Ahem! For your viewing pleasure, you might want to click on the YouTube video (three images down) as you peruse these wonderful images of just a wee example of what’s happening over in West Highlands. Preserve the character of the neighborhood, you say? Um, nope. Not happenin’…. The “character” of the neighborhood is, in a small part, provided at the end of this little audio/visual adventure. The few representative gems of the “character” of West Highlands are thumbnails, so wait till the video is over if you want to enlarge them.

Happy trails!

Oh well…

Nothing new to report here that most don’t already know. Yes, Kim Bailey, Denver’s Manager of Parks and Recreation is moving on, getting out of that kitchen where the heat just, well, got a little too intense. As Mayor Hickenlooper waxed nostalgic about Ms. Bailey’s exit (on to a position with the non-profit Outward Bound), “…she won’t have to endure the scrutiny that comes with these public sector jobs…”

Methinks we, THE PEOPLE, Mister Mayor won’t have to endure Ms. Bailey any longer. But, then, one does need to worry about what one wishes for. Indeed, who will hizzoner hire to replace her. I don’t even want to think of the possibilities. Chuck Morris?

Yes, I’ve taken my shots at Ms. Bailey: here, here and here. With her departure, I wish her well. Although it is a little troublesome that hizzoner is going to keep her on as co-chair of the task force looking at the needs of Parks and Recreation and co-chair of the Civic Center task force. Ugh!

Leave it to Charlie Brown, Councilman from South Denver, to provide the most egregious effrontery in commenting on Ms. Bailey’s departure. Ol’ Charlie–he’s such a clown–said of the job Ms. Bailey is vacating, “That is a tough, tough job because everybody thinks they know what they want for their parks, and we got folks who love our parks so much that they don’t think anyone should use them.” And, he didn’t even have his Stetson on when he said it.

Charlie, listen, we THE PEOPLE do know what we want for our parks and Ms. Bailey missed the boat in that regard in several areas. And, by the way, we THE PEOPLE believe in the intelligent use of our parks…places for our children to play, where our dogs can run free in those wonderful enclosures constructed for that purpose, where we can picnic, where we can meet our neighbors, where we can loll and stroll and, yes, where the Night Heron can sing, where the Mallards and Wood Ducks can raise their young, where the Cormorants can feed, where our Canadian friends can poop to their heart’s content.

Get a clue, Charlie. We THE PEOPLE have figured out what our parks are for. You, apparently, missed that bus.

This, then, ends my entries on Kim Bailey…I think.

There is a tenet in public procurement–probably private procurement, as well–that the procurement authority becomes the advocate for the most responsive, responsible, qualified proposer/bidder as determined either through a bid or an RFP process. The procurement authority champions, if you will, the most responsive, responsible, qualified proposer/bidder not so much as a matter of collaboration, but, rather as a matter of affirming the integrity of the bid or RFP process itself. It cannot be otherwise. The procurement entity must be proud/satisfied that they have made every possible effort to assure the most transparent, defensible, thorough work product possible is brought to fruition in the form of a duly executed contract that, in this case, will assure the best interests of the city are served.

Having said this, it is also important to note that it is the responsibility of the procurement authority to assure the bid/RFP document provides a thorough, detailed scope of work upon which the potential bidders/proposers will base their pricing, whether that pricing is for line item goods (trucks, toilet paper, nuts and bolts), or for services either requiring, e.g. a net unit price per hour or for what is commonly referred to as a “management fee” which contains nested costs.

Enter the recent RFP for parking services at Denver International Airport. The contract for parking services at DIA encompasses the management of all facets of parking at DIA, including the toll booths where money is collected, valet services, outlying parking lots, etc. The parking services at DIA net approximately $110 million for the airport and encompass about 41,000 parking spaces. It is important to note that these funds are NOT your tax dollars. The airport operates as a “enterprise fund” which means it is a city entity that generates its own funds and, therefore, directs those funds right back to the airport. Again, it’s not your tax dollars at work here. It’s the traveling public which forks over that $110 million a year.

There were four proposers: AMPCO, the current contractor with more than ten years of experience managing parking services at DIA; Standard Parking Corporation; Five Star Parking; and New South Parking. We need only to look at the “successful” proposer, Standard Parking, and the incumbent, AMPCO.

