"Mayor devised way to 'skirt around' USOC information sharing"

4/12/08: Contained within a story released by the Gazette today are copies of e-mails to and from Mayor Lionel Rivera and others discussing the proposed USOC dealings to keep it in Colorado Springs.  Among those pages of e-mails I found one correspondence excerpt very interesting.

It was Mayor Rivera describing a tactic to keep the Gazette (and us) from getting information about what the City and others were doing with regards to their USOC plans.  Below is that excerpt.

From the pdf file linked on the Gazette website

To see the entire Gazette article and e-mails, go here:  http://www.gazette.com/articles/city_35175___article.html/usoc_clinched.html

"Crime filled Friday, leads to weekend"

4/12/08: Friday was a pretty busy crime day in Colorado Springs.  You had everything occur from... shooting, stabbing, meth labs, DUI, robbery, burglary, drug arrests, assaults, domestic disturbances, speeding, harassments, malicious mischief, and an assortment of others.

A recent poll on a local news organization website asked, "Do you feel safe living in Colorado Springs?"  I found it funny that they would ask such a question, when I know they know, most of the people living in Colorado Springs have no idea of the amount of criminal activity they have going on right underneath their noses.

Most of those, "living in ignorant bliss" residents only know what the news is feeding them.  And our local news is only reporting about .001% of the daily criminal activity that goes on in our City.

So... while most have no idea, I on the other hand do know how much our Police Officers, Fire Fighters, and EMTs do for us citizens... and I am most thankful for their dedicated service  Thanks for what you do!!!

Photos by News Blab

"2008 Regional Edward R. Murrow Winners"

4/11/08: The Radio-Television News Directors Association has awarded the following 2008 Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards to the following local TV stations:

Feature Reporting
KOAA-TV
America's Mountain

Anchor - Adam Atchison

Photog - Gene Cotton

News Series
KOAA-TV
Parlor Prostitution & Human Trafficking

Reporter - James Jarman

Photog - Gene Cotton

Sports Reporting
KKTV
Hockey Vision
Reporter & Photog - Jesse Kurtz

"KKTV 11 News fires an employee for practicing First Amendment rights?"

Graphic by News Blab

4/11/08: WARNING: Rumor until confirmed!

Okay... this one could be BIG, if true.  I received a "Got a tip?" form letting me know, - A KKTV employee was fired because of comments, that employee posted on the Blab Board message forum. -

See what I mean about being BIG.  If this is true, and the reason someone was fired from KKTV is because of something posted on the message forum... depending on what the exact post was, this COULD just teeter on the line of being a violation involving the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Let's see, they have a semi-new GM, a 20 something year-old News Director, a 20 something year-old Station Manager.  Who would have done the firing?

Anyone have any juicy additional constitutional 411 about this one...???

"Two wheelin' in the Garden of the Gods"

- A Motivational Moment -

4/11/08: No words can better describe what these pictures portray...

Photos by News Blab