Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Development at 22nd and Marion - meeting onsite tomorrow (8/29/13) at 5:00 pm

Developer is going to need a zoning variance to build 5-story (70 ft high) on a 3-story lot. No affordable housing included. Note that the meeting is going to be held outdoors on the site, and that chairs will be provided. 
Heads-up: the developer is represented by The Pachner Company. Here's a quote from Marcus Pachner's Linked-In page: Marcus Pachner is the President and founder of The Pachner Company. Marcus worked for Denver City Council for many years and has extensive connections to elected officials, appointees and staff at all levels of local government. 

(Click to enlarge developer's handout from the first meeting )



On Marion looking south. Note crane at hospital redevelopment in background.


SE Corner of 22nd and Marion

Drawing taken from Zoning Code for illustrative purposes only.


Deserted garden in the food desert at Curtis and Downing


I happened to drive by the Community Garden at Curtis and Downing on August 6th and was surprised to see an overgrown weed patch, dry as a bone in the summer sun. I parked and took these pictures.




Later, on the Facebook page of Engage 8 I found pictures of the creation of this garden around May of 2012.








I

So it looks like Engage 8 was a prime mover in the creation of the garden. In case you are not familiar with Engage 8, here is an article from the Denver Post.

Councilman helps form nonprofit

Engage 8 gathers ideas from community, seeks solutions to issues

Posted: 12/28/2011 06:34:51 AM MST   Updated: 12/28/2011 06:34:51 AM MST   Author: Matthew Rodriguez

Councilman Albus Brooks has helped create a nonprofit in his Denver City Council district focusing on community outreach.
The organization, Engage 8, is focusing on a wide range of issues such as education, transportation, sustainability, public safety and economic development.
Executive director Tony Pigford said the organization’s goal is to solicit issues and ideas from the community and bring together volunteers to work toward implementing them in District 8, which stretches from downtown to Park Hill.
“All the assets to realize our goals are already in the community,” he said. “Engage 8 would like to be a puzzle piece that helps bring people together.”
The organization is partnering with Brooks’ office and the Denver Foundation on a listening tour of the district. The next stop on the “Imagin8 Tour” is 6 p.m. Jan. 25 at Pathways Church, 1595 Pearl St.
Pigford said some ideas that have emerged in discussions among officials and residents include putting art in storefronts along Welton Street or pairing youths with seniors for snow shoveling.

Matthew Rodriguez: 303-954-2409 or mrodriguez@denverpost.com

The mission of Engage8 is to enrich and empower the residents of District 8. We do this by supporting their ideas, building upon their strengths, sustaining existing community organizations, encouraging civic activity and developing innovative initiatives.

Our community is in a unique position to become the model for socially-oriented community development. We have dedicated, passionate, and active leaders. The soil is fertile; now is the time to begin planting the seeds of change by building collaborations that achieve sustainable outcomes.

Levi Johnsen, current Director of Engage 8
I called Engage 8 and spoke at length with Levi Johnsen, the current director, about the project.
He was very helpful and, after researching further called me back with some of the history. Tony Pigford, the former director and founder of Engage 8, had organized the project. There was no water tap available at the site, and although Engage 8 had $2,500 for obtaining a water tap, Denver Water quoted a price of $8,500 to provide water at the site. In the meantime, YouthBiz Inc., also a not-for-profit, and the owner of the land, had subsequently put the property on the market for sale. 


Brandy Bertram, Executive Director of YouthBiz, Inc.
So I called YouthBiz, Inc., and spoke with Brandy Bertram, Executive Director. She was very helpful and explained that Tony Pigford had put the project together in a hurry. She said that Engage 8 and YouthBiz, Inc. did not have a written agreement or lease for the property and that the YouthBiz board had subsequently decided to sell the property. Although she seemed sensitive to the issue of how they had come to own the property in the first place, she was kind enough to send me the current brochure.






Digging in the property tax records revealed:

 and a bit of history, including the original sale by the City and County of Denver to YouthBiz, Inc. in 2008.
So, in conclusion, we have more questions than answers with regard to this "Community Garden":


1. Why did Denver sell this property in the first place? It looks like the perfect site for a pocket park like many of the other "triangle properties" created by the grid rotation of downtown Denver.

2. Why didn't Engage 8 secure the use of the property with a lease agreement before doing all the work to create the garden?
3. Why did Tony Pigford step down from Engage 8, the organization he founded on Sept 12, 2011?
4. As usual, when it comes to the City of Denver and land deals, the devil is in the details. Follow the money.

Note: I realize that this report is incomplete. I should call Tony Pigford and Councilman Albus Brooks to get additional details. However I felt obligated to get this much of the story out now, with the hope that additional details will be forthcoming. Please feel free to comment if you have additional information.


P.S. Email from Levi Johnsen: 

levi@engag​e8.org (levi@engage8.org)
8/19/13

The planter beds were picked up on Saturday and will now go towards a garden that helps produce one ton of fresh produce per year that goes to Denver Urban Ministries. Thanks for your inquiry, which helped light a fire under the process of getting those planter beds activated!



Levi

Monday, August 26, 2013

ALL THINGS MJ with Jessica LeRoux - August 26, 2013

Hey Now! 

in 5 short weeks many of you presume your Colorado medical marijuana businesses will be "going recreational", but what does that mean exactly? Have you read the proposed 126 pages of recreational rules and the revised rules for Medical marijuana? Don't just assume that if your town has banned recreational but will allow medical to continue that things will be business as usual for you either. Not a single sole has seen the Framwell MITs system in operation yet, and somehow in 5 weeks its gonna be ready for sale to colorado cannabis business licensees? I for one am rather alarmed that the MED employees sat in a meeting and claimed that MITs will somehow in realtime prevent transportation of "illegal" weed. CORRECTION: MITs in a best case scenario may be able to alert a MED enforcement officer that they need to get out from behind the $10000 desk and do some real time fucking enforcing! MITS is a COMPUTER people… all it can do is render the transportation of cannabis more illegal by not permitting a party who is under investigation from printing a manifest. Are you felling really confident about doubling down on MMED management and employees with that as their top enforcement strategy? WE should demand a better plan or it will be a return to audit city and that's never pretty where state employees and cannabis are involved. 

pipe dreamin…. 
Gubment Scheming... 

Patients screaming... (rightly so) 

Ass Reaming... (what exactly constitutes independent?) 

Light Beaming…. (that's time travel y'all!) 
the other day while working on writing labels up and packing the days fare... It occurs to me that Im writing dates in 2014 on these frozen products now... what are the MMC implications for MIPs with labels on products sold well prior to new years? I know im one of the shorter shelf life's for MIPs out on the market, what are products designed to sit on the shelf for 6-18 months doing these days?

Stupid Seeming…. 
News flash to Paul Lopez, the food deserts in your denver city council district are a greater reflection on your doing a piss poor job of generating jobs and income for potentail grocery shoppers your district, than they are a reflection of corperate gocery businesses not wanting to move to a district that has a median level of licensed marijuana businesses. you sir are an Ass Hat!
* the rules for denver City council are so convoluted that the city may end up being on of the last locations to go rec… 
if the city cant determine who has paid, how can the city determine what order these shops will have their hearings in... because these hearings are basically tantamount to favoristism as whomever is heard 1st will likely open 1st, and with over 300 businesses this could take weeks or months to accomplish, and will be extremely wasteful of administrative funds A public hearing for every new pot shopwww.denverpost.comAmong the regulations for retail marijuana that the Denver City Council is expected to consider Monday is a requirement for an automatic public hearing before any pot shop opens.

in a time of privation for so many working class people how the hell is making this "video" propaganda a priority of the District Atty and DPD??? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2yxxcLL5BE


scare tactics! 


one more time...


WHEN YOU ARE MEDIA WHORING YOU ARE LUCKY IF YOU DONT GET SCREWED! 

was this spin doctored? yes... horribly? not really... do we make medicated products for animals or treat animal "clients" in our "shop" NO we are a licensed MIPs... And most importantly my service dog is in NO way on any Medicated product during this shoot, they kept giving him milk bones trying to get him to do tricks on camera, and he loves belly rubs... sheesh yes you all can say I did know better and yet here we are… Fox cut all the educational stuff I had to say about the endocannabinoid system out, and omitted my advice to focus on CBD or CBN rather than THC when medicating a pet… but hey my product was on TV and I won't lie to you, Im hoping to see some small uptick in sales. 

I was on John Doe radio again, and I do have some good information this time along with the ribald raunch and criticism for my fellow man… 


Mickey Martin on Boston Fox News... That is all good but what I FUCKING love is that the by-line is about the Bonnie Dookhan Story I've been following and sharing with you all for months... Mickey is a legit pundit and the State of MA's top drug analyst is a criminal... THAT is progress.


Show your love or the team, or sleep through the bad plays… its your choice on how many bites to eat at one time! 240 MG THC, 3 flavors, get the assorted packs or we will happily make up packs of any one flavor if you let us know you'd like a specific type! 


Sale this week on Kinship bars… 5% off bars ordered by noon on Tuesday the 27th as part of a 20 unit order. 

Apple Crisp… if you are going camping for labor day get one of these to nestle down in the hot coals of your campfire and pass it around for a night of sound sleep! order by noon on Tuesday as part of any order of 25 units or more and get $0.50 off your crisps… 

Thanks for reading again, 
I really do appreciate your continued support! 

Jessica LeRoux
Twirling Hippy Confections
2145 W Evans 
Denver CO 80223
303 922 3661 

Intellectual Rape of Colorado Product developers forced by state - by Jessica LeRoux

ALERT: the state of Colorado's so called Marijuana Enforcement Division will be forcing mips to use unstandardized laboratory services while permitting that same laboratory to do research on mips intellectual property without the owner's express permission. Colorado also will allow that laboratory to develop "new" product formulas for the labs own profit, by selling untested recipes to a mips' competitor's businesses based on that unauthorized research. Basically right now Colorado has maybe 20-30 truly unique edible/topical products that have been crafted by local licensees.  This portion of the rules means that businesses located right here, much less in other states, can pay to have products (developed by colorado based licensees, who are paying the state licensing fees in good faith) reverse engineered and bypass a mips' opportunity to franchise their products into the burgeoning market in now 20 other legal medical states; thereby hurting the bottom line not just for those colorado based companies forced to use services granted unauthorized R&D rights, but ultimately hurting the financial future of the entire state by pissing away intellectual property that has been developed in Colorado under our state medical program. I have spoken up on the dilemma repeatedly, I ultimately sought to have the option of choosing a NDA (but not required just an option that must be honored if requested) institutionalized in the state's language, but was shot down for what I feel were some pretty flimsy reasons. Why is the state of Colorado doing this? please join me in asking this question repeatedly until answers are given. If you think the intellectual property developed in CO should stay in CO please use this form to question the state's rule making agenda.


http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251863601302&ssbinary=true

you can use any information provided here in your query.
Thanx!
Jessica LeRoux
Twirling Hippy Confections
303 922 3661 

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Plastic bag tax - what are the facts?

Dave Felice wrote an article filled with questions regarding a tax on plastic bags, which is up for consideration by the Denver City Council. In response, Briana Washington of Edelman Digital Public Affairs in Washington, DC sent us the following:







Friday, August 23, 2013

Colorado public bank amendment (2014), Title Board hearing, August 21, 2013

The title board sets a title for each proposed initiative and then frames the title as a "Yes" or "No" question for the ballot. Before the title board can set the title, however, it is charged with deciding whether the initiative meets the so-called "single subject" provision of the state constitution.As noted here, the title board has, on the previous go-around, based on their political positions, suppressed our effort by claiming that our initiative fails to meet the single subject provision. Once again, on August 21, 2014, the title board chose to go this route.
As title board member Dan Domenico argued, our measure contains two subjects because: (1) it creates a bank to do various things; and (2) it exempts the money the bank earns from loans (interest income) from the restrictions of TABOR, the so-called "taxpayer bill of rights," which forces the state to drop or privatize its public services, and never take in any more revenue per capita than it did years ago--a definition of inefficiency.
The problem with Mr. Domenico's argument, as we discovered today, is that the state supreme court has ruled that the title board must conform to the manner in which the General Assembly sets titles for its measures:
In setting titles for initiatives, the Board is directed to "apply judicial decisions construing the constitutional single-subject requirement for bills," and is advised to "follow the same rules employed by the general assembly in considering titles for bills." [Matter of Title, Ballot Title & Submission Clause, & Summary with Regard to a Proposed Petition for an Amendment to Constitution of State of Colo. Adding Subsection (10) to Sec. 20 of Art. X (Amend Tabor 25), 900 P.2d 121, 124-25 (Colo. 1995), § 1–40–106.5(3)].
The current (69th) session of the General Assembly, has passed a law, which it has referred to referendum, that permits a tax on wholesale marijuana (up to 15%), which also says that the revenues from such a tax would not be subject to certain provisions of TABOR, to wit:
(d.3) NOTWITHSTANDING ANY LIMITATIONS ON REVENUE, SPENDING, OR APPROPRIATIONS CONTAINED IN SECTION OF ARTICLE X OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION OR ANY OTHER PROVISION OF LAW, ANY REVENUES GENERATED BY THE RETAIL MARIJUANA EXCISE AND SALES TAXES IMPOSED PURSUANT TO PARAGRAPHS (d.1) AND (d.2) OF THIS SUBSECTION (5), AS APPROVED BY THE VOTERS AT THE STATEWIDE ELECTION HELD IN NOVEMBER OF 2013, MAY BE COLLECTED AND SPENT AS VOTER APPROVED REVENUE CHANGES WITHOUT ADDITIONAL VOTER APPROVAL. (see page 6 of the bill, here)
In other words, the title board's ruling regarding our proposed initiative violates the law, because exempting a measure from TABOR does not count as a second subject.
We will be appealing this ruling. At this time, we expect that the appeal will be heard on September 4th, at 1700 Broadway, on the second or third floor. More to follow.