The RFP was structured to require the proposers to provide a management fee within which non-reimbursable costs are nested. Those costs include but are not limited to insurances, bonding, cleaning of the office facility, providing vehicles, wages and benefits for employees, etc. The RFP provided that reimbursable costs would be negotiated between the vendor and the airport on a monthly basis. Problem is, the RFP was apparently not specific as to what should be included in that management fee.

AMPCO proposed a management fee within their proposal of $1.3 million. Standard proposed a management fee of $510,000.

Now, one might think slam-dunk, no problem, Standard is the one. I mean, for heaven’s sake, their management fee is less than half that proposed by AMPCO.

Red flags abound, however.

I’ll proceed with this caveat: I have not seen the entire RFP issued by the airport, nor have I seen the responses. But, nevertheless, those red flags wave and flutter which, if not seen, is witness only that you’re not looking or you’re legally blind.

If you’ve got about two hours and fifteen minutes to spare, you might want to take a look at the March 19th meeting of Denver City Council’s Economic Development Committee. The link is here. (Click on “video” for the March 19th meeting.) The discussion is revealing, to-the-point and provides a little fodder for this post.

What bothers me most about what appears to be an irregular process DIA undertook to identify a new contractor to run airport parking services, is the intrigue engendered by the “successful” proposer’s–Standard Parking–bid ($510,000 annually), that was half that of the incumbent, AMPCO, ($1.3Million). What we now know is that AMPCO’s proposal included in its management fee a bonus pay program and health care reimbursement for workers that, apparently, the folks at DIA (City employees) who put the proposal together didn’t include as a “requirement” of the RFP document. It’s significant that DIA didn’t include these costs in their RFP, because–If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’–AMPCO, the incumbent of more than ten years, undoubtedly knows more about the parking operation at DIA than those city employees who ostensibly oversee the parking operation at airport…thus the glaring discrepancy in the proposals. Note: Methinks those city employees who actually work the trenches of the parking operation at DIA were devalued by higher authority at DIA and, most likely, their recommendations/comments/warnings were not heeded by higher authority who, apparently, put this RFP together.

Two questions come to mind: 1) Didn’t city employees at DIA who put the RFP together consider the input of the incumbent of over ten years prior to issuing the RFP; and, 2) Has higher authority at DIA determined that cost savings on this contract are to be appropriately realized on the backs of the current contract employees, many of whom have served this contract since it was first awarded to AMPCO more than ten years ago? And, yes, those employees are unionized.

Yeah, I know, we’ve all got our opinions on the relevance of unions. Times have changed. The relevance of unions has slip-slid from the essential worth they once enjoyed. But, hell, to ignore the relevance of the SEIU organization of DIA parking services employees is to ignore the dignity, the long-fought struggle of good folks who have serviced this contract for more than ten years; of folks who have come to believe that their efforts on behalf of the airport are meaningful and should–no!–demand recognition without the specter of a Hickenlooper tap dance that devalues their service and, much like the Hick’s distaste for career city employees, places the burden of the said cost savings squarely on the backs of those employees servicing the parking contract at DIA.

Read what Jack Ricchiuto, Executive Vice President of Standard Parking (the apparent “successful” proposer), had to say about this issue: “We weren’t going to dole stuff out of the cookie jar to satisfy what the union might think would be a fair reimbursement of health care or their hourly rates…” A “fair” reimbursement, you say, Mister Ricchiuto? Have you not, Mister Ricchuto taken on the Hick’s mantra, here? Parking services employees at the airport are not undocumented workers who, like those who served the back room functions of Hick’s restaurants (when he owned them), who dared not speak up about the “fairness” of the Hick’s laggesse or lack thereof because, ahem, many of them were undocumented.

Questions

1. Is it not a concern for Council members and airport personnel that the incumbent of ten years–who presumably knows what the hell the contract entails; what the real costs are–provides a proposal over twice that of the “successful” proposer, Standard Parking? Indeed, what does the incumbent know about this contract that Standard doesn’t?

2. Unbalanced bids. Usually this procurement term relates to a bidder or proposer–usually in the construction trades–who provides pricing for bid items that are obviously heavily loaded on one end and sparsely loaded on the other. In other words, the contractor may provide a price for an X widget at five times the market value of that X widget, while providing pricing for a Y Widget that is three times less than the market value of a Y widget. That, basically, constitutes what procurement folks call an “unbalanced bid.” Indulge me in extending this procurement phenomenon to the DIA parking contract. Didn’t it occur to DIA personnel and the panel who reviewed the proposals for the parking contract that there was a huge “unbalanced” discrepancy between the incumbent and other proposers? And, if they did, wouldn’t you think they–DIA personnel and the review panel–would want to dig into the obvious, glaring discrepancy to determine why the numbers were so far apart? I mean, after all, it’s the incumbent who has provided the services for more than ten years and who, one would think, knows more about the actual costs of the contract than any other proposer or, indeed, the airport itself.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I, as a procurement professional, called in a “low” bidder or proposer to ask the relevant question: “Hey, my friend, your bid is so low that I think either you’ve set yourself up to fail miserably in taking on this contract, or you’ve misinterpreted the requirements of the RFP.” And, in asking those questions, I required the “low” bidder or “successful” proposer to explain, in detail, their costs, their nested costs and what their strategy was to assure the successful pursuit of the contract in question. As I said, it didn’t happen often. But, when it did, not only were the best interests of the city served, but those of the “questionable” contractor, as well.

That’s the job of a procurement professional. No public meeting announcement required. No need for the Denver City Council to conduct their own investigation. It is the procurement professional who is responsible to “iron out” these issues prior to the presentation of the “successful” bidder’s/proposer’s bid/proposal to the world. The procurement professional is charged with this responsibility. It’s his/her job. Period.

Oh, but we see that apparently the city employee who drove this peculiar RFP process, Patrick Heck–the Deputy Manager of Aviation for Revenue and Economic Development–kind of, oh, well, changed the rules of the RFP in mid-stream. First of all, even though the RFP declared that no parking firm who operated a competing parking business within fifteen miles of DIA would be eligible to offer a proposal, that particular requirement was cast aside when, apparently, Standard Parking (who does operate a competing parking facility within fifteen miles of the airport), asked a question during the RFP process relative to this prohibition. And, WALLAH! the prohibition was dropped.

Let’s backup a moment.

It was revealed that DIA didn’t start the RFP process for this massive contract until December, 2007. The AMPCO contract was due to expire on April 15th, 2008. That’s four months to do everything required in an RFP process, plus plan and stage a smooth transition if the incumbent was not the “successful” proposer. FOUR MONTHS! May I use the word “reprehensible” here. The RFP process should have been commenced at least six months and, even better, eight months to a year prior to the expiration of the present contract.

Patrick Heck and crew also decided that the health care contribution to employees would be 75%. Okay, that’s fine. But, hey, apparently half the current employees are receiving 86% reimbursement for single health care coverage. Why did Heck and crew specify the 75% contribution. Well, see, it just made it easier for everybody if they had a set figure. I mean, gosh, it was a little difficult to calculate these varying health care contribution numbers and so what if long-time employees were going to get screwed in the process.

Then there’s the issue of the cost of the contract from the “successful” proposer–Standard Parking–which Heck and crew calculated to be $70 million over the term of the contract. But, wait! After meeting with City Council and hearing the concerns voiced by Council members, Heck and crew went back to the drawing board and came back with a revised figure of $85 million. Gosh, where’d they go wrong? I mean, leaving $15 million on the table to begin with is a pretty hefty, um, miscalculation.

Then there’s the matter of Heck’s persistence in advising Council that they–Heck and crew–couldn’t possibly dig into the nested costs in each proposer’s management fees because, well, that’s proprietary information and no one should be privy to that information except the proposers themselves. Bullshit! As I noted before, when the discrepancy in proposals reaches the level of “unbalanced”–as I’ve described above–the procurement professional has a duty, an obligation in the best interests of the city to know what those nested costs are. It is the duty, the obligation of the procurement professional to investigate all facets–including nested costs–of any proposal that, on the face of it, appears to be just too good to be true. But, Heck and crew didn’t undertake this important step in the best interests of the city. The word “proprietary” ruled the day. Hell, given my experience, if a proposer was not willing to explain in detail how they arrived at their numbers, how they put their proposal together, I would have suggested that, in good conscience and in the best interests of the city, their proposal would be considered as “non-responsive” and that would have been that.

Well, City Council, on a seven to five vote, approved the Standard contract on first reading this past Monday night. Go figure. I heard councilmembers suggest that no RFP is perfect and, oh well, let’s just get on with it. Council also approved a six-month extension of the current contract–AMPCO–with the possibility of another six-month extension. Reasoning: Well, the airport didn’t want to change players during their busiest season. Again, bullshit. The specter of labor unrest at the airport when all the donkeys (the DNC) are coming to town in August had more to do with the extension of the current contract than anything else.

