Today's News

There has been a great deal of excitement in Our Evergreen World this week, all due to a big concentration of ladybird beetles in Genesee Park.

I recently spoke to a political pollster, who told me he is seeing strong evidence that Americans (and Coloradans in particular) are increasingly frustrated with their government’s culture of reckless spending, both at the state and federal levels. This is not a partisan issue, he said, since significant numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents all share this concern to one degree or another.

The Jeffco commissioners may have once again run afoul of the Colorado Open Meetings Law by using e-mail to discuss a common statement regarding the board’s controversial effort to seek authority to regulate bicyclists on county roads.

The apparent violation comes less than two years after the Courier successfully sued the Board of Commissioners over a violation of the law in July 2007. In a settlement of that lawsuit, the commissioners acknowledged they violated the Open Meetings Law and agreed to follow all of the law’s provisions in the future.

Littleton investment banker J.J. Ament has thrown his hat into the 2010 race for state treasurer.

Ament, who is running as a Republican, has spent years in the private banking industry working mostly with governments on major investment projects, and he says taxpayers' dollars can be used and invested more efficiently.

"I've worked with this treasurer (and) with this governor," Ament said. "And it was frustrating for me to show them the right things to do and have them not do them, and then have to sit there afterward and show them the losses."