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Headline RSS FeedTough times for former Vail Valley officials in Steamboat
July 23, 2008 —
Last week was a rough one for former Vail Valley government officials now working in Steamboat Springs.
Former Vail police chief and current Routt County Sheriff Gary Wall was convicted of driving while ability impaired (DWAI), and former Minturn town manager Alan Lanning was sent packing as Steamboat town manger by the Steamboat Town Council.
Then last weekend in nearby Oak Creek, former mayor Kathy “Cargo” Rodeman was arrested for suspicion of DUI and resisting arrest, but only after police first used a Taser on her. As far as RealVail can determine, Rodeman has no previous Vail Valley connections.
Wall, though, definitely does. After first serving as a police officer in Aspen, Wall came to Vail in the early ’70s and was the Vail police chief from ’73 to ’79. During that time he hired Dick Cleveland, now an investigator with a our district attorney’s office, and also the current Vail mayor.
A jury of six last Wednesday found Wall guilty of DWAI, failing to dim his headlights and prohibited use of a firearm, according to the Steamboat Pilot & Today newspaper.
Wall originally faced a more serious charge of driving under the influence after an October traffic stop by a Colorado state trooper who pulled Wall over following a Steamboat chamber of commerce event. Wall, who said he had just one glass of red wine at the event, reportedly refused to perform roadside sobriety tests and did not submit to blood-alcohol testing.
The Pilot reported the most damaging testimony from the three-day trial came from sheriff’s deputy Lance Eldridge, who drove Wall and wife home after the state patrol stop. Eldridge last Tuesday said he would have arrested Wall that night, based on his observations of the sheriff’s condition. Eldridge reportedly resigned from the sheriff’s office Tuesday night after testifying.
The Pilot also reported an official with the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Board said that Wall’s conviction likely would not affect his status with the state. The article also noted Wall can only be removed from office through a recall election.
Nothing criminal in the Lanning case. The former Minturn manager who was hired by a previous council in Steamboat in 2006 appeared to have management-style differences with the new council. According to the Pilot, he didn’t resign and he wasn’t fired, and the council approved a hefty severance package. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Minturn again searching for a town manager? Just a thought.
The Oak Creek case appears to be loaded with a lot more intrigue.
Rodeman, mayor of Oak Creek from 2002 to 2006, allegedly eluded police who tried to pull her over for suspicion of drunk driving early Saturday morning, according to a story in The Pilot.
Rodeman and other passengers in the car then stopped and quickly went into an Oak Creek residence, where another woman allegedly slammed the door in the face of the Oak Creek officer who tried to make the traffic stop. The officer said he injured his back in the incident and had to get medical treatment.
But that was after he reportedly called in backup, entered the home and subdued Rodeman using a Taser. Rodeman’s attorney told the newspaper that the arresting officer has a history of citizen complaints. Comments on the paper’s Web site ranged from support for the police to accusations that the town’s cops are out of control and regularly harass residents.
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Will Shafroth get a bounce as Polis, Fitz-Gerald go to blows?
July 21, 2008 —
The money just keeps pouring into the hotly contested three-way 2nd Congressional District primary race between Democrats Joan Fitz-Gerald, Jared Polis and Will Shafroth, and the rhetoric in recent days has turned from heated to downright ugly.
According to second-quarter financial reports filed last week, one of the costliest congressional primaries in Colorado history just keeps getting more and more spendy. The largely left-leaning district that includes Vail and Eagle County but is anchored heavily by its largest population center of Boulder is a virtual lock for the Dem who claims the Aug. 12 primary.
Polis, Internet entrepreneur and former head of the state school board, won the second-quarter fund-raising race at $3.19 million (mostly in the form of contributions to his own campaign) and has outspent his opponents by a ratio of about 10-to-1, flooding the airwaves with TV commercials and mailboxes with glossy flyers. Polis has reportedly spent about $2.6 million so far, with just over three weeks to go till the primary.
Fitz-Gerald, the former state Senate president and Jefferson County clerk, raised $422,590 in the second quarter, and Shafroth, a conservationist who used to head up Great Outdoors Colorado, raised a little more than $280,000.
So far the three candidates have raised nearly $7.7 million, with Polis accounting for nearly $5 million of that ($3.6 million from his own coffers). With no official polling data available, it’s unclear who the front-runner is at this point.
The Polis campaign, however, has continued to up the ante, criticizing Fitz-Gerald for contributions from mining conglomerates with spotty international environmental and human-rights records. Last week, the Polis camp sent out flyers detailing contributions totaling $6,400 to Fitz-Gerald from AngloGold Ashanti Mining and Newmont Mining.
Fitz-Gerald’s campaign fired back late last week that Polis continues to pump money into a mutual fund called Evergreen Precious Metal Holdings – with holdings in mining firms with equally spotty records -- to the tune of between $100,000 and $250,000. And the Fitz-Gerald camp also called attention to a recent Wall Street Journal storycritical of Polis.
Shafroth, meanwhile, stayed out of the fray, garnering a story to that effect in the Rocky Mountain News and an endorsement from the editorial board of the more conservative of the two Denver dailies, although one comment on the paper’s Web site suggested the endorsement of the underdog who petitioned his way on the ballot was meant to give Republican Scott Starin a better chance in November. Like the GOP pulling for Hillary to get the presidential nod.
