Articles for Friday, May 16, 2008
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by
Curtis Wackerle, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
Information released this week by the city of Aspen details how the costs of the Burlingame Ranch affordable housing project increased from an estimated $184,000 per-unit taxpayer subsidy in 2005 to a $373,343 per-unit subsidy, which could jump as high as $484,906 per unit once the costs of borrowing the money to finish the project are figured in.
As now projected, Burlingame will cost $138 million to complete, requiring an $85.5 million total subsidy.
by
Catherine Lutz, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
A man whose bid for political asylum landed him in an immigration detention center for eight months is back home in Glenwood Springs — for now.
Henry Akim Gama, a self-proclaimed political refugee from Zimbabwe, was released yesterday on $2,000 bond from an immigration holding facility in Teller County south of Denver. Earlier this year he had faced immediate deportation.
by
Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
Landowner wants $31,000 tax break for growing $463 worth of hay
The Pitkin County commissioners denied a property owner’s request for a tax refund on Wednesday, saying the owner’s claim that the land is “agricultural” is a “sham.”
by
Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
Two crashed vehicles and a cache of stolen liquor were discovered on Red Mountain Wednesday morning. Local authorities believe the cars — both pickup trucks — were stolen and crashed in succession by the same thief or thieves.
The first was taken from a parking lot on Lone Pine Road and crashed on the roadside of West Reds Road, where it was abandoned. Investigators said they found backpacks loaded with liquor stolen from the same apartment complex from which the truck was stolen.
Aspen Daily News Staff Report, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
Pitkin County road and bridge crews have been working to clear county roads of snow and reopen them for the summer after a big, snowy winter.
The upper part of Castle Creek Road from Ashcroft to the end of the pavement, where the unpaved road towards Pearl Pass and Montezuma Basin begins, reopens today
Aspen Daily News Staff Report, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008
Vincent Joe Higens of Basalt passed away on May 11, 2008. He was 53.
He was born on Feb. 4, 1955, in Denver, to Gale and June (Bey) Higens. He married Joy Sande on Oct. 31, 1975, and lived in the Roaring Fork Valley for 28 years. Vincent was the president of Pitkin County Title.
Columnist
by Clarence Page
Friday, May 16, 2008
Is it over yet?
Everybody seems to be complaining about the endless Democratic presidential primaries. Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters wonder out loud whether Sen. Hillary Clinton will deliver a concession speech before Inauguration Day.
by Amy Goodman
Friday, May 16, 2008
More than five years have passed since the invasion of Iraq, since President Bush stood under the “Mission Accomplished” banner on that aircraft carrier. While these fifth anniversaries got some notice, another did not: The shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, by a U.S. Army tank, on April 8, 2003. The tank attack killed two unembedded journalists, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco. Couso recorded his own death. He was filming from the balcony and caught on tape the distant tank as it rotated its turret and fired on the hotel. A Spanish court has charged three U.S. servicemen with murder, but the U.S. government refuses to hand over the accused soldiers. The story might have ended there, just another day of violence and death in Iraq, were it not for a young U.S. military intelligence veteran who has just decided to blow the whistle.
Adrienne Kinne is a former Army sergeant who worked in military intelligence for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004. Trained in Arabic, she worked in the Army translating intercepted communications. She told me in an interview this week that she saw a target list that included the Palestine Hotel. She knew that it housed journalists, since she had intercepted calls from the Palestine Hotel between journalists there and their families and friends back home (illegally and unconstitutionally, she thought).
Letter to the Editor
Aspen Daily News Staff Report
Friday, May 16, 2008
Editor:
On May 17, several hundred walkers are expected to participate in the MS Lifelines Walk, presented by Wells Fargo.
Aspen Daily News Staff Report
Friday, May 16, 2008
Editor:
I have been picking up trash along Highway 82. It is completely unfathomable — the amount of trash thrown out on the highway.
Aspen Daily News Staff Report
Friday, May 16, 2008
Editor:
Toni Kronberg (letters to the editor, May 13) is being unfair to the Aspen Music Festival and School in her call to have them house more of their students as part of the redevelopment of their Castle Creek campus.
Aspen Daily News Staff Report
Friday, May 16, 2008
Editor:
In response to Richard Cohen’s column on John McCain’s foreign policy, be careful what you wish for.
