Numbers Game for Central City DUIs

Blurb: The low number of arrests for drunken driving by Central City police may reflect officer numbers and experience as much as the number of people drinking and driving.

Story:

The Central City Police Department may report a low number of arrests for driving under the influence again this year. But those numbers may not accurately reflect the number of drunken drivers on the road.

In 2008, as of December 12, the CCPD had arrested only five drivers for drunken driving. In 2007, that police department also reported five arrests for DUIs.

According to Colorado Bureau of Investigation reports, those numbers have dropped since the late 1990s and early part of the 2000s. The police department reported as many as 92 arrests in 1998.
But Central City police Chief Terry Krelle said he’s not sure if those numbers really mean fewer people are driving after a few too many drinks.

“Maybe there are fewer drivers under the influence. Maybe there aren’t. It’s hard to know when you don’t have the same number of officers,” said Krelle.

Personnel changes in 2005 match reported DUI decrease

The changes in reported arrests for drunken driving loosely matches the changes in police department personnel. In 1996, Central City employed over 10 police officers. Now, they’re working with a staff of four. Some of those officers were new not just to their force but to working as a police officer in 2005. According to Krelle, just getting comfortable with the protocol for a DUI can take time.

Between the 2005 personnel changes and 2006, the number of arrests for drunken driving dropped from 27 in 2005 to three in 2006.

“More officers mean more numbers. And we’re stretching the resources fairly thin,” said Krelle. “I wish we had higher stats in DUIs, but when you’re this short on staff some of that stuff is going to get by you.”

Central City cut its police force when the revenue that was required to maintain the staff started slowing down as fewer people visiting the city casinos meant fewer taxes came in from the casinos.

“This city has quieted down quite a bit since the early 90s. When gaming just came in, there was quite a bit of ruckus,” Krelle said.

As to whether the possible gaming enhancements will start drawing some increased revenue for Central City, Krelle said he’s unsure. It will take additional revenue from casino-paid taxes, an economic rebound, and city approval to get more officers in Central City.

If the changes approved in January and enacted in the summer of 2009 do bring additional visitors to Central City next year, the police force will be slower to grow to keep up with it.

Gaming laws limit alcohol consumption at casinos

Some casino employees say the Colorado state gaming commission rules help cut some of the possible DUIs.
Stephanie Jones, a bartender in the Easy Street Casino, said the security cameras installed throughout the casino are regularly watched by gaming commission employees. They monitor how often casino visitors are being served alcohol. In particular, they watch to see that bartenders are only serving one drink every 30 minutes.

“If I serve someone who is visibly intoxicated, they’ll take my gaming license away,” Jones said. “If you so much as stumble, someone from the gaming commission will ask you to leave.”

Still, she said, she sees two or three cars pulled over on her way home every night.

“People get up to this altitude and they have a couple drinks and they think they’re all right to drive when they get behind the wheel, but they’re not all right,” she said.

Joe Behm, President of Central City Business Improvement District and Director of Marketing and Community Affairs for Fortune Valley Casino, also said he that gaming laws make drinking in a casino different from drinking in downtown Denver.

“Gaming laws are more stringent with respect to drinking. You cannot be intoxicated while gambling,” he said. “Most bartenders, while they don’t over serve, they certainly serve more than we do.”

Central City residents will vote on January 20 on whether to approve extended gaming hours, higher limits, and additional games. But even if casinos will stay open 24 hours a day, alcohol sales will still end at 2 a.m., according to Krelle.

Construction for higher education taps state budget

Blurb:
The Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) received $11.3 million in “bridge funding” from the Colorado joint budget committee in a pre-session meeting on October 28.

Story:
Denver, Colo.—Wall Street isn’t alone in approaching the government for a bailout.

In a pre-session meeting on October 28, the Colorado General Assembly State Joint Budget Committee (JBC) approved a request for $11.3 million in “bridge funding” from the Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC). That funding will help the higher education center stay on schedule with construction of a new science building. The building, an addition to the existing structure, which is struggling to provide safe ventilation in its labs, is expected to open for classes in fall 2009.

Auraria struggled for funding throughout the year

Construction crews broke ground at the campus in December 2007. At that time, Auraria had received $35 million from the state legislature for the 2007 to 2008 fiscal year. That covered a fraction of the total $111 million expected cost for the building.

But in March, the joint budget committee denied Auraria the $50 million requested for the 2008 to 2009 fiscal year.

At that point, the campus had a hole almost the size of a city block on campus from where construction had started.

Representatives from the three colleges that would be served by the new building, the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State College, and the Community College of Denver, held a news conference asking state officials to reconsider leaving them with a gaping pit on their campus.



Colorado governor Bill Ritter responded to the call. He promised revenue from the federal mineral leases would pay for the building.

Certificates of participation, which would make funds from the mineral leases immediately available for campus construction projects, were auctioned off on October 22 and 23. They sold for $231 million, according to the Colorado Secretary of State.

But that sale does not close until November 6. And Auraria was facing a stack of contractor bids for construction that had to be returned by October 31 with funds guaranteed.

Waiting for the sale to close would have forced the science building’s project managers to let the contractors’ bids expire. Renegotiating those contracts could have halted construction for six to eight weeks. If any of the bids increased, the total cost of the science building would also have increased.

The Auraria campus has a “steel skeleton” that is now “asking the JBC, ‘trick or treat?’” said Eric Kurtz, staff analyst on higher education for the Joint Budget Committee. He presented the request to the committee on Tuesday morning and explained the situation with the contractors.

Kurtz barely finished presenting the request when Al White, a senator from Colorado District 8, made a motion to approve it. The entire meeting lasted less than 10 minutes.

“If we didn’t do it, it would cost more than if we did do it,” White said after the meeting. He described himself as a supporter of “government efficiency.”

That meeting was unusually quick, according to Kurtz. He said he thought the committee members’ familiarity with the project helped them come to a quick decision.

Persistence pays off for Auraria officials

Dean Wolf, executive vice president for administration at AHEC, spent two days in a row at committee meetings to support Auraria’s cause.

He spoke to the Capital Development Committee on October 27 to inform them of AHEC’s situation.

AHEC submitted the request for funds to the Capital Development Committee in September. The development initially rejected the request. After Wolf approached the committee again this week, it passed the request to the Joint Budget Committee, recommending approval.

“We’re very happy to move forward, and we will keep construction moving forward on schedule and on budget,” said Wolf.



AHEC has asked for bridge funding twice this year. The committee approved $13.4 million in June. According to Kurtz, AHEC underestimated the amount of time required for the state to process the sale of certificates of participation.

Poor air quality reported in existing science building

The Auraria campus depends on the completion of this new building, an addition to the existing structure, to expand the square footage available for research and teaching labs, classrooms and offices and to boost the school’s status toward becoming a premier research university.

Renovations will also include what the AHEC Web site describes as “much needed improvements” to the HVAC systems in the existing building. Overcrowding and outdated HVAC have forced the closure of two labs because the levels of chemical fumes were considered dangerous and the ventilation inadequate.

Those renovations will be completed by fall 2010.

The wonderful world of broadcast news

The following is an assignment for my Newsgathering class.

CBS Evening News

The CBS Evening News report on Thursday, October 30 covered 12 stories in just over 20 minutes.

Don Reynolds presented the results from a CBS News and NY Times poll that shows a double digit lead by Senator Barack Obama. Former president Bill Clinton has been appearing with Obama in the final campaign push, as early voters have started lining up around the block to cast their ballots.

Chip Reid reported on Senator John McCain’s campaign in Ohio. He said McCain is trying to make up ground, though he trails five points in the polls. McCain needs to win Ohio because no Republican has won the election without winning Ohio. Both McCain and Governor Sarah Palin are consistently mentioning tax cuts in their speeches.

CBS also did a spot called the “Campaign Reality Check” in which they examined the long list of promises from Obama that includes new programs and tax cuts. They spoke to Pete Sepp from National Taxpayers Union who said Obama’s plans are “untenable.” The Lewin Group predicts healthcare deficits for both candidates’ plans. David Walker, president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said neither would really be able to cut taxes. That’s a total of three sources, and though the story was originally pitched as an examination of Obama’s policies, it covered both candidates.

Kay Hagan, who is running for a Senate seat from North Carolina, has sued the incumbent, Elizabeth Dole, for libel and defamation. Dole launched an ad campaign that questioned Hagan’s ties to an atheist political group. CBS also ran Hagan’s response, which called Dole’s ad a “silly political gimmick.”

A U.S. Department of Commerce report confirms the economic recession, though the Dow closed with an increase on Thursday. American Express is cutting 7000 jobs as part of the slow down.

Credit card companies have started cutting credit limits and deleting dormant users because so many consumers have defaulted on their credit debt. CBS talked to eight sources for this story, including Dianna Kincade, whose Sears credit card limit was cut in half in spite of her good record with paying her bill. She contested the change because it negatively impacted her credit score. CBS also talked to Bernard Baumohl, an economist and Emily Peters, of Credit.com, and pulled facts from Experian, the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Myfico.com. They closed the story with the comment that Americans are having to pay the bill for credit card companies facing so much defaulted debt. The story did not get a rebuttal from a credit card company.

According to the “CDC” (CBS did not report anything but the acronym), there has been a jump in instances of type to Diabetes in Americans.

Another story drew exclusively from figures calculated by the Tax Policy Center to show the tax burdens for various households under Obama and McCain.

CBS showed footage from an Anti-American protest in Damascus, Syria and stated that the Syrian government supported the protest, and wants an apology for a raid by U.S. forces in Syrian that arrested a member of al Qaeda. No specific sources were listed.

A ballot initiative in California would ban same sex marriage. The UCLA school of law reported that there have been 16,000 same sex married since May 15 when the California supreme court declared it legal. The story spoke with Willie Brown, one of the “wisemen of California politics,” Tom Byrne, a same sex marriage opponent whose garage was graffitied because of a lawn sign supporting the ban, and Jeannie Rizzo and Palli Cooper, a same sex couple who got married since May, and showed footage of Pastor Edward Smith telling his congregation to vote in favor of the ban.

The news closed with a story on prison inmate dog trainers who rehabilitate shelter dogs otherwise in line for euthanasia. Reports talked to Debbie Stevens, who started the program, and four of the inmate dog trainers.

Overall, I was impressed with the amount of sources the CBS Evening News referred to, and felt more comfortable with trusting this as a news source than I did with some of the others.

CBS 4 News

I picked up the CBS 4 News broadcast about 15 minutes into their 6 p.m. spot, and caught about 15 stories.

They were already on sports, and showing footage of Will Ferrel visiting his alma mater to rally the football team.

They went back to coverage of the three carjackings that have occurred this week, the last of which was fatal. They spoke to a local resident, who talked about how unsafe she felt, and one of the carjacking victims, who said she knew the perpetrator would strike again.

Two assaults occurred in Boulder this week. One was a sexual assault on a 28 year-old woman, and the other was a possible hate crime. They spoke with police about the details of the hate crime assault, and use the police report.

Campaign news covered the agendas for both McCain and Obama.

The six million Americans living abroad have been casting mail in ballots, many of which will come into swing states. The report spoke with four overseas voters, two whose parties were not named, one Republican, and one Democrat. Their general sentiment was that it was an important election they didn’t want to miss participating in.

They played a few viewer comments on the senate race in Colorado, which discussed the final debate.

They also showed aerial footage of one of the early voting locations and the long lines to wait to vote.

The Colorado Department of Transportation has a new plan for dealing with winter driving conditions on I-70: staged close downs of the interstate to regulate traffic.

Fire Department officials encourage people to replace their smoke alarm batteries at the same time they set their clocks back every fall for the end of Daylight Saving Time.

The weather took up four minutes of the broadcast.

Though October is the worst month in 21 years for Wall Street, it closed with figures heading up on Friday. American spending is still down by .3 percent. Oil prices have also come down 32 percent.

The broadcast finished with pictures and a short bit from Halloween at the children’s hospital.

As a whole, I was disappointed by the content of the broadcast. It read more like a series of headlines and generalizations than like any serious investigations. But, having missed the first 15 minutes, it’s possible I missed some of the more thoroughly covered stories.

Also, as someone primarily familiar with print reporting, I was thrown by the idea that just presenting video footage of something counts as news coverage. There were a lot of statements that, were I editing this in my section at a newspaper, I'd have demanded the reporter site the source, but they were unnamed in the broadcast.


CNN

In an hour and a half of broadcasting on November 3, CNN covered roughly eight stories, but that coverage included up to twenty minutes of footage from Obama and McCain rallies.

They also examine two of the swing states, Ohio and Florida, where people have been standing in line for hours to vote early.

The Florida supreme court has also just resolved a case that would have required voters with recent foreclosures to cast provisional ballots because their home address does not match their voter registration address. Democrats and Republicans both asked that the judge allow those voters to cast regular ballots.

The Hispanic voters may have swung Democrat since the 2004 election as a younger generation with different priorities has begun voting. CNN spoke with two different people, one who talked about diversity being good for Florida, and one about not knowing who would show up to vote, but neither person was identified.

CNN also evaluated Obama and McCain’s response to the energy crisis, and how both would make use of “cap and trade” energy policies.

They reported the latest polls and the candidates’ final efforts to push for a win. Obama will be closing his campaign in Indiana, where polls put him just one point behind McCain and 7 percent remain undecided. McCain will be finished in Pennsylvania. All of the above was reported by CNN’s senior political analyst.

Coming back to the story on long voter lines, CNN played a phone message from a voter from Parkland, Florida, who had to wait five hours to vote. He called the wait “crazy.”

Election officials have reported that 58% of early voters are registered Democrats, and 42% are registered Republicans.

CNN also ran a story called “What Women Want” in which CNN reporter Randi Kaye talked to women on both sides of the party lines, getting comments on their concerns about health care, small business, and Sarah Palin and the media coverage surrounding her, which many of them implied was sexist.

Overall, CNN was not as well sourced as the CBS Evening News, but I was also what was largely a live broadcast from CNN, which might not have permitted the same amount of time for preparation, planning and research as the CBS Evening News.

Racing against skin color

The first night I rode the subway home from work in Upper Darby, Penn., to downtown Philadelphia, I was cornered. No one demanded my purse or flashed a knife between the graying plastic on the subway seats. No. I was cornered by a truth about myself I’d been trying to ignore.

I boarded the subway at 11 p.m., and, of about seven passengers in the three cars I could see into, I was the only white woman. And my first thought was that I had to be the only white woman stupid enough to ride the Market-Frankford line this late on a weeknight. My second thought was gratitude that I’d driven to work the day before when I’d been paid.

I stepped back from the situation long enough that first night on the train to consider, would I be less afraid if the other people on this train were white men?

Probably.

But, I rode the subway late at night, four nights a week, for almost a year, and never had an incident. When I was eventually pick-pocketed, I was in a crowded Starbucks in the business district, surrounded by white people on their way to their office jobs.

What’s most disappointing to me is that I could rationally see that this isn’t a surprise, but still couldn’t overcome my own irrational feelings. I’ve been well [read: liberally] educated; I know Race Matters, have memorized parts of Invisible Man and adore Toni Morrison’s every word. But I step on that subway, or pass down a city street, and another gear kicks in.

I grew up in a town where the Hispanic population was concentrated in the high school across town, and only two African American students attended my high school. In college, a group of about eight students formed the black student alliance. They made a tight knot, and let the white, middle class students swirl around them. They weren’t unfriendly. But I was never friends with any of them.

That's a lousy excuse for saying, I grew up in a place where people of other races were just that--others. I can intellectually get over my own socialization, but when it comes to gut level responses, I'm not so adept at dodging my own prejudices.

So it doesn’t surprise me that I would take a Harvard Implicity Test on race and come out with a moderate preference for white people over black people. But it does disappoint me.

Not that Harvard, an institution created by white men, would know much better, and not that the implicity tests really test more than quick associations. But if I'm quicker to say a white man is good than that a black man is good, well, I'll at least consider that something worth watching about myself. And probably a little closer than I watch my purse.

Broadcast Story Rewrite

The following is an assignment for my Newsgathering class.

ANCHOR VO (over visual of consumers at cash registers):
A new economic stimulus package could see more cash coming into the hands of Americans.
With many companies on the brink of releasing third quarter results that could confirm analyst predictions of a recession, President Bush and Federal Reserve Chariman Ben Bernanke are drafting a revised plan to get consumers out of the credit crunch.

SOT: BERNANKE (with video of Bernanke speaking to House Budget Committee if possible, or visual of Bernanke with sound overlay)
"If the Congress proceeds with a fiscal package, it should consider including measures to help improve access to credit by consumers, home buyers, businesses and other borrowers. Such actions might be particularly effective at promoting economic growth and job creation.”

ANCHOR VO (video of empty homes on the market, mailman delivering a stack of bills):

Combined crises in housing, credit, and financial have created a cycle efforts from Washington have so far been unable to break. An Associate Press-Yahoo News poll found that one-third of Americans worry they will lose their jobs, half list concerns about staying on top of mortgage and credit card payments, and seven out of ten report feeling anxiety about their stocks and retirement investments losing value.

Unemployment could climb to 7.5 percent by next year.

SOT: local who has recently been laid off (with visual of speaker)
[Discusses getting laid off, concerns about paying all bills]

ANCHOR VO (video of Congress, people passing on the streets):

A new stimulus package could drop more checks in the mail to Americans. The plan would work similarly to the tax rebate checks most people received as part of the $168 billion stimulus package passed in February.

Democrats have been encouraging the Bush administration to consider another stimulus plan, but until now met with little support from the GOP.

(begin video of Nancy Pelosi)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the President to get on board with the new program and cooperate with Democrats in drafting a timely and financially responsible package to help the economy rebound. Pelosi estimated Congress might need to invest as much as $150 billion into this new stimulus plan.

(begin video of Wall Street) Economists caution Democrats that the plan may require twice that amount in funding.

Stocks on Wall Street rose following these discussions.

Property crime rates come down in Colorado

Property crime has decreased across the state, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reports released in 2006, but Colorado cities Boulder and Durango both still claim a property crime rate on level with Chicago and Philadelphia.

In 1985, crime rates, which are reported as the number of instances per 100,000 people, in Boulder and Durango were 6,823.0 and 6,477.80, respectively. In the same year, Chicago and Philadelphia reported property crime rates of 7,296.6 and 4,113.0. But, Chicago reported 666 murders and Philadelphia reported 273 murders, while Boulder and Durango reported two each.

A decrease from 5,623 reported property crimes to 3,016 in 2006 adjusted the property crime rate to 3,228.50 in Boulder.

Durango, which has had a population equal to roughly 16 percent of Boulder’s, has also been dealing with a high property crime rate.

Durango reported 846 property crimes in 1985, and that number has increased to 947 in 2006, but because of the increase in population from 13,060 to 15,794, a 20 percent increase to Boulder’s 13 percent increase in population, the rate came down to 5,995.90.

Property crime has also come down in Philadelphia and Chicago, leaving both cities with a rate of over 4,000 per 100,000 people.

This is an exercise for my Newsgathering class.

grammar exercise

a. She felt bad about missing the school board meeting, but her editor fired her irregardless of her excuse.

Correction: She felt bad about missing the school board meeting, but her editor fired her regardless of her excuse.

b. We will all join together in prayer for the students who died in the shooting, and we will fly the flags at half-mast.

Correction: We will all join in prayer for the students who died in the shooting, and we will fly the flags at half-staff.

c. It’s alright if you miss class for a job interview, you can make up the test tomorrow.

Correction: It’s all right if you miss class for a job interview. You may make up the test tomorrow.

d. We’ll divide the workload between three students.

Correction: We’ll divide the workload among three students.

e. The St. Joseph Board of Commissioners are planning to submit a proposal for a bond issue to pay for road improvements, and they are hoping the election committee will reach a consensus of opinion to put the issue on the ballot.

Correction: The St. Joseph Board of Commissioners plans to submit a proposal for a bond issue to pay for road improvements, and they hope the election committee will reach a consensus to put the issue on the ballot.

f. I know you are anxious to get this job, but each of the applicants will have a chance to discuss their strengths and weaknesses with the personnel director.

Correction: I know you are anxious to get this job, but each of the applicants will have a chance to discuss his or her strengths and weaknesses with the personnel director.

g. Based on your writing skills, it looks like you could be a good journalist.

Correction: Based on your writing skills, it looks like you could be a good journalist.

h. Each of the students is going to receive a plaque with their diplomas at graduation.

Correction: Each of the students is going to receive a plaque with his or her diploma at graduation.

i. She was embarrassed that she had less than five answers correct on the quiz.

Correction: She felt embarrassed that she had fewer than five correct answers on the quiz.

j. After the boss read the report, he gave it to Jim and I to rewrite and said its due back by Monday.

Correction: After reading the report, the boss gave it to Jim and me to rewrite and said it’s due back by Monday.