Final thoughts.

An RFP process can be pretty close to perfect. But, the work to assure an RFP process is as close to perfect as possible comes on the front end when the RFP is prepared by procurement professionals. Perfecting an RFP process also comes at the tail-end when proposals are received and evaluated. Regardless of what the “blue ribbon” review committee came up with during the evaluation process, it was incumbent upon procurement professionals to guide that process in such a manner that any and all anticipated concerns, not only from the airport but from the City Council as well, were handled responsibly and thoroughly prior to presenting the RFP for approval by City Council. “Proprietary” information from any proposer ceases to be “proprietary” when push comes to shove and the procurement professional puts their hind end on the line in the affirmation that a “successful” proposer is responsive to the requirements of the RFP.

But, then, if the RFP itself stinks then we got problems, y’all.

This, then, is where we find ourselves with the DIA parking contract. Methinks, purchasing professionals had very little to do with this whole process. Or, if they did, they failed their charge. But, then, purchasing professionals are career bureaucrats…lowly creatures, barely worth their input, much less their salaries.

Bush booed at 2008 Nationals home opener

Oh, how fitting; how appropriate. And, methinks the dipshit doesn’t even give a second thought to the reaction of the crowd.

Creationists Pollute Young Minds at Museum on Nightline

Oh my… This is happening in Denver y’all, not Topeka. T rex had to wait to eat meat until Adam and Eve ate that damned apple? WTF!

“Booster Bawb,” Robert W. Speer, Mayor of Denver, 1904-1912, 1916-1918.

Following my initial entry on this topic, and watching the tortuous disintegration of a cohesive national Democratic Party, I thought it would be if not instructive, at least interesting to take a look at Denver, circa 1906-08. 1908 was, of course, when the Democracy first came to Denver for their national confabulation.

NOTE: If you’re not a history buff, then you’ll probably find this quite boring. Additionally, quoted material comes from editions of the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post published in 1906 and 1908.

William T. Davoren, who, in 1908, was Chairman of the Democratic City Central Committee of Denver and had served in numerous patronage and elective offices in Denver (patronage largely bestowed by Mayor Robert W. Speer), described for the Denver Post his conception of the potency of machine politics. He talked about his great love for the perpetual contest involved in politics–a contest of human nature, men and women. “But with the machine,” he told the Post, “you know, the game is simplified.”

Davoren noted that he was “…in favor of machine politics. I believe in the efficacy and fairness of machine politics. Better public officers and more satisfactory administrations are obtained through machine politics than by any other means. And then, by thorough organization, you have a better change of victory.”

The Post’s interviewer, Martin Dunn, looked at Davoren, the big Irishman, and concluded that “The Irish demand order and certainty. That is why they are Roman Catholics. The Church never changes.”

“That is why the Irish are the best soldiers and the best policemen and the best machine politicians on earth,” Dunn continued. “They sink or swim with their cheifain or their machine.”

Interesting to note, what was called the “Speer Delegation,” to the 1906 Democratic State Convention, included men with the following surnames: Kenehan, Daly, McGuire, Murphy, Callahan, Dooley, McIntyre, Hyder, Horan, Delaney, Sullivan, Mahoney, Carney, Finn, Meehan, McCarty, Leary, Harrington, McPhee, McGilvray, Donovan, Riordan, Rooney.

The Post piece continued with Davoren explaining, “With a machine politics becomes cold-blooded business. The machine enters the fight with the intention of winning. To be the conquerer the machine knows that substantial men must be nominated. The machine selects only the men it thinks will win. The weaker men are excluded and are not permitted to be candidates.”

Davoren suggested that he was not the “…inventor of machine politics. No one has accused me of that. The original political machine was mothered by Necessity. It appeared long ago. President Roosevelt is a machine politician. …He operates his machine just as machines are operated in Denver, only on a larger scale.”

Dunn asked Davoren what it was that constituted a machine. “It consists of party leaders,” Davoren said, “district leaders and their assistants. Every ward has a district leader. This leader has a committeeman in every precinct. It may be that some of the district leaders and precinct committee men are holding political jobs. If they are it makes them anxious to assist their party.”

Davoren noted that the “…sole object of a machine is to pick out good candidates and induce all the men and women of its political faith to register and vote.”

Davoren lectured Dunn: ‘Tammany in New York has a machine man in every block who is called a ‘block man.’ If the block man don’t bring every vote he promised to bring he is fired. You see, it is business with the Tammany machine.”

1906 was a vintage year for discord within the Democratic Party in Colorado. This was the year that self-respecting, self-righteous members of the Colorado Democracy–led chiefly by the owner of the Rocky Mountain News, ex-Senator Thomas “Owl Eyes” Patterson, succeeded in “spewing-out” the Speer delegation to the State Democratic Convention.

What bothered the Democrats who wore the white hats, was that they believed Robert Speer, along with the public utility-Republican-corporation-machine, had sold out the Democracy to the wealthy Republicans of the state, and especially, in the city of Denver. In the words of one of the Democratic white knights, T.J. O’Donnel, the need to “spew-out” the Speer delegation was clear and simple: “Mr. Bryan [William Jennings],” he said, “has been making a fight in Illinois against the domination of one man, Sullivan [a Chicago political boss]. We are making a fight in this state against the domination of one man, Mr. Speer. Mr. Byan’s objections to Mr. Sullivan is that he owns a gas company. Our objections to Mr. Speer is that the gas company owns him.”

The 216 Speer delegates to the 1906 state Democratic convention, upon hearing that they had been voted out of their own party gathering, rose from their seats, formed themselves in Champa Street outside the meeting hall, and marched two abreast to the Albany Hotel where they held their own convention, of sorts. It was at the Albany that “…occurred one of the strangest scenes ever seen in the strange politics of Colorado.” And, it was at the Albany where members of the Denver machine spoke-up, emotionally bearing their deepest feelings about the party; their machine.

The Speer delegation looked on each other as “…the boys who had stayed with the party when there wasn’t carfare in the treasury and [had] canvassed their precincts through a dozen campaigns with their little pencils and pads when they knew they didn’t have a look-in, [now] only to be kicked out of their own house by strangers.”

At the Albany where the ousted Speer [Denver] delegation to the State Democratic Convention gathered, it was reported that the Speer band struck up the tune “Tammany,” to the wild cheers of the Denver machine delegates. It was then that the Boss, Speer, rose to address his chums, those black-hatted, hard-hitting party workers who knew more about politics and winning elections than any slew of “progressive” Democrats like T.J. O’Donnels or Tom Pattersons.

Speer told the crowd that he “…would rather be a member of this delegation and out of that convention tonight, than be a member of any delegation in a hundred such conventions.”

“This organization,” Speer continued, “raised over $20,000 two years ago, not a dollar of which came from any corporation and not a single penny from Patterson [the owner of the Rocky, at the time]. The only thing he ever gave to the Democratic Party was trouble and a loud voice denouncing the men who did the real work of the party. Every employee of the city gave twenty-five per cent of his monthly salary. Men came to me, and they are sitting here now, and begged to be allowed to give more. And when I refused to take any more of their money, knowing them to be poor men, they left with tears streaming down their cheeks.” (Oh, my…)

Charles J. Hughes, Jr., the attorney for many of the public utility concerns in Denver at the time–who would become in a few years the U.S. Senator from Colorado–then rose from his chair beside Speer and declared, “I don’t care how they vote in Pueblo and Paonia. I vote in Denver! Let them breakfast on that with what appetite they have left. In Denver! And I mean it! We are still and ever will be true examples of what I have all my life loved to call the ‘unterrified, invincible and terrible Democracy! …And those who jeered, as our delegation marched out of the hall today will shed bitter tears and come to us in prayer before they will ever get our assistance again.”

True to Hughe’s prediction, the Denver machine in November, 1906 elected a Republican, Buchtel, to the Governor’s chair. Indeed, when the tallying of votes was over it was discovered that the Democratic nominee, Alva Adams, lost in every single ward in Denver and Buchtel won in Denver by almost 10,000 votes.

Alice Rohe, a writer for the New York Evening World noted in an article in 1909, “Denver’s Mayor Can Give Tammany Pointers on Absolute Bossism.” She wrote, “For so long has the Tammany tiger reigned supreme as the symbolic figure head of political bossism that a new species of the genus politicus entering the public arena might be regarded with skepticism.

“There is a mountain lion, however, right in the Western Rockies who could give this long undisputed Tammany tiger a few pointers on absolute bossism.

“…It is said of Denver that it has no political parties, only organizations. And in this mixed-up political situation Mayor Speer rises in his absolutism above them all. He is the dodge of Denver, and political puppets dance to the pulling of the strings in the hands of the big blond man in city hall.

“Although a Democrat, the laisser-faire regime of politics in Colorado, which saw a Democratic Mayor [Speer] and a Republican Governor [Buchtel] elected by the same machinery is only one more proof of the absolutism of the machine boss of city hall, who when party issues become muddled, takes on the standard of ‘independence.’”

This is a fascinating period in Denver’s history. Speer is a fascinating character in Denver’s history. And, the backdrop for the 1908 Democratic National Convention was a city, Denver, where “…when party issues [became] muddle[d]…” relied upon the organization, not the party, to make all right with the world; to put God in his heaven.

We’ll see how this bygone scenario plays out in August, 2008.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Yes, the Hick has officially declared the period from 12:01 a.m. M.D.T. August 15, 2008 to 11:59 (no indication whether a.m. or p.m. I assume, p.m.) M.D.T. August 31, 2008 to be an “Extraordinary Event.” The preceding link is to the official “Declaration” by the mayor, this link is to a .pdf file providing the boundaries of the “Extraordinary Event.” (You can zoom in on the .pdf.)

To give you some idea to what extent THE PEOPLE will be limited/restricted in exercising their First Amendment rights during the deliberations of the Democratic National Convention , it is instructive to note the boundaries of this so-called “Extraordinary Event” extend to Speer Boulevard at the I25 Interchange, Coors Field, the City of Cuernavaca Park (the easterly most park along the South Platte), Elitches, the Auraria Campus, Grant Street, Thirteenth Avenue, Park Avenue, I25, all of Downtown Denver, Union Station, Civic Center. (A narrative of the boundaries is included in the initial link, above.) Well, you get the idea. Ain’t takin’ no chances with THE PEOPLE here. Lord help us if THE PEOPLE wish to whoop and holler, parade or protest. Let Freedom ring!

Oh, but wait a minute… The mayor’s declaration includes:

Designated Parade Route; permit and fee waiver

The Manager of Safety will identify at least one designated parade route in the affected area for groups to engage in speech and expressive activities through the use of marches, processions or parades, with the route terminating within sight and sound of the convention site.

Yes, indeed, the magnificence of the city’s tolerance of THE PEOPLE’S right to assembly and free speech is surely addressed here. I mean, what more could be done to assure the promise of the First Amendment? What more could the city do to expose the intense dedication of Democrats to the Constitution?

Now, if there are conflicting requests by folks who wish to utilize this “…designated parade route…” then a “…permit coordinating committee…” will tackle the said conflict and “…resolve timing conflicts between various groups desiring to use the route.” Now, if a group or, presumably, one person wishes to utilize anything other than the “…designated parade route…” to “…engage in speech and expressive activities…” then permits and licenses will be required to do so. No permit or license will be required to utilize the “…designated parade route…,” but, as noted, conflicts in timing of groups wishing to utilize the “…designated parade route…” will be vetted by the “…permit coordinating committee.”

The question, of course, is whether or not I can walk from my West Highlands home and carry, oh, maybe a “War is not the Answer” sign down Speer Boulevard, past the I25 interchange and, right before the entrance to Elitches (which is within the “Affected Area” of the “Extraordinary Event”), wave my sign above my head and “…engage in speech…” that expresses my dissatisfaction with the war, will I be doing something illegal? Yes, I know, the Constitution grants me the right to engage in such behavior, but, in Denver, from August 15th to August 31, will the same become offensive to the sensibilities of the Democrats, the city and–screw the Constitution–be cause for the Denver Police Department or the Secret Service or, indeed, Haliburton operatives to move me on or, if I refuse to move, arrest me?

It is probably important to note that the “..affected area…” described in the mayor’s declaration is not specifically identified as a “security corridor,” or some other moniker the Secret Service has yet to define. Or, is the “…affected area…” indeed the “security corridor” identified by the Secret Service? If so, this becomes even scarier or, perhaps, only reflective of our government’s slip-slide into the repression of THE PEOPLE; something set up there on the shelf along with warrentless wiretaps and incarceration sans due process.

And, by the way, if the Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, howcum the Hick can do it?

