by Mark Smiley | May 26, 2017 | Travel
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Cherry Creek Valley resident M.J. Mastalir was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame at a banquet held at the great hall at the Sanctuary Golf Course on Sunday, May 21, 2017. He joined such golf luminaries as Hale Irwin, Greg Stadler, Dow Finsterwald and Babe Zaharias.
Mastalir was a member of the University of Colorado golf team that won the Big Eight Championship in 1968. He was also a graduate of the University of Colorado Law School and while a law student he was the assistant golf coach to Les Fowler, taking the reins of the team when the Colorado Legislature was in session as Fowler was a state legislator.
In 1985 he formed Real Estate Capital Corporation which was the first national company to finance golf course real estate projects across the country. He lent out a billion dollars in projects before he semi-retired in 2010.
As an accomplished golfer at age 32, Mastalir qualified for the United States Amateur and the following year he qualified for the United States Mid-Amateur. He played in the U.S. Amateur again in 1985. He also participated in the British Amateur in 1984 and 1987. From 1986 through 1993 he served on the USGA Executive Committee rising to the Vice President and chairing the Rules of Golf Committee.
As the rules chair he served as a rules official at all four of golf’s majors — the U.S. Open, the Masters, the British Open and the PGA Championship. At the induction dinner, he described being a rules official at major golf tournaments as “long spells of boredom interspersed with bursts of terror.” He rec
alled officiating at the Masters when the highly temperamental Spaniard Seve Ballesteros slashed a shot into an azalea bush. Ballesteros rushed up to Mastalir about a foot away demanding to know where his ball was. Mastalir told him he had no idea but if it was found he would explain his options. The ball was found and Ballesteros took relief according to Mastalir’s instructions and then rushed away.
In 1999 Mastalir was selected by Golf Inc. as one golf’s 25 most influential people along with golf legends such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.
Mastalir also served on the Colorado Golf Association Board of Governors for 22 years and was CGA president from 1997 to 1999. He is best remembered as the man who negotiated for the CGA the acquisition of the former Mira Vista Golf Course from the Lowry Redevelopment Corporation after the Lowry Air Force Base was closed. He was key to converting the old military course into the nationally praised open to the public CommonGround Golf Course with the help of golf course architect Tom Doak.
He is a member of the Denver Country Club as well as the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in Scotland. Attending the induction dinner were his wife Debbie and their two children Sarah and Blake who have provided them four grandchildren.
For more information on the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, visit www.coloradogolf halloffame.org.
by Mark Smiley | May 26, 2017 | General Featured
Councilman Gets Glendale To Sit-up, Add Fitness Equipment
Addition Leverages Existing Appeal Of Park And Its Green Space.
by Glen Richardson
Never mind the punishing diets, the gym dates and the doctors’ warnings; the quest to live a healthier, more active lifestyle has come to Glendale’s Infinity Park.
New adult outdoor fitness equipment was officially unveiled in ceremonies at the park last month by the City of Glendale. Taking fitness outside of its traditional — and for some unappealing — gym setting and leveraging the existing appeal of Infinity Park and its green space adds new encouragement for residents to get outside this summer to rejuvenate, relax and refresh. Moreover, it’s what many of us want, need, desire and crave.
Glendale City Councilman Scott Brock came up with the idea of adding adult fitness equipment at Infinity Park South. It then took him several months of heavy lifting and pushing to get the City Council, Mayor Mike Dunafon and the city staff to approve the idea. Brock — who has served on the Glendale City Council since April 2016 — truly believes people should be involved, interested and aware of what’s happening in their neighborhood. He serves as the Council’s representative to the Regional Transportation District and to Four Mile Historic Park.
Pull In, Pull-Up
Once Josh Bertrand, Director of Public Works for Glendale and Infinity Park, and his staff completed installing the equipment a dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting was held the morning of May 9. T
he equipment is from Miracle Recreation and includes an adult Sit-Up apparatus to improve life with sit-ups, crunches, leg lifts and other hard but fulfilling exercises.
The newly installed Chin-Up module will help adults pull themselves to the top of the fitness ladder. Users will gain strength in their shoulders, upper back and bicep by engaging in pull-ups, chin ups and more.
Finally, there’s a Dip Station. It doesn’t matter whether you do calisthenics or weight lifting; dips have always been the single greatest chest and triceps builder. It is a complex exercise that amps up your metabolism and drives fat loss. Furthermore Dips make you look and feel amazing while delivering real performance gains.
Fulfilling Fun
The equipment is placed along the winding pathways inside the park behind the St. Andrew Abeline Seminary on Birch St. Placing the equipment in that area featuring park pavilions, picnic tables, barbecue grills, public lawn and a multi-purpose turf field encourages community and socialization. The outdoor fitness equipment is free to the user, encouraging people to work out together, and is available nearly any time of day.
Most prominently, of course,
Infinity Park is the home to the Glendale Raptors, one of the nation’s premier rugby clubs. However, as Infinity Park continues to grow, it’s becoming increasingly interwoven into the cultural fabric of the Valley in innumerable ways — as an event space, as a place for family fun, plus a place that advances the health and fitness of all ages.
