Kevin Neimond is a West Highland neighborhood icon: Kenny Be's Hip Tip

Neighborhood Icon #2 of 76: West Highland.

The West Highland neighborhood is the home of the (former) Elitch Gardens Amusement park and hotbed of Denver Democratic politics. So it's only fitting that the icon shown above would include a reference to a historic carousel. The rotating rides may have left the streetcar suburb when Elitch's was relocated to the South Platte Valley in 1994, but the spin continues as always.

The recent thirteen-candidate race to fill an empty city council seat and enactment of a neighborhood down-zoning measure that prohibits redevelopment highlight the fervor of this neighborhood's political activism. Even the West Highland Mommy group is known for using its Mafia-like organizational structure to influence Denver's political machine.

Despite the strong-arming, there are West Highlanders who also have a reputation for their knowledge of parliamentary procedure. Meet neighborhood icon Kevin Neimond...

West Highland neighborhood icon: Kevin Neimond

Kevin Neimond received his training in the parliamentary arts while obtaining his Master's degree in public administration from the University of Colorado, with supplemental refresher courses completed while listening to the Parliment-Funkadelic music of George Clinton. Listed as a staff member of the state's Joint Budget Committee, Kevin is able to balance the professional restraint of his day job by jamming on the bass with likeminded jazz-funk musicians at night.

But like all West Highlanders, Kevin thrives on political activism. Currently the communications chair for the West Highland Neighborhood Association, Kevin is secretly planning (along with Steve Kite, Jay Scroggins, Darlene Pierce, Jerry Moline, Anthony Cooper and Jill Samuels) for a hostile takeover of Berkeley, Mountain View and Lakeside. Naturally, the group's ultimate goal is to secede from the city and spin off as a better Denver.

More from our Kenny Be/Comics archive: "Carolyn Dooling is a Stapleton neighborhood icon: Kenny Be's Hip Tip."