Let’s appreciate The Post’s coverage of city council races–while we can
God love The Denver Post for actually factually covering Denver’s city council races with a little bit of breadth and a little bit of depth.
You can find a story here and there by other news entities, including the neighborhood newspapers. But to understand what’s happening city-wide you have to turn to The Post. It’s apparently put Jon Murray, one of its top political reporters on the beat. And he, along with other reporters, are offering real coverage of the election, at the end of which we will have six of 13 new faces on the council. So it’s a big deal.
The Post is running a series spotlighting the major issues and candidates in the races, including, so far, District 1, District 2, and District 3. The newspaper is dutifully following the money, as well as major developments.
The Post, for example, reported details this week of possible campaign-finance violations by District 10 candidate Wayne New, who admitted to omitting information from his official signs and not reporting in-kind donations .
But Wayne New denies that he is required to report the obvious advertising value of large campaign signs he’s placed in parking lots owned by Buzz Geller, a businessman who supports New.
Luis Toro, director Colorado Ethics Watch, which filed a complaint against Wayne New, says the failure to disclose the value of the use of parking lots is a “real, substantive violation” of Denver’s campaign finance laws. Toro told The Post his group’s action against New has nothing to do with the fact that New has donated to Republican candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain. [Disclosure: I support one of New’s District 10 opponents, Anna Jones, though I live outside the district.]
Anyway, wouldn’t it be great if the media were full of blow-by-blow accounts of low-level political battles like these? The best we have is The Post. And you wonder, who’s gonna do it when/if The Post is gone? It’s something that should not go unappreciated today, while we still have it.