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Beyond the Barrel Man costumes, beyond the zombies that end the Denver A to Z show (what, no Zebulon Pike?), a sign warns that Collision: The Sand Creek Massacre, 1860s-Today may not be suitable for children, despite the fact…
Even before Denver International Airport opened in 1995, conspiracy theories were taking off — and they show no sign of coming down to earth today. “You know there are dormitories under Denver International Airport to house all the world leaders in case of catastrophe?” After an hour of funeral-reception chit-chat…
“Mustang,” the art you love to hate, is all grown up. Five years ago today, Luis Jiminez’s 32-foot-high fiberglass sculpture of a wild horse was installed outside Denver International Airport — a dozen years late. In the intervening years, its cost had doubled from the original $300,000 commission, and its…
We won’t be pressing charges against Scott Gessler for taking more than five copies of Westword — although there have certainly been hints that we should call the Denver District Attorney’s office to see if Colorado’s controversial Secretary of State could be prosecuted for violating the state’s newspaper-theft statute. But…
As if Scott Gessler didn’t have enough trouble. The Secretary of State is already being investigated by theIndependent Ethics Commission to determine whether he violated the law by using office funds on a trip to Florida. (Gessler has sued the commission; a hearing is set for Thursday). Meanwhile, the Denver…
Twenty years ago, a new member of the Arvada City Council was making waves in the normally sleepy suburb. Joanne Conte, who’d been elected in 1991, was shaking things up so much that then-Westword staff writer Karen Bowers started working on a political story about the situation. But she got…
Raise a glass to the death of this year’s dopiest bill — so far. Senator Greg Brophy had proposed that parents be able to buy grown-up beverages at Colorado bars and restaurants for children over seventeen. But yesterday a Senate committee decided that Brophy’s “Drinks With Dad” proposal was all…
The truth, like plutonium, has a way of leaking out. After two years of deliberations, the Rocky Flats grand jury wanted to charge eight individuals for environmental crimes at the nuclear weapons plant — but the Justice Department declined to indict, and instead sent the jurors home in the spring…
The 107th National Western Stock Show rode out of town yesterday, leaving behind a passel of questions about how the Stock Show complex and concept can be rebranded for the future. One innovation this year was free parking, but overall attendance was also down to its lowest level since 2004…
Westword was only a few years old when a housewife who lived in a mobile home in Commerce City told us she wanted to write a humor column for the paper. We declined the offer: She wasn’t funny, we said. That housewife soon became known around the world as Roseanne,…
