by Peter Boyles | Apr 27, 2018 | Blasting with Boyles
This just in… name that “gate.”
As everyone over the age of 40 knows, anytime there’s a scandal in America the last name of the scandal becomes “gate,” predicated on Watergate, an apartment office complex in Washington, D.C., that gets its name from one of the gates of the city of Jerusalem, the Water Gate. And after the demise of Richard Nixon, and the rise of an aggressive media, every scandal has the suffix — gate. Koreagate. Russiagate. Etc.
Do you get the picture?
So, sitting in a smoke-filled boardroom of the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, I am stumped. I need you to name that gate. (We’re talking about the alleged sex and sex harassment scandal and cover-up involving Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.) If it’s good enough and you submit it to me, peterboyles@710knus.com, you can win an all expense trip to the morning show and I’ll let you read the weather. Or better yet if you don’t want to get up in the morning you can have a cup of coffee with Chuck Bonniwell and Julie Hayden during their show weekday afternoons from 1-4pm.
What do we know so far? All I’ve got are questions. Questions about the Denver media, the actions of a man I once had high regard for, Denver Chief of Police Gerry Whitman, the role the Brownstein law firm played in this entire scandal, who the players are and who the sugar is.
So just like Watergate, seemingly also Donald Trump and his porno one-night stand, it’s never the act. The Watergate scandal wasn’t really the break-in, it was the lies. In Oliver Stone’s movie on Nixon, in the end a sweaty actor said it’s always the lies.
And here we have a series of lies first told by Michael Hancock, then The Denver Post, then Channel 9 and then everyone seems to fall in lockstep.
With the exception of a handful of us media outcasts who are much like the little boy in the story the Emperor’s New Clothes, who is outside the gates pointing at the king and saying the king is in his altogether and naked as the day is born. Whereas if you are really smart and bright and black tie wearing, white wine drinking, runny cheese eating media butt boy you saw nothing wrong with the actions of Michael Hancock and other media outlets. Well guess what suckers, the chickens have come home to roost.
With other media outlets circling the porcelain convenience, The Denver Post editorializing how you can help them — hells bells. The Denver Post is supposed to help you understand these scandals — not you help them make their payroll. Somewhere William Randolph Hearst is crying.
The power brokers, the fat cats, the country club boys, members of Denver’s erstwhile press club, the winky winky buddies who go to press conventions and hear John Hickenlooper tell them how great a job they do — press people you should not be applauding him you should be investigating him. But then again let’s all help fluffy the dog find a forever home and let me tell you how much I love your Denver Broncos.
Elvis Presley is alleged to have told his mother, “There’s a storm coming,” the first time he heard himself singing on the radio. I say this with great pride. Pay attention Denver Post, Channel 9, a lot of people with microphones and laptops in front of them, to the Denver City Council members who cowardly turned a blind eye, to the Denver Police Department (huge questions behind its management) to developers and banks to bond daddies and corporate fund raisers and lobbyists and Chamber of Commerce members — believe me when I tell you this, as Elvis said to Gladys in Tupelo — “There is a storm coming!” Get ready. You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dawg.
by Mark Smiley | Mar 28, 2018 | General Featured
by Lisa Marlin
Patiently Waiting: Tugboat waits patiently on his leash while his owner Kyra Bebus visits with Sam Gannon, Denver Senior Park Ranger, at Cheesman Park. Tugboat is able to jump and play while safely on his leash, right.
“Rules are rules,” William McGihon of Denver said after he put a leash on his dog Liam when told to so by a park ranger on a warm March Sunday afternoon in Cheesman Park. “I am aware of the leash law, so I understood and was willing to cooperate obviously.”
The leash law forbids dogs to be off leash unless they are in a designated city dog park. The ordinance is posted on signs throughout the park system, but as outdoor temperatures rise, so does the number of people who ignore the ordinance, especially in Cheesman Park. In 2017, 20 percent of the 240 off-leash citations in Denver’s 228 parks were issued here.