Good question, huh.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

If you are very careful and very quiet, and if you meet the dawn at Berkeley Lake, you may see the Night Heron hunkering amongst the cattails and reeds; a solitary creature whose red eyes scrutinize your benign skulk near its perch; a shy creature whose song, while rarely heard, entrances.

You who believe Providence left you incomplete, not giving you wings, not giving you–or allowing you to forget??–a primordial connection to the good earth that the Night Heron knows; you who yearn to understand the simple gift of an existence that unerringly follows the imperatives of nature, the tit-for-tat balance engendered first by that primordial ooze that gave life to this blue planet; yes, you who cogitate a while about these things–perhaps at dawn at Berkeley Lake where you prize the gift of the sight because you have been honored to see the Night Heron–do you wonder, as the Night Heron takes flight, if Kim Bailey, the supposed steward of these magnificent creatures, has ever tarried a moment to consider the responsibility of that stewardship?

Kim Bailey (links to prior posts are below), Denver’s Manager of Parks and Recreation is seeking–undoubtedly following the mantra of her boss, Mayor John Hickenlooper–to entrepreneurialize Denver’s parks. Specifically (link providing the specificity is below), by hook or by crook, Ms. Bailey is maneuvering to allow for-profit enterprises to commandeer portions of Denver’s parks for a day, two days, three days and allow for-profit enterprises to produce music festivals or, perhaps, other “cultural happenings” within our parks. Those events would see portions of Denver’s parks segregated by…um, armed militia? barbed wire? electrified barriers? concrete blocks? The segregation of those portions of our parks would be necessary because it is Ms. Bailey’s intent to allow only those who pay a fee to enter those sequestered areas. Yes, I know, we’re talking about OUR PARKS, our tax supported parks where our children play, where we stroll and loll, where some throw a line into dangerous waters, where we walk our dogs, where we meet our neighbors. And, yes, the invasion of paying revelers to these events would, naturally, require parking spaces and we all know that parking space in our parks is surely limited, but parking in the surrounding neighborhoods would, of course, be part of Ms. Bailey’s plan. And, oh, the booze. Nothing is so fine an accoutrement to a festival than lots of booze, beer…the fuel for a good time to be had by all. Then, of course, there is the music. Amplifiers. The boom of subwoofers rattling the china on the shelf. The squeal of the electric guitar. The hoots and the hollers from the paying customers sweetening the night.

Ah, perhaps this is a lazy post. Perhaps I’ve grown weary of haranguing the Hick. What interest is taken when any contrary voice is raised against the charming stumbling tongue of the sweetheart of Denver’s elite and, perhaps, those who don’t know any better?

But, then there are the critters. Who speaks for them? Who, indeed, considers the fragile balance between nature and man within Denver’s parks…when the subwoofer booms, when the steel guitar twangs, when the revelers invade?

The Coddling of Kim Bailey The Coddling of Kim Bailey (Part II)

Save City Park - A Discussion of Admission-Based Events in Denver’s Parks

Yes, I know where the Night Heron sings. Would that others discover the unassuming, quiet existence of those creatures who call our parks home. But, for how long?

Ah, there’s the rub.

Now, don’t get your nose hairs all tangled up with what some may believe to be a derogatory term for folks who happen to come from Oklahoma. My paternal side is heavily Okie and I don’t mind the term at all…maybe because I don’t happen to live there. But, anyway…

The video Why I don’t fish is great. Just a laugh for a Saturday. (The video is over at MySpace TV, so it takes a few seconds to load.)

“So they char the inside of their bodies in order to scrape up news which can go out to the machine, that enormous machine, that intellectual leviathan which is obliged to eat, each day, tidbits, gristle, gravel, garbage cans, charlotte russe, old rubber tires, T-bone steaks, wet cardboard, dry leaves, apple pie, broken bottles, dog food, shells, roach powder, dry ball-point pens, grapefruit juice. All the trash, all the garbage, all the slop and a little of the wealth go out each day and night into the belly of that old American goat, our newspapers…

“So great guilt clings to reporters. They know they help to keep America slightly insane.”

Norman Mailer

I catch the daily feed from the Denver Business Journal which, understandably, does not slink (rather, it appears to celebrate) from reporting on the demise of the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. The Denver Post is owned by MediaNews Group, Inc., the principal owner being William Dean Singleton. The Post and the News are both published by the Denver Newspaper Agency under a joint operating agreement (JOA) that was established following the approval of the same in January, 2001, by none other than the Attorney General of the United States at the time, Janet Reno.

One of the latest reports from the Denver Business Journal noted:

Denver-based newspaper company MediaNews Group Inc. has been placed on a “negative” watch status by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services.

S&P on Jan. 24 had lowered the corporate credit rating of privately-held MediaNews to “B” from “BB-minus,” citing “heavy debt levels” and “limited cushion in bank covenants.” The rating was lowered from BB to BB-minus in June 2006.

In explaining the negative-watch announcement, S&P analyst Emile Courtney cited “ongoing concerns regarding operating trends in the newspaper sector, which we believe will continue to drive meaningful [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] declines for newspaper companies” this year.

Ahem… “…ongoing concerns regarding operating trends in the newspaper sector…”

The Denver Business Journal also reported:

The Denver Newspaper Agency, publisher of The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, sustained a decline in revenue in the fiscal year ending June 30, to $386.3 million from $419.1 million the previous year and $433.2 million the year before that, The Post’s owner reported Friday.

The DNA, which publishes the two dailies under a deal between the newspapers’ owners, reported net income for the 2007 fiscal year of $12.3 million, down from $21.8 million the year before.

…The figures were contained in the annual report of Denver-based MediaNews Group, the privately held company that owns The Post. The report was filed Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Companywide, MediaNews Group ad revenue decreased 6.6 percent in the last fiscal year, not including additional revenue from several newspapers it acquired during the year, the company said. It said the only category to record an increase was Internet advertising, which climbed 7.7 percent.

The company’s circulation revenue also dropped by 5.6 percent during the fiscal year, again excluding newly acquired papers.

MediaNews Group did not separately report newsroom expenses at The Denver Post in its annual report. However, the report said that the company sustained a combined loss of $10.4 million on its JOAs in Denver and Salt Lake City in the fiscal year ending June 30, an improvement over the $23.3 million loss reported the previous year.

Back in May, 2001, Patty Calhoun over at Westword wrote a piece with regard to a Denver Charter Amendment (1B) (that the insufferable bureaucrat–now who could that be??–wrote and carried through the City Council approval process with the assistance of the City Attorney’s Office), that took the newly formed Denver Newspaper Agency to task for opposing the said amendment. The amendment provided that the City no longer would be restricted by Charter language to publish public notices exclusively in newspapers. She noted, in part:

While Denver has been posting official notices on its Web site (denvergov.org) for some time, the city’s interest in exploring advertising alternatives exploded after the DNA quoted its new ad rates: The 83 cents a line the city had paid to put legal notices in the News was being jacked up 360 percent. And although that increase was lower than what some stunned retail advertisers were reporting, it still seemed ridiculous to George Seaton, director of purchasing for the City and County of Denver. So even as the city negotiated with the DNA — which ultimately dropped the city’s rate to $1.88 a line — Denver officials moved quickly this spring to get Amendment 1B on the ballot.

“The Charter and Revised Municipal Code of the City and County of Denver is currently riddled with archaic and restrictive language that requires the communication of the city’s ‘official’ business to be conducted only through daily newspapers,” Seaton explained in a letter to the editor that neither daily saw fit to publish. “This archaic language surely harks back to Denver’s first Charter of 1904…an era when daily newspapers were certainly the prime method of mass communication. Times and technology have, of course, changed since 1904. We cannot continue to rely upon century-old mandates that have been outgrown by the fantastic and exciting advances in communication technology.”

From radio to television to the Internet, these advances have been an indisputable boon to communication — but no bonus for daily newspapers, which have been dying off with regularity for the past few decades. The News avoided almost certain death when it declared itself the “losing newspaper” in Denver’s longstanding newspaper war and entered into a joint operating agreement with the Post last year, a move that brought us the DNA.

Belaboring this subject, I’ve posted twice on the saga of what I believe to have been the proverbial straw that broke the back of Denver’s daily newspapers. Or, perhaps a better way to characterize it is to say the proverbial straw that broke OUR backs with regard to Denver’s daily newspapers. Those posts are here and here.

The Post and News are struggling to find their way, to establish a credible presence in “… the fantastic and exciting advances in communication technology.” Before that happens, methinks, William Dean Singleton and his minions necessarily need to rise from their repose on the ground, let go of their sad stories of the death of the old goats and walk toward the light where, it occurs to me, all of the rest of us happen to be.