Rant: Recall Efforts Quickly Becoming a Farce

Emboldened by the recalls of Democrats John Morse and Angela Giron, pro-gun activists have trained another lawmaker in their sights: Senator Evie Hudak (D-Westminster) has made the hit list thanks to her support for the same laws that got Morse and Giron ousted last month.

Another successful recall would tip the power balance in the Colorado Senate, which currently has 18 Democrats and 17 Republicans, and among its supporters is Dudley Brown and his Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) advocacy group. The supreme irony this time is that if not for Brown and his one-note minions, Hudak might never have been elected in the first place.

As Eli Stokols details in his August profile, “Dudley Brown’s War,” the RMGO’s leader declined to back Republican Lang Sias, a former Top Gun pilot, against Hudak in 2012 because Sias refused to kiss Brown’s ring and sign the RMGO questionnaire—essentially, an ironclad pledge to uphold the Second Amendment that Brown requires all his politicians to honor—so the race unfolded with minimal input from the deep-pocketed and influential activist. In a contest that saw about 73,200 votes cast, the Democrat won by 342.

Now, Brown and his cohorts want a do-over. If this sounds sadly familiar, it’s because the engineers of the ongoing legislative tantrum being thrown in Washington, DC are cut from the same faux-patriotic cloth as Brown. They wave their flags and shout their slogans and profess to have an unabiding love of country, all while undermining democracy and the electoral process by any means necessary. They’ve become an insidious and implacable pox, one for which there’s no obvious remedy.

Rave: Mayor Hancock’s Brighton Boulevard Revival Beginning to Take Shape

Since he took office last year, Mayor Hancock has made the revitalization of the Brighton corridor one of his primary goals. This week he broke ground on a project at 3100 Brighton Boulevard that should help bring this vision to fruition.

The 120,000-square-foot former industrial space at 3100 Brighton will house up to 400 professionals in a business incubator modeled after the Battery 621 collective in the Santa Fe Arts District. Along with a coming reconfiguration of a stretch of I-70 near the area, the opening of The Source marketplace, new rental and condominium complexes, and the improvement of South Platte River green space, this new endeavor is a welcome step in the city’s efforts to improve a relatively untapped neighborhood with tremendous potential.

—Image courtesy of Dudley Brown

Follow 5280 articles editor Luc Hatlestad on Twitter at @LucHatlestad.