QUID HAS HEARD that the homeless are coming, the homeless are coming. To be more accurate, more homeless are coming. As per previous city administrations, Aurora has no homeless “residents.” There were many a meeting at City Hall where the notion of a homeless problem was pooh-poohed, even though the good folks running city shelters, soup kitchens and clinics have long been inundated with homeless people from other cities that, apparently, just happened to be in Aurora. Lawmakers in Denver are now considering making it illegal to be a homeless person in a sleeping bag in that town. Word is the denizens of the Platte River and Sand Creek will set wagons ho to camp on the fabulous banks of the Highline Canal or head west to relish the luxurious environs of Ralston and Clear creeks. That’s sure to make suburban types nervous, who prefer their homeless neighbors to remain docile accouterments to interstate exit ramps. Not to worry. One look at the pathetic public park bathroom situation here, the burnt grasslands of parks like BiCentennial and the lack of convenient places to pan-handle, and the placard platoon will soon be home in LoDo to roost again.
AND QUID HAS HEARD that APS is vexy and they know it. Seems the school district that loves to suffer in silence is really suffering after Sable Elementary School first grader D’Avonte Meadows went public with his suspension for singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It,” in the lunch line last week. Of course there’s always more to the story, and school officials can’t tell because of privacy concerns, even though Meadows’ mom blew privacy right out the lunch-room door when she went public with the issue on TV. There were serious hints, however, that school officials don’t suspend students for singing just about anything. That leaves Quid — and you know you, too — to imagine just what it was about Meadows’ delivery that prompted school officials to claim the tot was sexually harassing people. Quid suggests students find out just how much Aurora Public Schools will tolerate and break out into song at lunch lines across the city. Quid wants to hear some Justin Bieber, Grand Funk and Marilyn Manson to see how tolerant teachers might really be. Kids can all sing about the beautiful people.
AND QUID HAS HEARD that Aurora’s best in blue may be tops in keeping the streets safe, but they should leave the work of pumping propaganda to city flacks. Seems law enforcer types flooded Denver media outlets with a shocking video and story of a wretched motorcycle rider who was hit by a car whose driver ran a red light about 8 long seconds after it turned crimson. The shocking footage of the man being launched off his bike and landing on his head was captured by the infamous red-light camera system that police love and grimacing yellow-light scofflaws love to hate. Ranking top cops pointed to the shocking footage as to how the nefarious camera system is effectively making the city streets safer. Huh. Didn’t work for the poor guy on the motorcycle who got whacked by a woman who likely wouldn’t have stopped if there were no cameras. And given the increasing revenue these camera systems produce for the city, it’s hard to see where they’ve done anything to keep people from doing anything but flipping the bird as the cameras click and writing big checks.
AND THAT’S ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS.