Denver News Blog

Paper or plastic?

​Still no official response from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 about this week's "last, best and final" contract proposals from King Soopers and Safeway. But several employees posting on the Facebook page linked to the union's AlwaysHereForColorado.com site don't seem to have been won over by the most unusual aspect of the offers: "bonus ratification" gift cards of between $150 and $1,000, depending on position.

"The gift card is a BRIBE! They are taking your money twice! by giving you a gift card for the store, then not giving raises and TAKING PENSION AND FUNERAL EXPENSES AWAY!," declares one poster. Another writes, "WOW... this is the most pathetic thing I have heard... 8 years of my life and I get a $400 gift card." And a third notes, "If the workers hold out, maybe they'll throw in a frozen turkey, too..."

Happy Thanksgiving.

​Update below:

Still no official comments about the "last, best and final" offers delivered to representatives of King Soopers and Safeway staffers on Monday from either the companies or the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7. But a web page for King Soopers employees features the first details of the contract proposal that have surfaced thus far.

The big news: a "ratification bonus," in gift card form, of up to $1,000 if voters approve the contract. The implication: the firms want to do anything they can to avoid a strike right before the holidays, including offering unionized workers a payoff for cooperating.

For more of King Soopers' sales pitch to workers (complete with assorted misspellings; looks like a rush job), read on:

A Flickr photo.

Keeping dead people in the kitchen is not okay.

​A funeral director allegedly tells a family that the county coroner recommended him to bury their twelve-year-old child -- when the law prohibits such recommendations. A mortuary embalms a body without the final okay from the family; in the meantime, the family decides to use a different mortuary. A funeral home improperly refrigerates a body, leaving it exposed for several days.

These are some of the alleged violations a new state law is seeking to prevent. As of January 1, all Colorado funeral homes and crematories must register with the state Department of Regulatory Agencies. (So must athletic trainers, another new profession to be regulated by DORA in 2010.)

The point is to give consumers an official way to lodge complaints against funeral homes and crematories -- and to give the state a way to track those complaints to see if there are indeed widespread abuses in the funeral home industry, as the Colorado Funeral Directors Association has long alleged.

Will grocery shoppers be seeing signs like these in the near future?

​Update below:

King Soopers and Safeway told United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 reps they'd submit their "last, best and final" offer by the end of yesterday -- and they almost missed their own deadline. Just shy of 6 p.m., UFCW rep Laura Chapin confirmed via e-mail that nothing had shown up yet. But within the next hour, the packages arrived, and Chapin confirms that workers began reviewing the material at 7 a.m. this morning.

Chapin notes that no comments will be available until after they've gotten a chance to digest the information -- and decide whether it's something they, and their membership, can swallow.

Update, 3:08 p.m.: Just spoke to UFCW spokeswoman Laura Chapin, who says meetings slated for tomorrow at which union employees were expected to vote on the aforementioned proposals from King Soopers and Safeway have been "canceled/postponed" in order to give representatives more time to analyze them.

I think this Cultivator-designed ad is what's known as a double entendre...

​Stop by some local blogs. Like these.

Cultivator Advertising & Design gets the Denver Egotist's profile treatment. It's a graphic display.

A computer ate the Nuggets vs. Lakers recap written by Jeremy at Roundball Mining Company. But the clip of Ty Lawson's unbelievable slam offers ample compensation.

5280's Jennie Dorris offers recession-etiquette advice for former office workers now toiling at home. Tip one: "Take a shower and get dressed." As if I've ever done that...

​Today, King Soopers and Safeway are expected to submit their "last, best and final" offer to grocery workers.

Don't know much about the details yet, or whether the proposal will be notably different from the ones members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 have roundly rejected time and again, leading to repeated breakdowns in negotiations. But the union has already set up a series of votes, beginning on Wednesday: Click here for times and locations in Denver and beyond.

In the meantime, look below to read a note from King Soopers president Russ Dispense to associates intended to prepare them for this key development:

Peyton's place has been on the bench lately. But should it be?

​A trifecta of local blogs worth eyeballing.

Kyle at Bronco Talk thinks Peyton Hillis may be the cure the ailing Broncos running game needs. Watch your back, Knowshon.

