QUIDNUNC: Dog days of winter begin for Aurora police, Charlie Richardson

QUID HAS HEARD that it could be the pit bullies were right after all. If you have dog-days amnesia, Aurora has long been ground zero in the war over pit bulls. Last year, voters agreed to make rabid pit bull fans sit, lay and rollover by upholding the city’s controversial pit bull ban. Quid can tell you firsthand that bark and bite both hurt from those folks. Their warning was: ban the deed, not the breed, because any dog can be vicious. Well, one Aurora man can attest to that. He called 911 Tuesday evening, saying that a rogue chihuahua had broken into his apartment and was holding him and his little dog, too, hostage. He called police to come rescue him from the nasty petite bull before it ruined everyone’s Christmas. No deaths were reported from the incident.

AND QUID HAS HEARD that marketing in Aurora never ceases to be a tricky business. Seems even the Aurora Police have gotten in the Aurora’s-image-sucks-but-it’s-really-not-that-bad-here mode where the cops frequently give yours truly and the rest of the world the bird — the Twitter bird. Where Aurora’s finest normally include the police badge as its Twitter avatar-badge, they closed the thin blue line last week and began sending out a cheery little green wreath as the face of APD with every tweet. The contrast between cheery police wreathes and dismal news about attacks on officers here and elsewhere makes even Quid’s dark mind wince.

AND QUID HAS HEARD that in Aurora, everything old is new again most of the time. This is a city that has people sitting on its city council that have seen their plaid leisure suits come and go from the fashion scene more times than Quid can remember. Old City Attorney Charlie Richardson is newly back on the council dais. After a hiatus of about a year — he’d previously worked for the city since about the time water was first discovered in Aurora — he’s back as the newly elected Ward IV representative. But his new place in the old dais is at the equivalent of the municipal kids’ table. Front and center is the mayor, the city manager and the city attorney, out from there are senior council members and electeds with names that start with “A.” After one meeting, Richardson has yet to make a legal argument about getting his old front-row seat back.

AND THAT’S ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS.