by Mark Smiley | Jul 22, 2016 | Main Articles
New Hotel Adding Fuel To Fire Of Beltway Boom
by Glen Richardson
South Colorado Boulevard is heading into summer with explosive momentum: Three new retail redevelopments are getting underway plus two towers along the thoroughfare have sold to a Middle East investment firm for $62 million. Furthermore, at the Colorado Center — the southernmost dense pocket on the corridor — where Lincoln Properties currently has a 15-story office-retail building and 189-unit apartment complex under construction the developer is also planning to build a hotel.
Once the business backwater to flashier projects in Cherry Creek and downtown, a potent mix of fierce market demand, older properties ripe for redevelopment, plus high traffic volume is fueling a race to rebuild. The muscle behind the boulevard’s new driving power is Glendale’s $175 million entertainment and retail venue planned between Colorado Boulevard and Cherry Street, and Virginia Avenue and Cherry Creek Drive North. Creating added horsepower and torque to the business breakaway are the two $50 million Sonic Automotive car dealerships (Mercedes-Benz and BMW) under construction on the east side of Colorado Boulevard in Glendale.
Colorado Blvd. real estate market watchers remind the Chronicle that North Carolina-based Sonic originally swapped its Cadillac dealership in Lone Tree to John Elway Automotive Group for the Colorado Blvd. Chevy site. Initially Sonic planned to continue running the Chevy dealership but later came to the conclusion, “the real estate was more valuable than the Chevy business.” Moreover, both the BMW and Mercedes dealerships now under construction will have two-story showrooms. Insiders note the property has to be very valuable to go vertical because it’s very expensive.
Buying Binge
Directly across Colorado Blvd. from the Mercedes-Benz dealership under construction, Florida real estate investor and car dealer Ira Lang has purchased the site that once housed language-learning center BridgeEnglish. The two buildings on the site at 915-925 S. Colorado Blvd. will be redeveloped into 7,020 square feet of new retail space. The Miami Beach investor who already owns more than a half dozen properties on Colorado Blvd., paid $3.275 million for the prime property on the corner of Colorado
Blvd. and Kentucky. Longtime Lang associate Gary Glusman — who manages all of Lang’s Denver properties — says, “we simply ran out of buildings to buy as investments along Colorado Blvd. so we are buying older properties that can be redeveloped.”
Lang Development has also purchased a parcel of land at Colorado Blvd. and Arizona for $3.2 million. A three-story, 17,706-square-foot office building sits on the three-quarters of an acre site. The 52-year-old building will be partially demolish
ed and remodeled. The building is being redeveloped with 70 off-street parking spaces.
Further south at 2865 S. Colorado Blvd. Lang is redeveloping a 15,000-square-foot, three-story office building near one of Denver’s busiest thoroughfares. Located just north of Hampden Ave. with easy access to I-25, Lang paid $825,000 for the property in an area that already has several office and retail new construction and redevelopment projects. G3 Architecture is designing all three of Lang’s retail redevelopments.
Greenbacks Buy
Investcor, an active investor in U.S. real estate based in the Middle East island country of Bahrain on the western shores of the Persian Gulf, has purchased the two Centerpoint Towers on Colorado Blvd. for $62 million. Built in the early 1980s, the Centerpoint 
complex is comprised of two office towers located at 3900 E. Mexico Ave. and 1777 S. Harrison St.
Seattle-based Unico — owner of a cluster of Cherry Creek North buildings — was the seller. Back in 2006 and 2012 Unico paid a total of just more than $38 million for the two buildings.
Centerpoint II made up the majority of the sale price at $32.7 million. The tower is a 17 story building with 205,000 rentable square feet. At 14 stories Centerpoi
nt I is the smaller tower and has 168,000 rentable square feet, accounting for $29 million of the sale price.
Full Tilt Ahead
The Colorado Center — where new residential and retail components are under construction near Colorado Blvd. and Evans — has been ripe for growth since the light rail station opened. With 35 stations across five lines, the existing light rail system allows for fast and easy metro area travel.
More than one million square feet of development is currently underway on the 13-acre office, retail and entertainment complex. Tower III construction began in August of 2015. The Main Street and the Residential Tower construction got underway this June.
Buildings featuring 269 apartment units and 40,000 square feet of retail space are being built closest to the transit station. Already featuring three Class-A 
office buildings, a Dave & Busters plus United Artists Colorado Center Stadium 9 and IMAX, a hotel is the logical next addition to the Center’s portfolio. Although shown in Denver’s Tryba Architects master plan, the firm has yet to release a rendering of the proposed hotel.
by Mark Smiley | Jun 24, 2016 | Main Articles
This Time Regarding Park Hill Golf Course
by Glen Richardson
Notwithstanding the fact that Denver District Court judges appear to many to view themselves as little more than employees of Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration, former Colorado Attorney General J.D. McFarlane has filed suit to attempt to prevent the Hancock administration from turning a significant portion of Park Hill Golf Club into a stormwater detention facility. McFarlane is represented by attorney Aaron Goldhamer of the law firm of Jones & Keller P.C. Goldhamer is a candidate for the position of representative for State House District 8. He is a Yale undergraduate and obtained his law degree from Georgetown University.
The lawsuit is brought against the city, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, Parks Executive Director “Happy Haynes” and Jose Cornejo, the manager of Public Works. The lawsuit charges that the city engaged in a corrupt scheme to place an industrial-level stormwater detention facility on the Park Hill golf course in furtherance of the I-70 expansion which violates the Denver City Charter and common law governing municipal use of the public parkland.
The 14-page “Complaint” lays out in plain and stark language a fraudulent scheme by the City of Denver and its offi-
cers and officials to aid private developers and landowners adjoining the proposed I-70 expansion and undergrounding at the expense of Denver neighborhoods and Park Hill Golf Club.
The Complaint exposes that the City lied to the public and the neighborhoods in its assertion that it was attempting to protect the Cole and Montclair neighborhoods from potential stormwater and drainage harm due to severe flooding. The complaint notes that it suddenly changed from the normal five-year protection to 100-year protection which only applies to federal highway projects and which is cost prohibitive and unneeded for cities like Denver which are located in a semi-arid environment.
The Complaint reveals the city attempted to fool the public by showing pictures of Katrina-type flooding in areas unrelated to the drainage. Denver further failed to make clear that significant flooding in northeast Denver will still occur according to the Complaint even after tens of millions are spent.
The Complaint also asserts that the funding for the project also appears to violate Article X Sec. 20 of the Colorado Constitution (the Tabor Amendment) and while no claims regarding the same were asserted in the Complaint, McFarlane “reserves the right to amend this Complaint to assert such a claim.”
The Complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief preventing the partial destruction of City Park Golf Course.
The Denver District Court Judge hearing the case is Michael J. Vallejos, a University of Colorado graduate for both his undergraduate and legal degrees, who before coming to the bench, served as a Deputy State Public Defender. His qualifications to some seem in part to mirror those of Denver District Court Judge Shelley I. Gilman, known as the so-called “Pro Corruption Judge,” whose alleged disgraceful behavior at the hearing on April 22 caused many attendees to give up all hope that a Denver District Court judge could be a fair and impartial arbiter of any dispute regarding the Hancock Administration which appears to some to wholly control what is supposed to be an independent judiciary within the City and County of Denver.
by Mark Smiley | Jun 24, 2016 | Main Articles
by Charles C. Bonniwell
The CitySet hotel/dining development in Glendale at the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Cherry Creek Drive South has been an extraordinary success. An open plaza anchored by two major hotels (Residence Inn Cherry Creek and the Hilton Garden Inn Cherry Creek) and features eight different dining options ranging from Jax Fish House and Silvi’s Kitchen to Platform T and Big Smoke Burger.