What is the Office of the Independent Monitor?

FYI:
Independent Monitor Nicholas E. Mitchell
The Office of the Independent Monitor (OIM) is the City and County of Denver’s independent civilian oversight agency of the Denver Police and Sheriff Departments.  Led by Independent Monitor Nicholas E. Mitchell, the OIM accepts officer/deputy complaints and commendations, monitors investigations of alleged officer and deputy misconduct and recommends discipline to the Chief of Police, Director of Corrections and the Manager of Safety, when appropriate.  In addition, the Independent Monitor makes recommendations on policy, procedure and training to better help the Police and Sheriff Departments improve their service to the public.
For more information about OIM, please visit our web site at www.Denvergov.org/OIM or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/DenverOIM.  If you have had contact with sworn law enforcement personnel, good or bad, and would like to talk about it, please contact us at OIM@denvergov.org, (720) 913-3306 or drop by our office in the Wellington Webb Building, 201 W. Colfax Avenue, 12th Floor, Denver, CO 80202.  We always welcome invitations to talk about our work and the services we offer from any organization interested in understanding the importance of independent civilian oversight for Denver.
 
http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/584/images/New311Lockup/EmailIcon.jpg
Gianina Irlando | Community Relations Ombudsman
Office of the Independent Monitor | City and County of Denver
720.913.3307 Direct Line
303.905.9821 Cell

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

ALL THINGS MJ with Jessica LeRoux - August 20, 2013

AGENDA
RETAIL MASTER
MEDICAL MASTER

Hey Now! 

Im forwarding you all the current rules as sent to me by Jordan Wellington so that you can participate in the public hearings regarding new recreational rules and the non-legislative non-statutory retroactive overlay of concepts from those rules onto  Medical marijuana rules… hearings are at the state capitol 

for Marijuana Enforcement Division Permanent Rulemaking
August 20 - 22, 2013
Supreme Court Chambers 
State Capitol
200 East Colfax, 2nd Floor
Denver, CO 80202
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
- Meetings May Conclude Early if All Present Have Commented -

Please note that if you aren't there at 9 they can cancel the meeting even if you are in the car on route from a remote rural location. THIS is what happened in 2011 when the rules for Medical came out… Make sure you arrive as early as you can and we shall try to keep bodies on the stand till you arrive. 

Denver City council is also on a tear of ass fuckery and i feel that there are some forms of favoritism and blackmail built into the process but hey its all cool most of you readers have made up your minds that you will be "going recreational" without reading a single page of proposed regulations or attending a single meeting… good luck with that ! 

Please read please participate, don't come crying to me if you don't do it and don't like results! 
Begin forwarded message:

From: "Wellington - DOR, Jordan" <jordan.wellington@state.co.us>
Subject: Revised Rules and Agenda for Hearings
Date: August 19, 2013 3:37:53 PM MDT
To: Jordan Wellington - DOR <jordan.wellington@state.co.us>

Hi All,

Attached, please find copies of the update rules draft and an agenda for the public hearings this week.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Jordan Wellington
Senior Regulatory Analyst
Marijuana Enforcement Division 
(303) 866-3789
And sales for the week! 

all Mas Y Mas and triple crowns are $0.50 off  if ordered by wednesday. 

Save $0.25 on all Almond bros, rising suns, and Ladies in the sun� 

Save $0.50 on up to 6 packs of bronco bites by using the secret code word "pandering" 

Save $0.25 on all packs of nuts

I will be at the hearing tomorrow so I need you guys to help Sara by getting your orders turned in ASAP� 

Jessica LeRoux
303 922 3661