That seems unlikely. I think Shafroth would win in a walk in this district (hell, I could probably take it), but it remains to be seen if he’ll get any sympathy votes based on the mudslinging of Polis and Fitz-Gerald.
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Courtesy of Greg Norman Golf Course Design www.gngcd.com
Greg Norman looks to make golf history at British Open
July 19, 2008 —
Greg Norman takes a shot at the golf history books Sunday as he enters the fourth and final round of the British Open at Royal Birkdale as the oldest player to lead a major championship after 54 holes.
On a day when the wind was howling, the Great White Shark calmly navigated the choppy seas, and at the age of 53 the two-time British Open winner better known for the tournaments he lost (his famous collapse at the Masters in ’96 was the last time he held the lead heading into the final round of a major) has a two-stroke lead after shooting a 72 Saturday.
Norman, who recently married 18-time major tennis champion Chris Evert, would be the oldest winner of a major golf championship ever, but he’ll be haunted by past failures Sunday (TV coverage starts at 6 a.m. MST on ABC). He’s the only player to have lost all four majors in a playoff.
Still, golf’s ultimate tragic figure told ABC, “I’m very, very happy in my mind,” after his round on Saturday, and that may bode well for the Australian.
What does all this have to do with Vail and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains (the usual focus of realvail.com)? Check out my Real Lives story on Norman, written for Rocky Mountain Golf in 2006, for that answer.
I interviewed Norman for a magazine based in Colorado while I was working at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Sestriere, Italy, and Norman was in Australia. For some reason I like the geographical oddity of that fact.
Clearly, a great deal has changed for Norman since I wrote the piece, and he obviously seems to be in a better place both physically and mentally since ’06 (he last played a major in 2005). Now he has the perfect opportunity to exorcise all the demons from his golfing past.
Safe to say the Vail Valley will be pulling for the Shark.
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Courtesy of the U.S. Ski Team
No ESPY for Vail's Vonn ... but at least Danica didn't win
July 18, 2008 —
OK, some quick housekeeping items for the weekend:
First, Vail ski racer Lindsey Vonn did not win an ESPY Award this week for Best Female Athlete of the Year, but it’s fairly awesome she was even in the running.
Hoops star Candace Parker got the nod, but at least Lindsey, the Ski Club Vail product who won the overall World Cup title last season, didn’t lose out to another nominee, racecar driver Danica Patrick.
I’m psyched Danica got her first Indycar win this season, but I can’t put racecar drivers in the same category as downhill skiers in terms of athletic accomplishment.
No offense to Vail’s Buddy Lazier, who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1996 and I’m sure is a helluva skier as well, but going 225 mph in a racecar is not as intense an athletic endeavor as downhill racing on skis at 60 or 70 mph.
There are enormous physical risks in both sports, and racecar driving does require tremendous endurance and skill, but the raw force of riding metal edges on ice down the world’s trickiest downhill courses, in my mind, requires more conditioning and sheer nerve.
Speaking of athletic accomplishment – and I’m sure some of you will argue a sport with John Daly in it hardly qualifies – but golf in the Vail Valley has always been at a very high level, and I’m not just talking elevation. Check out my Real Lives story on Greg Norman, who designed Wolcott’s Red Sky Ranch course and at age 53 was one stroke off the British Open lead after two rounds Friday.
On the local media front, I thought it was interesting to watch the competing coverage afforded the Lionshead Parking Structure project by the Vail Daily and the Vail Mountaineer, the new five-day-a-week paper in town. If you’re reading this outside the Valley, you can’t see the Mountaineer stories because they don’t have a website yet, but they did OK.
The first-day Daily story glossed over the key point that new engineering may allow the project to be built without any of the structure’s current 1,150 parking spaces being taken offline during construction, meaning the project no longer needs to wait on Vail Resorts’ Ever Vail garage. It also incorrectly reported the council approved the plan. Then the Vail beat reporter, Ed Stoner, took the story over again and explained the significance of the new parking proposal and the fact that the project plan still needs sign-off.
However, the Daily continues to refer to the hotel, condo and retail project as a $600 million proposal (the original price tag), but developer Mark Masinter confirmed for me that the $900 million figure the Mountaineer used last week is actually the right number.
However, the Mountaineer blew it with a story about defensible wildfire space around the town of Vail, saying the ring is complete. The town of Vail confirmed for me that what I’ve been reporting – that the ring of defensible space will only be 40-percent complete by the end of the summer and that the full perimeter will take until 2012 – is actually the real story.
Meanwhile, the Daily appeared to have no mention of columnist Kaye Ferry being given the heave-ho by the paper, something I think would have generated a ton of letters both pro and con, and they ran a story on Eagle County commissioner candidate Debbie Buckley in which they quoted Avon Mayor Ron Wolfe but didn’t mention allegations by Wolfe on realvail.com that Buckley’s husband Pete is running the conservative EagleCountyTimes.com blog site.
Seems like there must be an active policy at the Daily to ignore the competition, whether it’s in print or on the Web. In the long run that might actually be a good strategy. Time will tell.
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