The development has but one major drawback — lack of sufficient parking. According to documents obtained though the Colorado Open Records Act, Stonebridge Companies headed by Navin Dimond, convinced the City of Glendale and its head of planning, Deputy City Manager Chuck Line, into reducing the parking requirements by 20 percent from 663 spaces to 553. The project was heavily promoted by then mayor Larry Harte according to Line. But the city and CitySet were fortunate that Line refused to lower the number of spaces down even more to 482 as originally demanded by Dimond and his experts in his filings with the city.
Why Damage Your Own Project?
Why would a developer want to hurt his own project with insufficient parking? First of all because the type of needed underground parking costs approximately
$40,000 per space. In CitySet’s case the reduction saved the developer Dimond over $4,000,000. Secondly, and most importantly, savvy developers like Dimond know after bamboozling a city they can later come back and force the public to pay for all the parking they need and that is exactly what happened in Glendale.
Once the project was started, Dimond, through his affiliated companies, howled that CitySet did not, in fact, have adequate parking for all of its customers. How much additional parking was needed? It was almost exactly the 112 spaces Dimond convinced Glendale not to require in the first place.
Once a city like Glendale has approved a project with an under supply of parking it has little choice but to later provide a solution at the expense of the taxpayer. CitySet is a major producer of municipal revenue for Glendale, not only providing sales and property taxes but also the considerable hotel room tax. Moreover, if a major development like CitySet should fail due to lack of sufficient parking it would cast a pall on development throughout the city and threaten the viability of future developments, like the proposed Glendale 180 development across Cherry Creek on East Virginia Avenue.
Glendale also does not wish to hurt valuable tenants who had no idea Dimond purposely demanded that the city parking requirements be reduced for his own financial benefit. Cameron Tune, owner of Big Smoke Burger at CitySet, makes it clear that for his business “making sure parking is convenient is a top priority,” and he strongly urged Glendale to find additional parking for customers. He notes customers to CitySet can also take advantage of the existing free valet parking, between the two hotels, offered Tuesdays through Saturdays.
New City Ordinance
So rather than limit the viability of the CitySet project, the City of Glendale passed an ordinance taking the adjoining streets of South Exposition Avenue and South Ash Street and converting them from broad boulevards without on-street parking into much narrower driving lanes and parallel parking on both sides of the street.
The ordinance did not establish just ordinary street parking but the spaces that are restricted to only customers of CitySet. This was accomplished by util
izing a purported competitive bidding process with the successful bidder being a charged a small monthly maintenance fee of $20 to $30. While anyone could have theoretically bid on the special parking, the only realistic likely bidder was, of course, Navin Dimond through his affiliated companies. Line did refuse to give CitySet a long term commitment as wanted by Dimond and limited the reserved on street parking to a yearly term.
The special parking ordinance does not solve all of CitySet’s parking problems as it provides about half of the 112 parking space shortfall, but everyone expects Dimond to return in the not too distant future and expect the city’s taxpayers to pay for rest of his parking needs.
Mistake Conceded
Deputy City Manager Chuck Line concedes, “Yes, I made a major error. I never should have recommended to the Planning Commission and the City Council a major reduction in parking for CitySet. Every time you let a developer and their experts convince you that they do not need the required parking I have regretted it, and I do regret it in the case of CitySet. But now we do need to make it work for everyone’s sake.”
One would have thought Glendale had learned the hard way, that not providing adequate parking always creates 
major problems in the future.
North Glendale adjoining Leetsdale Drive and anchored by Mir Park is going through a residential renaissance. The apartment buildings built there in the 1960s are becoming highly sought after when renovated to modern standards. But when the buildings were constructed the city had little or no required on-site parking believing that on-street parking would be sufficient. But with development in the area the applicable on-street parking is now woefully inadequate. The city is now desperately trying to find a solution to allow the area to prosper.