“Cheesman Park has the highest number of off-leash dog issues, followed by Wash Park and City Park, probably because of its really big meadows and location,” said Denver Park Ranger Supervisor Jacob Wells. He also emphasized that leashes can’t be longer than six feet, so those retractable ones that allow owners to adjust the length beyond that are not okay.
It’s not just the parks that fall under the leash law. It goes for every public space throughout Denver’s jurisdiction that is not designated as a dog park. Last year, 576 off leash citations were issued outside of the park system, such as on neighborhood streets and sidewalks.
The citations carry a $100 fine for a first offense but that’s usually not the first course of action taken by animal control officers or park rangers. “We try to be more education-oriented than happy-handed,” Wells said, explaining that warnings are more frequently given and are dependent on the scenario. Someone playing frisbee with their dog when no one else is around might get a warning, but when the park is busy, the consequences are different. “A couple of years ago I came across a situation where someone was throwing a ball and their dog tripped someone else and broke their wrist,” said Wells.
Often when dog owners are confronted, they res
Leash Law: Denver Senior Park Ranger Sam Gannon reminds William McGihon that his dog Liam needs to be on a leash at Cheesman Park.
pond much like Liam’s owner did. “I just felt like he was under our supervision and control by voice command, so I thought that was probably an acceptable scenario,” McGihon said. Of course, he quickly learned it wasn’t when Sam Gannon, the senior park ranger patrolling Cheesman, stopped to chat with him.
“When I see violations, I tend to talk to people and remind them this is a park rule and we need you to follow it,” said Gannon. “And then we give them a reason, which is usually other people’s enjoyment of the park and safety. Once people get the reason behind the rule, we tend to get a lot more compliance.”
He explained that citations are used as a last resort to gain compliance with people who don’t heed a warning and decide they want to do it anyway, even with the $100 fine. A second offense jumps to a $250 fine and goes to $500 for a third.
With a citation avoided and Liam leashed, Gannon headed over to where 
he saw a medium-sized dog running freely about 50 yards away. But since Gannon is easy to spot in his distinctive wide-brimmed hat, gray shirt and green trousers, the dog was quickly leashed by its owner before he reached them. “When people see me and they visually comply, oftentimes I will not remind them of the rule. But a lot of times if they’re visually complying they know the rule anyway,” Gannon said.
This ended up being the case with the woman who leashed her dog before Gannon got there. Later, she shared that she is from north Boulder where leash laws are different. “I don’t know Denver’s leash laws though I assume there are some,” said Lindsey Riley who was at Cheesman with her dog Clyde as he strained on his leash to play with Tugboat who was there with his owner Kyra Bebus.
As the dogs sniffed, pawed and frolicked around each other, Bebus kept a close eye and tight hold on her pet. “I know Tugboat is harmless, but he is a one-year-old puppy that weighs 80 pounds and he can get a little excited playing and that can definitely be intimidating to people who aren’t used to that,” she said. That’s why she usually heads to dog parks in the Denver-area where Tugboat can run and jump with other dogs off leash to his heart’s content. Leaving Cheesman, she took Tugboat a short distance away to the recently opened Carla Madison Dog Park off Colfax.
Wells said this newest dog park should help alleviate some of the off-leash issues. Having more rangers patrolling should also have an impact. “We bring in most of our resources when we see more people using the parks, from about April to September, he said. “Our ranger group is growing and so with more of them in the field to spot issues, the situations go down.”
They may go down, but not away. As Gannon stood just beyond where he parked his patrol unit near the Pavilion at Cheesman Park, he browsed the surrounding lawns where people and their pets were coming and going. “There will be dogs off leash here all day,” he said. Some he’ll see as he patrols and others he’ll hear about from calls made to 3-1-1, Denver’s Help Center. He’ll talk to as many dog owners as he can and hopefully see them comply, but if a citation is what it takes, he’s ready to do that too. “It is truly an issue and we do take it seriously,” he said.