What's the best thing about Colorado being number eleven in foreclosure activity among states nationally? As 5280's Michael de Yoanna points out, it's the first time since March we haven't been in the top ten. Missed it by that much (H/T Northern Colorado Business Report).

The Colorado Independent's David O. Williams reports that a tentative drilling plan in Battlement Mesa would allow "oil and gas rigs sited within 400 feet of homes." Don't you love the smell of Texas tea in the morning?

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Signs that Republic Airways Holdings, owner of Denver-based Frontier Airlines, might move jobs from Colorado to either Milwaukee or Indianapolis have been unavoidable for at least month. Note this October 9 blog, in which Denver Economic Development Corporation executive director Tom Clark sketched out problematic tax issues, as well as "a hangar available at virtually zero occupancy cost in Milwaukee." It's no surprise, then, that Republic will reportedly put down roots at Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport -- a move that will take more than 200 jobs from Denver, not to mention another one-hundred-plus from a Las Cruces, New Mexico call center that local officials hoped might wind up here.

Denver mayor John Hickenlooper has already issued a statement about the decision. "Milwaukee has something we don't: free hanger space," he said. "We offered every incentive conceivable to Republic Airways, but we can't pay their rent for them. We understand this was a necessary business decision for Republic, and in no way reflects on Frontier's continued commitment to Denver and Colorado or its outstanding workforce. We remain determined to help in any way we can as Republic continues to realign its operations."

Hickenlooper hardly sounds shocked by the move, which makes sense. Still, to put it monosyllabically: ouch.

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Aside from the beer-vending machine in the Westword newsroom, this License Plates Nuts & Bolts machine in the state motor vehicle division office at 2736 Welton Street may be the coolest dispensary I've seen around town. For $1 buck, you can avoid the aggravation of the hardware store or wherever else you need to go to get those missing nuts and bolts to hold on your new plates. And it made me think of five other vending machines that would come in handy in certain situations around town:

1. Diaper-vending machines in the DIA security line.
2. TUMS-vending machines at Chubby's.
3. Book-vending machines in Jury Duty waiting rooms at local courthouses.
4. Deoderant vending machines at the People's Fair.
5. Sober driver vending machines at let-out in LoDo.

There's been a lot of ballot-casting taking place in these parts lately. But the general public didn't participate in a vote being touted by the Downtown Denver Partnership. Instead, it involved businesspeople who've decided to dip into their wallets to help renovate a key stretch of 14th Street, as seen in the elaborate animations on view above.

"The property owners along 14th Street voted to pay approximately $4 million out of $14 million to make improvements," says DDP spokeswoman Sarah Neumann. "We call 14th Street 'Ambassador Street,' because it's home to many of the buildings visitors to our city use: the Convention Center, hotels, the DCPA. And it's needed a makeover. It's not a street people like to walk down; it's not inviting. We've been wanting to make some improvements for a while now. And now, we'll be able to do it."

This beauty on South Franklin will only set you back $2.3 million.

​This week, we learned that in August, home prices in the Denver area rose for the sixth straight month, and the average was down just 1.9 percent from the same month last year. Given that catastrophes in the housing sector are largely responsible for our long-running recession, do the August digits mark a return to normalcy? Mark Trenka, president of the Denver Board of Realtors, doesn't try to sell this line -- but he suggests that things are finally starting to even out.

"I guess the word I use right now is 'stable,'" he says. "We're not seeing the kinds of things people are seeing in Las Vegas and California and Arizona. But the story's different for different neighborhoods. Some are doing extremely well, others are flat, and some aren't doing well at all."

​Denver International Airport received complaints from some airlines on Thursday for allegedly not clearing runways of snow quickly enough -- but DIA spokesman Chuck Cannon believes the facility well. "Obviously, things slowed down on Wednesday and Thursday," he concedes, "but they have to when you have blizzard conditions like we had yesterday. It really wasn't the snow so much as the wind. It's tough to operate in weather like that, particularly when you have to be safe -- and safety's the number-one issue."

How's that jibe with the early promotional line that DIA is an "all-weather airport"? As Cannon makes clear, this claim doesn't hold up, and never has. "There's no such thing as an all-weather airport," he says. "It's like the phrase 'all-terrain vehicle.' It says 'all-terrain,' but you can't drive one off a cliff and survive."

​On October 20, talks between grocery workers and Safeway about a new contract broke down only a few hours after they'd started up again -- and later that week, King Soopers employees were given a letter strongly implying that if Safeway staffers struck, they'd be locked out. It's a scenario familiar to 22-year Safeway veteran Andrea Karr, albeit one that was reversed thirteen years ago. "In 1996, King Soopers went on strike, and Safeway locked out workers," she says.

That was a tough time for Karr. "The average grocery store worker tends to work paycheck to paycheck," she says. "So even if you know there's going to be a strike or you're going to be locked out, no one's ever really prepared for it." Still, anyone locked out this time around will be in worse shape than she was. Back then, "we received unemployment benefits, but the laws have changed since then. House Bill 1170 would have put the benefits back, but Bill Ritter rejected it. So presently, anybody who's locked out won't get unemployment benefits, even though you don't have any choice about being locked out. You're stripped of that choice."

​A Denver Post story today noted that an unprecedented attempt to score up to $320 million in loans from two federal agencies in order to bankroll the still woefully underfunded Union Station redevelopment could be on the rocks because the project's managers haven't been able to get a favorable rating on the project's debt or provide assurance that the commercial development around the station will justify the ambitious transit work. The Post story notes the muddle "could mean that construction on the project may not start in earnest until the first quarter of 2010 instead of next month." But that could be putting it nicely.

After all, officials behind the project have admitted that scoring both these federal loans are a do-or-die funding scenario -- one that, if it fails, would leave the entire plan in tatters.

Ready for a little ballin'?

​Here are some blogs you might enjoy.

Jeremy at Roundball Mining Company predicts that the Nuggets will surpass last year's 54-win mark by four games, declaring, "Yes we can! The sun is out. The seas have parted. The basketball gods are shining upon us!" Keep hope alive!

The Denver Egotist kicks off a new agency profile series with a look inside Karsh/Hagen. Dig that barber poll.

Colorado Independent's Joseph Boven writes that the new version of the Personhood Amendment "would move the legal definition of a person further back into the reproductive cycle, granting cells the full spectrum of citizen rights." Wow: My personal voting bloc would be huge!

If these signs start popping up, ProgressNow will be prepared.

​Last week, the liberal group ProgressNow Colorado created a searchable map designed to help customers of King Soopers, Safeway and Albertsons find other places to shop in the event of a grocery-store strike. Shortly thereafter, a letter to King Soopers employees noted that most of those options were nonunion shops. But ProgressNow executive director Bobby Clark doesn't see this as a contradictory message.

"Our intent here is not to injure the brands of Safeway, King Soopers or Albertsons," Clark says. "Hopefully there won't be a strike, but if there is, we hope it's resolved soon and is fair to the workers. And afterward, of course we want people to go back to union grocery stores."

Sunny Island isn't much of a vacation spot.

​You know the decision of a business to relocate is a big deal when the state's governor offers to serve as a de facto publicist, as Bill Ritter did yesterday during the announcement that the German firm SMA Solar Technology AG will be opening a plant in the Denver area that's expected to create 300 fulltime jobs. These workers will be making solar inverters that turn direct current from solar panels into alternating current: DC/AC, as opposed to AC/DC. And like many new energy gadgets, many of them feature cutesy, environmentalism-is-fun names -- among them Sunny Island (seen above), as well as Sunny Central and Sunny Boy.

Here's how SMA describes the sunny news:

​Yesterday, in the wake of a negotiating breakdown between Safeway and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, King Soopers employees were given a letter attributed to Dave Savage, vice president of retail operations for the firm. The document accuses the union of "recklessly pursuing a course that will lead to a strike or a lockout" -- and then, after enumerating several of what Savage sees as indications that pickets are about to go up, he writes, "If there is a strike against Safeway, King Soopers may be forced to lockout our associates... It is not something we want to do, but something we will need to do to protect our business." How to avoid this fate? Demand an up-or-down vote on King Soopers' latest contract offer and tell the UFCW to stop calling for a return to the bargaining table, because the union has "no intention of truly negotiating."

Surprise: UFCW spokeswoman Laura Chapin is no fan of this rhetoric. She notes that Safeway and King Soopers aren't acting like the competitors they're supposed to be, adding, "Lockouts are god-awful. You literally have people wanting to go to work finding a padlock on the door. These are people who want to go in and do their job and hopefully get a good contract, and their employer is physically depriving them of a way to support their family."

Look below to read Savage's letter in its entirety.

A September rally for grocery workers at UFCW Local 7 headquarters.

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On October 20, negotiators for grocery workers and Safeway, one of three giant chains whose contracts with union employees in Colorado have expired, sat down for the first time in ages to try and hammer out an agreement. But very little hammering actually took place.

"The workers said, 'Here's our proposal,' and Safeway took it and went off to talk to their people in Oakland," says Laura Chapin, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, referring to the firm's headquarters in Pleasanton, California. "Then they came back and said, 'Thanks, but we've got nothing new,' and that was pretty much it."

Back to square one? In Chapin's view, the situation has actually moved into negative territory.

​It doesn't really look like the sort of car the government would throw money at you to buy. Those, we always assumed, were the sort of cars that would fit in your freezer.

But apparently, a state tax credit would indeed allow Colorado residents to buy the new Tesla Roadster -- an electric sports car that does zero to sixty MPH in 3.7 seconds -- for almost 40 percent off the sticker price.

​Denver City Councilman Rick Garcia may be the elected official behind a moratorium being considered at city council tonight that would halt multi-unit development in northwest Denver. But are the real folks calling the shots the neighborhood activists Garcia represents?

After all, the moratorium isn't what one would consider subtle and thoughtful civic policy. The bill would prohibit multi-unit development in a good chunk of the Berkeley and Highland neighborhoods starting on January 1, 2010, and would continue until the citywide zoning code update goes into effect. While such a move would essentially just put into place rules expected to occur anyway once the zoning rewrite is complete, such a top-down and drastic approach to community planning is exactly the sort of thing that Denver's zoning-code update aims to avoid.

Welcome aboard, son. Here's your desk.

​The Job: Telemarketing person

Pay: $8 an hour

Qualifications as posted online: "Are you a gamer? Do you play computer or online games that aren't super involved and allow you the time and freedom to make phone calls? You might be a good fit for our office position. You must have your own laptop with Skype installed and a headset. You also must have a monthly subscription to Skype-Out Unlimited (monthly subscription is like $2.99 per month) so that you can make outbound calls to the U.S. and Canada. You must live in or near the Aurora Mall. We are really super picky on who we hire. You have to be able to converse professionally with companies. If you talk like a gangsta or can't hold an intelligent conversation, we won't hire you. We will conduct a phone interview for those we are interested in the position -- you will be required to play your game and go through the call script to see if you can do it."

Denver Public Library

In 1986, before Highland Square was Highland Square

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I got into a conversation at a party this weekend about which neighborhood business district in Denver might emerge as the next cool place. Or, as real estate agents like to say, an "up-and-coming location." People who self-identify as urbanites spend a lot of time talking about this sort of thing. Which spots are getting a new coffee shop? What chain of old buildings would be perfect for a restaurant/bar? When the hell are we going to get a Trader Joe's?

Denver may be a city of neighborhoods, but it's even more a collection of commercial districts filled with eateries, coffee shops and entertainment venues like Highland Square, South Pearl, LoDo, Cherry Creek North, Old South Gaylord, Tennyson and the Bluebird District. But the list could soon get bigger.

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The city's offer to Republic Airways Holdings -- an effort to keep as many Frontier Airlines jobs in Colorado as possible -- doesn't represent the final word on potential lures. "They're in negotiations," says Tom Clark, the Denver Economic Development Corporation's executive director, "so that means there's wiggle room." Nonetheless, Clark concedes that sweetening the deal won't be easy due in part to delinquent payments that were part of Frontier's bankruptcy filing, plus a "parts tax" and a "software tax" -- with the last two in particular proving only slightly less complex than mastering nuclear physics.

Smokin' mechanics on duty

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In today's competitive economy, small businesses must offer more services to a wider range of consumers -- and this Denver mechanic is providing customers with the best of both worlds. Storefront signage states that all makes and models of auto mechanic specialist services are offered to drivers, while "tabacco" products, glass pipes and accessories are available to smokers. Additionally, by mixing the spelling of both the English word "tobacco" and the Spanish word "tabaco," the word "tabacco" appeals to two language groups simultaneously! Old-timers are welcomed by the stated fact that the business has been around since 1980, while new customers are enticed with the fresh-start promise of a Grand Opening. The only thing missing on this storefront is a great motto, like, "We stop your car from smoking, so you don't have to."