Rugby is the cornerstone for a variety of fitness-oriented outlets at Infinity Park. The Glendale Sports Center delivers the experience of a high-priced gym at a fraction of the price. Community can also take full advantage of the full-size basketball court, personal trainers, sports leagues, fitness and dance classes, and luxurious locker rooms.
by Mark Smiley | May 26, 2017 | Editorials
The lead story on the front page of this issue of the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle discloses that the purported “investigative consultant” Charles Johnson who stalked and harassed the Glendale City Clerk and people who were quoted in the Chronicle critical of Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi was, in fact, a top super-secret undercover Special Agent for the FBI. Visit the Chronicle’s website at www.glendalecherrycreek.com and watch the entire Glendale Police Department’s interrogation of Mr. Johnson pretending to be an investigative consultant in violation of Colorado law. God help us if that is the best the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency has to offer.
Of course, it didn’t end there. Special Agent Kimberly Milka then went on to harass anyone who filed a complaint with the police departments of Lakewood or Glendale concerning Johnson’s stalking and harassment. Ms. Milka was clearly engaged in obstruction of justice and witness tampering, but who is going to stop the FBI when it violates citizens’ constitutional rights. The answer is no one.
We now know that Johnson’s and Milka’s criminal activities in Glendale are only the tip of the iceberg of FBI misconduct in this town of a little over 5,000 people. A former top Denver police officer who met several times with Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi believed that Kheirkhahi was trying to get him to solicit a bribe from Mike Dunafon, the mayor of Glendale. The former officer wanted to wear a wire to record Kheirkhahi’s statements and even interviewed with the FBI.
It appears that the FBI in response did nothing with regards to Kheirkhahi and instead instituted a campaign with the purported help of Kheirkhahi to get others to try to bribe Glendale officials including Dunafon.
It is assumed the FBI did so because it believed city officials were susceptible to taking bribes. Ever since Glendale incorporated in 1952, to the vast annoyance of officials in Denver and The Denver Post who after World War II became the official cheerleader of the City and County of Denver, it was rumored that Glendale officials were corrupt especially considering liquor licenses. It was perhaps a case of self-projection, as in Denver at various times to get a liquor license one had to hire the right politically connected lawyers and know the right City Council members while Glendale granted them to virtually anyone who wanted one.
The City and County of Denver did not seem to understand Glendale’s laissez faire and libertarian attitude toward municipal governance. Glendale saw itself as too poor to turn anyone away who wanted to do business in the town. There was, of course, zero reason to bribe anyone in a town that would already give you what you wanted in the first place.
As a result of Denver being closed down and very restrictive as to liquor licenses and Glendale freely issuing them, Glendale became a youth and nightclub Mecca in the 1970s and 1980s with dozens of bars, nightclubs and restaurants along Colorado Boulevard, East Virginia Avenue, Leetsdale Drive and South Cherry Street.
In the 1990s Denver was able to revitalize downtown with the building of Coors Field and now issued liquor licenses to essentially anyone who wanted one in LODO. Conversely Glendale mayors Steve Ward and Joe Rice killed its downtown by trying to close one liquor establishment after another while preventing new ones from being granted.
When Glendale recently decided to try to bring back an eating and entertainment district along Cherry Creek and East Virginia Avenue the old canard that Glendale city government was corrupt was res
urrected by the FBI. It would have been nice if the FBI had bothered to check that the Glendale mayor and his wife are independently wealthy and Glendale city officials are compensated and therefore highly unlikely to accept bribes.
The Glendale Police Department tried to constantly keep highly controversial Denver FBI Public Corruption Section head Jonny Grusing aware of everything it was doing with regards to Charles Johnson and everything else going on in the city. The Glendale Police Department believes that the FBI in turn continually lied to them especially regarding Charles Johnson.
Glendale now does not believe anything that Jonny Grusing has to say. Of course, if a member of the public lies to the FBI you go to jail, while the FBI states it may freely lie to anyone it wants without any repercussions which is what Special Agents Jonny Grusing and Charles Johnson have taken to new levels.
For many regular citizens in Glendale as well as Glendale public officials, the FBI is not in their minds the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency but at least at the local level is composed of people who lie, fabricate, harass, stalk and obstruct justice on a regular basis while seeking public corruption that does not appear to exist in Glendale. Grusing, in turn, has developed the reputation in some Denver metropolitan police departments as being a type of untrustworthy and “dirty cop.”
After the escapades of former FBI Director James Comey at a national level, the reputation of the Denver office feeds the narrative that something is seriously wrong with the FBI. Once that perception seeps in it will be difficult for the many honest and trustworthy local FBI agents to regain the public trust and respect they once had.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | May 26, 2017 | Featured Stories & Advertisers
by Mark Smiley | May 26, 2017 | Feature Story Middle Left
by Richard Colaizzi
If you haven’t noticed, craft beer is a big thing in Colorado, and the nation. You may be new to this movement, or you might be a longtime connoisseur of craft beer, or could care less about it all together. What you probably don’t know is that there is battle going on in America right now between the craft beer owner and ABInBev who is the largest owner/operator of big beer in the world (aka Budweiser).
Colorado felt this first hand in 2015 when local brewery Breckenridge Brewery sold to ABInBev. This sent a shockwave into the craft beer industry, locally and nationwide. This was not the first nor the last community craft beer to be gobbled up by the global power ABInBev. It was the first that was close to home for many Colorado craft beer drinkers and owners.
Here we are more than a
year later and ABInBev strikes again! On May 3, the North Carolina brewery Wicked Weed posted to their Facebook page that they would be selling to ABInBev. The social fallout was immediate. The comments that followed on the post were overwhelmingly negative to the decision. Many expressed the disappointment in selling out to the big bad beer monster.
Wicked Weed explained that while the growth of the brewery had been good, to get to the next level and keep (and grow) the staff, the move to go with ABInBev would help them maintain that growth and help the brand become a more nationally distributed beer. This is a topic that is debated many times in every brewery, blog, and podcast that involves beer. (By the way Brewski-Reviewski is a great beer podcast you want to check out!)
One local brewery had been collaborating with Wicked Weed and released a statement following the announcement. James and Sarah Howat 
of Black Project: Spontaneous & Wild Ales on South Broadway explained in the post saying “For us the choice is clear. At this stage, we don’t feel we are able to have a business relationship with Wicked Weed because that connection, ultimately, is one with ABInbev. Unfortunately, we don’t feel that having any connection with ABInBev is something we can do while still maintaining our mission, values, and core beliefs. We wish the best to everyone at Wicked Weed and we are happy for their success. We know they will continue to make great beers and we hope to remain personal friends in the future.”
That was just one of many in the craft beer scene to voice their disapproval of the move. While I write this and I have made many comments on air about moves like these, I believe this must be one of the toughest decisions a growing craft beer owner would make. To have a company come in and tell you they are offering you millions of dollars to buy your product and still let you be a part of the creative process makes for a difficult decision.
I do not believe this is something that many who comment, voicing their outrage and comments saying “How could you?” and “Never, I would never sell out!” have stopped to think about the magnitude that a choice like this would be. You have worked hard and built your brand but know there isn’t a whole lot you could do to keep the brewery moving forward unless you get the financial backing to do so.
I understand why Wicked Weed made this move and know they felt this was best for them. I do know that if you are in that position at some point in your career, in any field you are involved with, “Congrats you have done something right!” Now, while I understand why Wicked Weed made the choice to go with the big financial backing, I do not believe you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I find it funny that when these moves are made, the shock by the brewery that sold is surprised at the backlash they receive from the craft beer community. Especially when you sell to ABInBev.
Here is where I side with the craft beer community, I cannot and will not support ABInBev. They have done too many business dealings to try and corner the market and affect the distribution of the small beer maker. “See U.S. Justice Department in probing allegations that ABInBev seeking to curb competition in the beer market by buying distributors, making it harder for fast growing craft brewers to get their products on store shelves.” (Reuters Oct 12, 2015) I believe this will be the battle for the soul of the craft beer movement.
I wish the likes of Breckenridge and Wicked Weed the best moving forward, but since Breckenridge sold I have not, and will not, purchase their or Wicked Weed’s beer again. This is what is great about the business of beer. They have the 
right to sell the company any way they like, but I as a craft beer drinker will take my hard-earned dollar to other local breweries. See, I work twice a month at Launch Pad Brewing in Aurora serving beer and talking to this great craft beer community. I believe the craft beer community is a throwback to the all-American neighborhood pub where people go to meet, grab a beer and be part of their community. Not an all-night drunkfest that the bar has become today.
The problem of ABInbev is not going away anytime soon; at what point do we recognize the monopoly is already there? The great thing about beer in America is we have a choice on where to drink our beer, and for this beer drinker I will continue to drink at the little guy’s place and take my money there. You can always find me every other Saturday at Launch Pad (with its rocket-themed taproom) smiling and enjoying a wonderful craft beer. Launch Pad is located at 884 S. Buckley Rd. in Aurora.
I can also be found at festivals volunteering and po
uring craft beer for guests. One of the next festivals to look forward to is Denver’s Summer Brew Fest set for July 28 and 29, 2017. Visit www.denverbrewfest .com/summer for more information and until the next time, raise your glass.
Casey Bloyer is the Executive Producer of The Peter Boyles Show and The Dan Caplis Show. He is also host of The Bloyer Effect Sunday nights 8-11 p.m. on 710 KNUS. He is the co-host of Brewski-Reviewski with Connor Shreve, news reporter at 850 KOA. Brewski-Reviewski is a bi-monthly podcast talking about all things craft beer in Colorado. Twitter @Breviewski; Facebook www.facebook.com/ craftbeerradio; email brcraftbeer@gmail.com.
