In an ironic twist, both Marilyn Marks and Elizabeth Milias--critical of the instant runoff election for Aspen Mayor and City Council--are now in the crosshairs of former Aspen City Councilor Jack Johnson, who has put together 79 pages worth of charges detailing irregular and potentially illegal contact between Marks, who came in second to Mick Ireland in her quest to become Mayor, and her friend Milias, who is an election commissioner. Post Time News reports: "Johnson is charging Marks with being 'the de facto chairman' of the Aspen election commission of which Milius is a member.... Her drumbeat of criticism against Johnson has been turned on its head as the former City Councilor accuses Marks and Milius of wrongdoing."
Aspen Post, the Post Time Media Inc. blog you now have before you, is celebrating its 5,000th comment to go with over 2,300 individual blog posts.
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The lead researcher in embryonic stem cell therapies at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine is predicting that effective treatment to repair severed spinal cords will be available “within five years.” “This is really good news for people with spinal injuries,” Dr. Davies said, speaking at the CU Given Institute here in Aspen. The breakthroughs could impact the 450,000 people in the United States with spinal cord disabilities.
Posts filed under 'Post Time News'
POST TIME NEWS--Former City Councilor Jack Johnson made significant trouble for citizen activist Marilyn Marks and her crony Elizabeth Milias Monday night by delivering 79 pages worth of documents detailing--ironically--irregularities and even illegal tactics in Marks's pursuit of justice or at least clarity when it comes to Aspen's mayoral election.
Johnson is charging Marks with being "the de facto chairman" of the Aspen election commission of which Milias is a member.
Continue Reading October 26th, 2009
POST TIME NEWS (ASPEN, COLORADO)--Nearing its fourth year of continuous if controversial operation, Aspen Post--a local blog operated by Post Time Media Inc.--exceeded the 5,000-comment threshold this week on top of more than 2,300 individual blog posts.
"It's hard to believe we've come this far," said Post Time CEO Michael Conniff, also the editor of Aspen Post. "When we started I was literally afraid to call this a 'blog' because it seemed like a pejorative term."
Continue Reading September 18th, 2009
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The lead researcher in embryonic stem cell therapies at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine is predicting that effective treatment to repair severed spinal cords with be available “within five years.”
“This is really good news for people with spinal injuries,” Dr. Davies said.
Speaking at the CU Given Institute here in Aspen, Dr. Stephen Davies—an associate professor of neurosurgery based at the sprawling Anschutz Medical Center in Denver—said his work in repairing scar tissue and growing neural connections between the brain and the spinal cord also has potentially profound applications for patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), traumatic brain injury, and even diabetes. The key findings of Dr. Davis and his CU team—including his wife, Dr. Judith Davies—were published in the Journal of Biology online.
Continue Reading January 29th, 2009
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The harshest critic of both Aspen City Council and City of Aspen staff now admits there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by anyone in the Burlingame Ranch affordable housing brouhaha.
“There were no criminal actions,” Marilyn Marks told Post Time News, “and we are not accusing anybody.”
Marks, a citizen advocate who has found a calling in monitoring city governance, supported a criminal investigation into Burlingame when another Aspen activist, James Perry, made the formal request to Aspen City Attorney John Worcester—who quickly turned thumbs down on the idea. Marks, nonetheless, continues to call for an investigation
“We never broke any laws,” Worcester said. “Besides that I have no other comment.”
The admission from Marks represents a level of vindication for the targets of her considerable ire—including Mayor Mick Ireland and City Manager Steve Barwick.
Continue Reading November 18th, 2008
[Editor's Note: This news coverage has been underwritten by Factual Aspen Investigative Reporting (FAIR). FAIR has been formed and organized in Aspen, Colorado, as a nonprofit corporation to conduct investigative journalism in the public interest, and to provide accurate, meaningful, and non-biased news coverage based on correct factual information.]
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—In response to critics of the affordable housing program—and the recommendations of consultants—a new City of Aspen department, largely consisting of existing municipal employees, remains the most significant change in the management of the program since major discrepancies were discovered in an informational brochure concerning Burlingame Ranch sent in error to voters.
“I don’t think this new position or department will help at all,” Don Davidson of the Citizens Budget Task Force told Post Time News. “The personnel in City Hall does not have the experience or know how to handle affordable housing projects. They just don’t have the skill. We need to hire a whole team of people with the experience.”
Continue Reading November 4th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—Despite operating at a loss totaling nearly $2.8 million for the last two years, the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority (RFTA) is anxious to pass a November 2008 referendum in Pitkin County that would pump an additional $44.555 million into the system and propel RFTA from its roots in Aspen as a municipal bus system into a regional force to be reckoned with.
The referendum calls for a maximum bond repayment of just under $100 million.
Nearly half the bond, some $20.34 million, would go to a new Glenwood Springs station, an upgrade of Ruby Park in Aspen, and new parking throughout the system. Some $3.51 million has also been set aside for contingencies.
RFTA chief executive officer Dan Blankenship told Post Time News that were RFTA to operate in the red after the passage of Referendum 4A, the transportation authority would contemplate raising the rates for riders and other measures to make up the difference—including a return trip to voters to ask for more money.
Continue Reading October 14th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—Despite major snafus in the affordable housing program, local elected officials are asking voters to approve an extension of the Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) that paves the way for tens of millions of dollars of bonds—long-term debt that would be used to finance the program far into the future.
Aspen City Council is in fact asking voters to extend the RETT for bonding purposes for a total of 32 years into the future—the same amount of time the affordable housing program has been in existence. The consequences of municipal bonds are far-reaching because they would dramatically shift the affordable housing program from a pay-as-you-go model to one largely dependent on debt financing at a time of global concerns about the reliability of credit markets and declining RETT revenue due to a slowdown in the local real estate market.
Continue Reading October 8th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The Wheeler Opera House, owned by the City of Aspen, has ambitious plans to expand in a way that not only could threaten chances for a long-term endowment, according to the City’s former Finance Director, but also calls into question whether the historic Opera House has the right to expand based on the language used to create the Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) that provides a revenue stream.
Former Finance Director Paul Menter, now Finance Director of the nonprofit Aspen Community Foundation, told Post Time News the Wheeler can’t spend the money to expand and still be able to meet an endowment goal of $70 million by 2018, a figure set by Aspen City Council in a budget proceeding to make the Opera House self-sufficient.
“If they are taking all this money to expand,” Menter said. “There will be no way that they can get rid of the RETT [in 2018] and set up an endowment to run the Wheeler Opera House. I just don’t see how they can do it.”
Continue Reading October 1st, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—Because it kept important details from the public, the City of Aspen’s attempts at transparency in the Burlingame Ranch affordable housing brochure brouhaha exacerbated a bad situation and made it worse in the realm of public perception.
No one disputes the Burlingame brochure misled voters in 2005 when it appeared before the election with an inaccurate “total” cost figure of $74 million for all three phases, a number approved by voters but one that left out infrastructure costs in a snafu uncovered in April 2008 by the Citizens Budget Task Force appointed by Aspen City Council. But in its aggressive and even admirable efforts at transparency after the problem became public, Aspen City Staff failed to disclose basic details describing who was responsible for how the brochure discrepancy had come about. The gap in the City’s official explanation gave critics ammunition as they assumed the worst—a problem that persists to this day.
Continue Reading September 23rd, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The Burlingame affordable housing project came unglued in part because key departments within the City of Aspen were all but excluded from the communications, budgeting, and implementation processes.
Post Time News has learned these exclusions were sometimes intentional and sometimes circumstantial, but the net net was the virtual elimination of checks and balances within City government made manifest in the inaccurate Burlingame marketing brochure distributed to voters. Because of the mistakes, Aspen voters subsequently approved the project based on cost estimates for the three phases that were low by an order of magnitude: the brochure estimate for the “total” cost of Burlingame was $74 million; the most recent estimate by City Manager Steve Barwick, including infrastructure costs, was $138 million.
Continue Reading September 16th, 2008
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