Are signs like these in the future for Coloado grocery shoppers?

​Yesterday, the last votes by unionized Safeway workers were counted, and once again, they turned thumbs-down on a contract that struck plenty of employees as extremely familiar. According to United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 spokeswoman Laura Chapin, "The most recent offer is virtually the same one they've been making for five months, and virtually the same one workers rejected in June, because it cuts pensions and freezes wages."

Does this verdict move the UFCW closer to an already-authorized strike? Chapin can't make any guarantees one way or the other, but she feels a number of cards remain to be played.

What A-Basin should look like in a few weeks.

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Speaking from Loveland Ski Area, the first in the state to open for the 2009-2010 season, Jennifer Rudolph is enthusiasm made flesh, which makes perfect sense given that she's the communication director for Colorado Ski Country USA, whose mission is to urge anyone and everyone to head for the hills in these parts. Still, she admits to some uncertainty about how many schussers from other locales will travel to Colorado amid the second year in the ongoing fiscal downturn. "People are still planning destination vacations about three months out, giving them plenty of time," she says. "But because they're booking close in, it's hard to tell where the needle will fall."

No wonder so many resorts are trying to lure reluctant out-of-staters with aggressively priced packages.

With a name like Rush, expect a focus on the running game.

​Talk-show blather king Rush Limbaugh didn't exactly make a splash as a Monday Night Football commentator (except with people who think Donovan McNabb gets overpraised because he's African-American). But he could get another shot at the NFL soon -- as the owner of the St. Louis Rams. And depending upon how the deal goes down, he could be partners with none other than Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke.

Limbaugh and St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts are reportedly planning a bid for the Rams, whose 60 percent majority share is owned by the family of the late Georgia Frontiere. Neither Limbaugh nor Checketts are talking details, but if they only purchase the Frontiere clan's stake (which seems likely), they'll be working alongside Kroenke, who owns the other 40 percent of the franchise. For Stan the Man, the Rush could be on.

Having trouble finding work? You're not alone. Follow Jobbed every Thursday as we troll for the weird, the wacky and the worst of what the recession-era world of job ads has to offer.​
The job: Pipe layer

Pay: Not available, although a hard hat, a safety vest and one pair of safety glasses will be provided.

Responsibilities: Laying main-line water, sewer and storm pipe, as well as water and sewer services. Setting structures, setting fire hydrants, pouring manholes, setting up pipe lasers, shooting grade, street cuts, wet taps, cut in tees/valves. We only do commercial work, no residential.

Qualifications: If you cannot produce verifiable experience with the things listed above, we're sorry, but you will not be considered. Please, take no offense but, we are not looking for people who think they can be a pipe layer "with a little practice." We are very busy and don't have the time to do any "on the job training." You are either a pipe layer, or not.

What it doesn't say: There are two kinds of people in this world. Pipe layers and those who don't lay pipe. And frankly, if you're "reading this add," you're probably not a pipe layer because pipe layers are men, and men have jobs. Man jobs. Jobs that men do. Other men are jealous of pipe layers. Chicks dig guys who can lay pipe. But if you're a pipe layer, you already know that, which you don't, because you're "reading this add." No offense.

​Today's finalization of Frontier Airlines' sale to Republic Airways Holdings won't challenge Top Gun when it comes to high-flying action. "It was a very typical transaction, very similar to when you buy a car or when you close on a mortgage," says Steve Snyder, Frontier's spokesman. "It was a virtual transaction. Funds were transferred, and the acquisition is now complete."

The same can be said about the nuts and bolts of leaving bankruptcy behind. According to Snyder, "There are still some reporting requirements that we have, and the dispersal of funds to creditors will still take a while. There are minor housecleaning activities that have to be done." But in his view, that's insignificant compared to the bottom-line outcome: "Essentially, the word 'bankrupt' has been removed from our title."

That leaves an even bigger question: Will Frontier be removed from Denver?