Haji S. Adnan appeared to symbolize everything that was right about the city of Denver’s controversial minority contracting program. Adnan, who died of lung cancer this summer at the age of 67, had come to the United States from Indonesia in the 1950s, educated himself at the Colorado School of…

When Denver attorney Jeff North sued Baker & Hostetler earlier this year, the prestigious downtown law firm tried in vain to keep from airing its dirty laundry in public. The firm, which had lured North away from the upper echelons of the federal Resolution Trust Corporation and then kicked him…

Park Hill businessman and his wife have received a six-figure, low-interest loan from the City of Denver even though they have a long history of financial problems and until recently owed the city treasury almost $60,000 in delinquent real estate taxes. Johnny and Bernice Copeland, owners of the Holly Shopping…

Earlier this year, when Boulder attorney Peter Rogers lost a routine child-support case for client Richard Kosnar, he appeared to go out of his way to make amends. Not only did Rogers write Kosnar a profuse letter of apology, according to court records, but he even offered to make Kosnar’s…

One thing’s certain about reporter Steve Paulson’s recent news stories about Denver International Airport for the Associated Press: They could hardly be getting better play. One of them–charging that expansive soils are causing the widespread cracking of runways at the new airport–went out on the AP’s national wire in August…

On paper–certain pieces of it, anyway–David Shortridge looks like a clear favorite to win a seat on the board of the Regional Transportation District in November’s election. Shortridge, a member of the town council in Nederland, has experience as an elected official, while his opponent, thirty-year-old businessman Jon Caldara, is…

Glenda Swanson Lyle struck a blow for good government last year when she introduced a bill in the Colorado legislature to prevent dishonest politicians from taking office. But Representative Lyle, a Democrat who represents voters in northeast Denver, is now fending off questions about her own integrity. The state has…

One of the largest-ever private grants awarded to a Denver neighborhood has driven a rift between community groups in the very area it’s supposed to be helping. Last year the Denver nonprofit group NEWSED scored a major coup when it was picked to receive more than $3 million from the…

part 2 of 2 During the late 1980s and early 1990s Savage spent a lot of time jetting back and forth between England and Colorado, where he had also developed a number of business contacts. One was Michael Bergman, a Fort Collins man who hoped Savage would provide him with…

part 1 of 2 The cancer, Brian Rusca remembers, seemed to devour John Savage from within, like a weevil inside a boll of cotton. In May, when Rusca flew out from Fresno to Colorado Springs for a final visit, his normally robust, six-foot-one-inch friend was down to a wire-thin 140…

An engineer chosen by the city of Denver to help design the alternative baggage system at Denver International Airport is also being sued by the city for “negligence,” “errors” and “design deficiencies” in his work on DIA’s tent-roofed terminal building. Sami Miro, president of S.A. Miro Inc. of Denver, has…

Denver mayor Wellington Webb has gone to court to force his 32-year-old son to get treatment for apparently long-standing addictions to alcohol and cocaine. Recently, the mayor asked Denver Probate Judge Field C. Benton to place Allen Wayne Webb in the custody of the alcohol and drug abuse division of…

The way Denver city councilman Ted Hackworth sees it, there were lots of good, sound ways the parks and recreation department could have found to spend $73,500. For instance, the financially strapped city department might have used the money to buy new equipment like basketballs and volleyball nets. Or it…

Eight years ago area transportation officials pronounced that Denver needed a public helicopter landing facility near its downtown to accommodate the growing demand of business executives and to keep the city on par with other financial hubs around the country. Consultants have spent the past two years–and more than $125,000…

At first glance, it looks like an inconsequential little controversy involving nothing more significant than some burned-out light bulbs, missing trash cans and wads of discarded chewing gum. But in recent weeks, a seemingly mundane dispute over street maintenance along Denver’s Santa Fe Drive has turned into a heated political…

Last year, in the midst of Denver’s “Summer of Violence,” Mayor Wellington Webb took several steps to help stem the flow of blood on city streets. One was beefing up the “Neighborhood Watch” program with civilian employees, who could overcome mistrust of the police in high-crime areas and help organize…

When it comes to dealing with the city government and Denver International Airport, businessman King Harris has always had a Midas touch. A company Harris controls has been given almost $20 million worth of work at DIA under a single inspection contract over the past few years. It’s reaped millions…

When Jeff North first arrived at the Denver law offices of Baker & Hostetler in July 1992, he must have seemed like quite a catch. Barely 43, North had been wooed away from the upper echelons of the Resolution Trust Corporation, the federal agency charged with cleaning up the nation’s…

Paul Steward Collection/Black American West Museum From the outside, the old Rossonian Hotel building looks like Denver’s latest economic-development success story. The former jazz mecca, an historic and architectural landmark in the city’s Five Points neighborhood, is nearing completion after a publicly funded makeover that has cost more than $2…

When the City of Denver hired the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton last year to deal with the national reporters who were filing stories about its new airport, it agreed to pay top dollar for the company’s expertise. But it took the chief researcher at the prominent Washington,…

It’s hard to say precisely when things started falling apart for Denver lawyer David L. Smith. A good guess might be mid-July 1992, after he filed a request in federal court to take the deposition of a dead man. Smith, who was representing plaintiff Geana Dunkin in an employment-discrimination suit…

Last week’s decision by the New York rating company Standard & Poor’s to downgrade Denver International Airport bonds to “junk” status was bad news pretty much all the way around. Mayor Wellington Webb, already reeling from a steady fusillade of embarrassing headlines, suffered yet another blow to his reputation as…