Similarly Glendale did not require sufficient parking at the Skyline retail development on Colorado Boulevard featuring Chili’s, AFC Urgent Care, Noodles Fresh,World Market, Mile High Comics, and other successful stores and eating establishments. Parking wars consistently break out with those controlling the parking, hiring towing companies to take away cars of individuals shopping at stores without adequate parking for their customers.
Developers Need And Want Municipal Concessions
The key to the success of any developer is obtaining monetary and other concessions from the applicable jurisdiction. For example, Dimond for his CitySet project got Glendale to pay almost $16 million of his development costs through tax rebates, covering everything from his cost of acquiring land to paying for landscaping and even public art. The modification to the Glendale Zoning Code regarding parking made him an additional $4,000,000 that comes out of the pocket of every man, woman, and child in Glendale.
This is why real estate experts shake their heads when watching Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs demand Glendale never even consider acquiring their land and forcing Glendale to exclude their property from the Glendale 180 project and the applicable special districts. But forcing the city to do so, through threats and lawsuits, they made monetary concessions legally impossible to grant for their property, thereby greatly devaluing any project on their land. As one expert noted (who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of possible retaliation from Kheirkhahi): “It is a truism in real estate development that ‘pigs get fat while hogs get slaughtered.’ By being the most brutal, vicious hogs possible they have monetarily slaughtered themselves. Not exactly terribly bright.”
by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2016 | Main Articles
All Charges Dismissed
Is Agent Ravenelle Another Schlaff Or Even Connolly?
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Just when people thought the Authentic Persian & Oriental Rug development controversy could not get any stranger, it has. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) demanded that the Office of Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler dismiss all charges and quash all warrants against the phony private investigator from Tennessee, Charles Johnson “for reasons that cannot be disclosed.” (See FBI letter on page 4.)
FBI Viewing Average Citizens As Criminals
Johnson allegedly stalked, harassed and intimidated the City of Glendale City Clerk and anyone who had made comments or sent a letter to the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle critical of Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi or his M.A.K. Investment Group, LLC’s redevelopment of 3.8 acres of land along Colorado Boulevard. Johnson had never registered as a private investigator in Colorado nor in his home state of Tennessee. Failure to obtain a private investigator license in Colorado is a Class 2 misdemeanor. Police found on Johnson current driver’s licenses from three different states — Florida, Hawaii and Tennessee — which is a crime in many jurisdictions.
Bizarrely, after being arrested Johnson called back the arresting officers and taunted them and asserted that he was going to file a civil rights complaint with the FBI. Days later the Glendale Police Department received a call from the FBI saying that a complaint had been filed and they were immediately going to begin an investigation and not even wait to see if Johnson was, in fact, found guilty. The FBI did not say what the complaint was based on and never disputed that Johnson appeared to have engaged in criminal conduct.
Strange FBI Interviews
FBI Special Agent Kimberly Milka then starting contacting persons who filed complaints against Johnson including Glendale City Clerk Sherry Frame and Richard Witholder who wrote a letter modestly critical of Kheirkhahi’s proposed development to the Chronicle. Milka insisted that they provide an interview with the FBI. Apparently the interviews were strange affairs having nothing to do with Johnson but instead the interviewee’s opinion on whether Johnson’s arrest should have been on the front page of the Chronicle and whether the articles concerning the proposed development were fair and balanced.
Milka apparently asked Witholder, did he know who the “secret buyer” Glendale had for the M.A.K. property was, which confused Witholder since his only connection with Glendale was he wrote a letter to the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in opposition to the proposed development.
Deputy City Manager Chuck Line was shocked to learn from the Chronicle that the FBI was spreading a false claim from the wealthy rug merchants that there was a “secret buyer” associated with Glendale for their land. “There is no secret buyer and never has been,” stated Line, and “we are no longer interested in buying their land and have told them so.”
