Homebrew: Rage boils in Colorado’s boom economy

Exploding Colorado

The Colorado economy is growing. Some people enjoy the windfall; others are furious about shoddy development. Via The Denver Post.

#uglydenver

One person irritated by the explosion of new buildings in Denver: Bree Davies of Westword. She has taken to social media with a new hashtag, #uglydenver. Attacking wretched architecture popping up all over town, she writes:

“When I drive through Jefferson Park — and the Northside, Capitol Hill, Wash Park, Five Points, DU, etc. — my stomach hurts as I spy these Beetlejuice-esque, triple-stacked modular bourgeois trailers bulging at their property lines like obese titans of neo-Denver. Who wants to live in a neighborhood when your home is one of the behemoths on the block screaming, “I’m the the winner because I am big and expensive!” I know a lot of people in Denver and I have yet to meet anyone who lives in one of these architectural Frankensteins.”

Bitter Agreement

Patterson-UTI Drilling Co. just got slammed with a settlement in the case of Pablo Urenda, a worker who experienced racial slurs and physical threats while manning a rig. The cost to the company: $14.5 million. Via The Grand Junction Sentinel.

Pot of Gold

Lawmakers are debating whether or not to keep TABOR pot money, reports The Gazette. But instead of deciding themselves, they want to take the question to the voters.

Big Business

Jack DeBell started the popular recycling center in Boulder on campus in 1970, on the first Earth Day. The university was the first college campus to create a recycling program. It now runs on a $6 million budget.

Beyond Lemonade

The Boulder City Council approved an ordinance to allow the city’s burgeoning cottage food industry — home gardeners, beekeepers, jam-makers —  to sell their products straight out of their homes. Via The Daily Camera.

Meal Planning

Dan Sharp is a school lunch visionary, reports The Grand Junction Sentinel. He has taken the Mesa Valley School District out of $900,000 of debt and axed the chicken nuggets and fries for healthier options. But his work is not finished yet.

 

 Photo Credit: Jeffrey Beale, Creative Commons, Flickr.

 

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