QUID HAS HEARD that the Denver Post won’t let up on spanking city officials for paying a couple of million dollars for some of the nastiest real estate in the metro area. Seems intrepid reporters at the Downtown rag found out at a city meeting that one commercial real-estate hoo haw hired by Aurora said the dereliction known as the Fan Fare fiasco and its surrounding 10 acres isn’t worth a pile of poo the size of the building itself — or $77,000. As the story according to everyone but the Post revealed, that number was funny math used to create a low-ball price based on how nasty the concrete conundrum is, complete with asbestos and endless piles of pigeon poo. When it turned out that when the real-estate hyperbole bubble burst, the flying-buttressed junker hauled away will leave a vacant lot worth a couple of million bucks. That hasn’t stood in the way of the Post barking and barking and barking at what they’re just sure is a conspiracy hiding in the closet at city hall. Yawn. If anyone should know about inflated values, it would be the Denver Post’s master, Media News Group, folks who claim that rag’s circulation and company value just keeps going up, up, up. Woof, woof, woof.
AND QUID HAS HEARD that the country’s richest ‘zens are feeling the love as the end of the year approaches. Seems that since the end of the world was all for naught, and since the end of the GOP grandstanding comes closer to the edge of the fiscal cliff, it’s clear Uncle Sam will be wanting to renege on his tax breaks for the rich. Too bad, so sad. Being the clever rich folks some are, it appears many are racing to financial valets to set up five-oh-one-see-three charitable trusts to hide their money before gun-grabbing Barack Obama can snag it when we paddle back from the fiscal cliff. Clever only to a point, since such schemes have been deemed tax fraud for many years. Your faithful hack has these words of wisdom as the 99 percent comes knocking: Give it up.
AND QUID HAS HEARD there is yet another way for Denver’s poor and homeless to not be able to catch The Ride in metro Aurora. Seems RTD is moving into 2013 with fancy 2001 technology offering a new smart card for regular bus and light-rail riders. In January, College Pass and Eco Pass holders can tap their cards on smart readers or on buses, either extracting the amount needed for that ride, or getting on their smart phones and laptops to recharge the card. Seeing how so many of their riders in Aurora aren’t in college, don’t work for wealthy companies offering Eco Passes, have credit cards or cooperative bank drafting, they just want the bus to come and for there to be more of them.
AND THAT’S ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS.
Quidster,
I find it interesting that the Denver “press” conveniently does not report on the fact that in addition to this government boondoggle, the City of Aurora had to “borrow” the $4 million from the Aurora Water fee payers, to buy this monstrosity.
As noted in a recent CRAG press release:
https://cragaurora.com/