City Clerk Sherry Frame stated in a telephone interview with Fox31 News that Special Agent Milka said that the FBI was regularly monitoring The Peter Boyles Show on 710 KNUS Radio. The Special Agent wanted to know why the show falsely claimed that Johnson had broken into Frame’s residence. Frame corrected the government agent saying she had recently listened to a podcast of the show and what was said was correct, i.e. that Johnson had repeatedly attempted to gain entry into the apartment complex where she lived by incessantly ringing her apartment complex number that transferred to her cell phone.
Legal experts indicate that both Frame and Witholder were both potential key witnesses in the Arapahoe County case, and if anyone else had engaged in the conduct of Special Agent Milka, that such person would likely be charged with obstruction of justice and witness tampering by the D.A.
District Attorney Brauchler Praised
Civil libertarians have praised Brauchler for demanding that the FBI produce a letter from the Denver Special Agent in Charge, Thomas P. Ravenelle, and attach the letter to the Motion to Dismiss to the court which made it public record. A district attorney has almost total discretion in such matters and could have hidden the FBI’s invo
lvement in the matter.
More concerning to some is the fact that apparent FBI informant Charles Johnson and FBI Special Agent Milka were clearly violating the 1st Amendment rights of the citizens like Witholder who simply wrote letters to a newspaper on a matter of public concern. Some of the victims of the FBI’s actions have wondered when it is the FBI violating your rights, who do you get to complain to?
Free To Kill
For experienced Cherry Creek Valley hands the case seemed to have echoes of the Scott Lee Kimball debacle of seven years ago involving the Denver FBI which effectively destroyed its reputation locally. While the Chronicle wrote extensively on the case, perhaps the best full summarization of the case is located on the Boulder Daily Camera website under the title “Scott Lee Kimball — Free to Kill.”
In December 2002 Kimball was released from jail for various crimes, including forgery, to be an active informant on a drug bust. Instead he went on a four year killing spree murdering at least four women and his uncle with the active assistance or criminal negligence of FBI Special Agent Carle Schlaff.
Kimball was only caught due to the incredible persistence of family members of the women probably tortured and murdered by Kimball and the work of Lafayette Police Officer Gary Thatcher.
“The Cleaner”
Schlaff was replaced on the case by Jonathan Grusing when it became clear that local law enforcement was on to the fact that Kimball was murdering people with the aid and assistance of the FBI. Most of the victims’ families viewed Grusing
Jonathan Grusing, a special agent with the FBI, poses at the Safe Streets Task Force office in Denver.
Photo by Marty Caivano/Camera/Feb. 19, 2010
as a hero, at least as compared to Schlaff, but others dubbed him “The Cleaner” after the Harvey Keitel character in the movie Pulp Fiction. The Cleaner in the movie was sent in to erase all indicia of the crimes and any connection to the Mob. Some viewed Grusing in a similar manner, erasing all evidence of FBI crimes as related to the murders by Scott Lee Kimball.
If that was the role of Grusing, he was very successful as no actions were brought against any person in the Denver FBI office for the murders, unlike the case in Boston where the Whitey Bulger murders resulted in FBI agent John Connolly being sent to prison for 40 years.
Incredibly, Special Agent Grusing is apparently also involved in the Glendale matter with knowledgeable individuals saying that Grusing and Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi are “thick as thieves” and are in regular contact with each other.
The Ribeau Analysis
Some have surmised that Kheirkhahi may be a federal confidential informant himself against the Islamic Republic of Iran where he often travels and has extensive business contacts. In addition, Mike Ribeau, a former Homeland Security agent who heads up ISL Consultants and was at one time embedded with the FBI, believes that the FBI is engaged in a bigger investigation, and that the Johnson affair is causing problems. He surmises that the FBI is attempting to claim that Glendale officials, by not automatically approving the vague and inchoate development suggestions of Kheirkhahi, are violating the civil rights of the rug merchants.
He points to the Obama Administration’s recent effort to override local zoning laws in suburban communities to provide a massive influx of low income individuals and foreign born immigrants. The mere fact that Glendale residents and neighborhood groups throughout Denver are opposed to the massive condo project on Colorado Boulevard is perhaps, for the FBI, proof positive that Glendale officials are engaging in criminal Islamophobia notwithstanding the fact that oppo
sition has nothing to do with religion.
Other experts consulted by the Chronicle found Ribeau’s analysis “highly plausible.” If the Ribeau analysis is correct, then Glendale and surrounding Denver neighborhoods are in for a long, hot summer with the incredibly wealthy rug merchants with potentially unlimited funds coming in from Iran and their expensive, high-powered law firms teaming up with the power of the U.S. federal government to quash any and all local opposition to anything that Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi wishes to impose directly or indirectly. For some, it could be a scary time to be a resident of the Cherry Creek Valley where the normal rights of American citizens may potentially no longer be of very much importance to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2016 | Main Articles
CRL Lobbyist Instructs Her On What To Say
Court Approves Of Rank Public Corruption
by the Staff of the Chronicle
It was the moment that neighborhood groups and families feared might never occur, but it did in open court on April 22, 2016. Greg Kerwin, the attorney for seven everyday citizens opposing the rezoning of the Mt. Gilead Baptist Church property in Crestmoor Park, read out loud secret email after secret email of City Councilwoman Mary Beth Susman proving that the rezoning of the property had been rigged as had always been surmised by the citizens.
Kerwin, as part of the discovery process, had demanded all emails of Susman related to the Mount Gilead rezoning, but the City an
d County of Denver did not provide certain emails that Kerwin knew existed. He then demanded the emails from her secret, off record gmail account be provided. The City Attorney having been accused of engaging in open record fraud in other cases finally complied and voila, there was a treasure trove of evidence of the corruption of the zoning process.
Kerwin pointed Judge Gilman to an amazing email dated March 20, 2015, from Sean 
Maley of the powerful lobbying firm CRL Associates, Inc. (CRL). CRL had made major monetary contributions to Susman’s re-election campaign even though she had no opponent. In the email Maley instructed Councilwoman Susman exactly what to say at an upcoming City Council meeting. Apparently, the developer, Metropolitan Homes, did not have the votes or support necessary to carry the day regarding the Mt. Gilead rezoning and therefore wanted a delay. Maley appeared to be telling the councilwoman to lie to the public, declaring she should say that the hearing “will be continued to a later date . . . [to allow the developer] to sort out the modifications to their plan and to better understand the process and timing.”
Susman meekly replied to the email back eight minutes later, “Okay. You don’t want me to say anything like ‘changes in response to community feedback?”
To the shock and amazement of the crowd of families and supporters of Crestmoor Park in the courtroom, Denver District Court Judge Shelley I. Gilman appeared to luxuriate and wallow with glee in the utter corruption of the rezoning process in Denver, totally dismissing the clear evidence of the rigging.
Next Kerwin brought to the attention of the court the incredible fact that Denver literally refused to consider the parking and traffic/transportation impacts in the rezoning as a matter of city policy and that fact was so stated by one of the council members at the meeting. Deputy City Attorney Lucero conceded that what Kerwin had stated was absolutely true.
Judge Gilman then refused to allow the concession and ordered the Deputy City Attorney to argue that the fact that the citizens voiced disbelief at the city’s refusal to consider these issues somehow constituted the Denver City Council hearing the issues.
One attendee noted, “She literally was acting as the Deputy City Attorney in charge of the case. She should have simply left the bench, gone to the defense table and had a soliloquy with herself.”
Kerwin then pointed out to the Court that Planning Board Member Jim Bershof actually signed the rezoning application himself for the Mt. Gilead property and argued to his fellow Board members that they approve the rezoning. Once again, to the dismay of the courtroom attendees, Judge Gilman had no problem with this clearly unethical conduct, indicating as long as the person doesn’t vote nothing else matters no matter how outrageous.
An observer of the planning process noted that her opinion is great news for 11 members of the Planning Board all of whom were appointed by Mayor Hancock and includes numerous developers. The observer pointed out that if you want to get your project through Denver Planning you hire one or more of the Planning Board members to sign the application and argue in front of staff and the remaining members for its approval. The Planning Board members just need to take turns getting paid from developers and they should all become very rich in a relatively short period. If Judge Gilman’s ruling is upheld in the appellate process developers can simply hire the mayor or council members in a town to argue for approval of their project as long as they do not vote in the end.
Virtually every argument made for the citizens by Kerwin was denigrated by Judge Gilman. Conversely she appeared to smile and nod in approval regarding every argument made by the Deputy City Attorney only interrupting him to provide her own defenses when he did not make a defense.
In theory a judge is supposed to act in a neutral manner in the open courtroom, treating both sides equally so as to at least give the façade of impartiality. In the 2012 report by the Colorado Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation which recommended she be retained, it declared that she had received high marks for “treating all parties equally” and “conducts an efficient and neutral courtroom.” For anyone attending the hearing either the report was simply another judicial whitewash or her judicial demeanor has suffered a precipitous demise over the last four years.
A highly disappointed neighborhood advocate declared “our seven neighborhood plaintiffs might as well have been the Scottsboro Boys in front of the infamous Judge William Washington Callahan down in Alabama in the 1930s. We knew they were dead from the first few minutes of the hearing.”
When the Court’s decision came down on May 17 absolutely no one was surprised by Judge Gilman finding for the city in each and every argument with never a single indication of hesitancy or even legal nuance.
In a telephone interview with Councilwoman Susman following the issuance of Judge Gilman’s ruling, she stated regarding the secret email account, that “she gets emails from all avenues including social media — Facebook and Twitter.” She did not recall the March 20 email from Sean Maley but that she would have been “just receiving information.” Councilwoman Susman indicated she was pleased that “the judge ruled that I was impartial in my dealings with both sides.”
One attendee at the hearing could not understand why Judge Gilman had bothered to have a hearing. “She absolutely knew how she was going to rule before she walked into that courtroom and did not bother to listen to anything the plaintiffs had to say. Perhaps she wanted to embarrass the neighborhood groups by showing them that the courts are also a farce in the City and County of Denver. If that was her goal she succeeded. I will never again believe in our legal system after the display she put on at
that hearing.”
For the neighborhood groups, Judge Gilman’s behavior was all the more dismaying due to the fact they will perhaps never have such clear and convincing proof of corruption and rigging of the process. Attorney Kerwin noted that city councilpersons will never again use secret emails that might be discovered. Instead all the rigging will be done verbally.
The plaintiffs, pursuant to Colorado Appellate Rule 50, will ask the Colorado Supreme Court to hear an expedited appeal on the matter because important, statewide precedents were established. However, for many of the citizens who attended Judge Gilman’s hearing, any faith in the legal system as a fair and impartial arbiter of cases brought before it has effectively been destroyed by her conduct on the 22nd of April 2016.
by Mark Smiley | Apr 25, 2016 | Main Articles
Glendale Chamber Formally Condemns Kheirkhahi And Authentic Persian Rugs
Wealthy Rug Merchants Turn On Dana Crawford
by Mark Smiley
The new Glendale City Council at its first regular meeting was met with an incredible outpouring of community opposition, from Glendale, Denver and even suburban towns, to Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and his M.A.K. Investment Group, LLC’s massive proposed condominium high-rise known locally as the Tehranian Death Star along Colorado Boulevard.
Chamber Resolution
The Greater Glendale Chamber of Commerce announced that a formal resolution unanimously passed (with one abstention) opposing “the efforts of M.A.K. to impose residential units in the Glendale entertainment district in conflict with the city’s zoning and Master Plan.” The resolution went on to “repudiate and denounce the efforts of M.A.K. and its principal Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi to intimidate Council members and Glendale’s minority community by utilizing para military hate groups such a
s the Oath Keepers as well as attempting to graymail the Council with negative publicity concerning the city and its residents.” For the complete resolution please see page 24.
Denver Neighborhoods And Tower Of Doom
President of the Chamber Barret O’Brien stated that the “business community is simply sick and tired of how Kheirkhahi and his family are attempting to destroy the city’s 
entertainment district for their own greed. They have personally offended just about everybody in town. They apparently believe that if they are vicious enough and trash the town enough they can get what they want. It is time for local businesses to stand with unintimidated residents and take on these bullies.”
Among those addressing the City Council was the President of the Virginia Vale Community Association Paul Aceto who spoke of concerns of traffic that the Death Star would inevitably occasion. A letter from Jeff Mauck as President of the Belcaro Park Homeowners Association was read opposing the Death Star project indicating it would be a disaster for southeast Denver. Bonnie Brae area resident Linda Young noted her strong opposition to the project as a traffic nightmare for the area.
Former Glendale City Councilman Dan Van Winkle helped lead a group of Glendale residents to address the Council in opposition to what they called the “Tower of Doom” in reference to the Lord of the Rings books and movies. He noted a variance is a little less green space or a couple less parking places and not a wholesale destruction of the city zoning codes and Master Plan as proposed by M.A.K.
Key Speech
In perhaps the most rousing speech of the night, Kristina Beacom from the Phenix Infinity Park residential complex in Glendale, declared:
“The wealthy rug shop owners have attempted to play a very devious and shameful game in the court of public opinion. The transcript of their most recent meeting has exposed them for what they are — shamelessly opportunistic in every way. I urge the Mayor and council to continue the good fight against some very bad people!”
Her remarks were met with warm approval from almost everyone in the crowded City Council Chambers
Wealthy Rug Merchants Respond
Even though Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi attended the City Council meeting, he spoke through front women Nasrin Kholghy, his sister-in-law, and Jeanne Price. Kholghy appeared to repudiate and disclaim developer Dana Crawford who she said was the person who called the pre-site meeting and Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs could not be held responsible for anything she might have said.
Deputy City Manager Chuck Line later indicated such a disclaimer was preposterous as Kheirkhahi and Kholghy were an integral part of the meeting and the city does not meet with anyone concerning land development unless they are talk
ing on behalf of and for the landowners.
Kholghy then purported that the wealthy rug merchants had never said they wanted a 60-story building and that they showed pictures of 50- to 60-story buildings in places like Austin, Texas, simply because they were residential towers on a river near entertainment districts. Chuck Line later remarked that the recorded tape of the “pre-site plan meeting” made such an assertion simply not credible. Kholghy then argued to the incredulous crowd that a condominium tower would not, in fact, increase traffic.
In addition Kholghy berated Deputy City Manager Linda Cassaday who could not help shaking her head at some of the more outlandish statements from Kholghy, including her claiming money for the land was not important, but she simply wanted what was “best for the land.” Kholghy also asserted that because of the long tenure of Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs on Colorado Boulevard she knew what was best for Glendale.
Former Councilman Dan Van Winkle indicated that, “In my opinion Ms. Kholghy appears to be willing to fabricate, even when the truth will do.”
Phony P.I.
A fraudulent, unlicensed private investigator, Charles Johnson, who was alleged to have flown in from Tennessee to stalk and harass anyone who was quoted in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle opposing Kheirkhahi and his Death Star plans, is scheduled to appear for his arraignment in Arapahoe County Court on May 12, 2016, at 8:30 a.m.
The question that remains outstanding is who he was purporting to be investigating on behalf of in his activities. To date, he has steadfastly refused to reveal who employed him other than it was a female writer and at other times a female journalist. Jeanne Price, who is a female writer and has been a female journalist and is believed to be employed by Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi, told the City Council she did not employ Johnson and does not know Johnson.
