thanks to the letter writers and other press jokes

[Paul Tiger]

Thank you to John & Bo for sending their letters to the Camera. We'll have
to see if they print any of these. Mine ran over the limit of number of
words, and probably of good taste (as far as they would be concerned).

More calls to their press room have gone unreturned.

When I was there on Monday I did have a chance to speak with Jim Otto, the
lead guy in political advertising. Not too surprisingly, Jim was as clueless
as the rest of the staff there.
He told me that 2004 was not an election year and that I had missed running
political ads for the local elections in 2003. He flat out said that the
election that I was concerned with already happened in November.
I explained (I couldn't believe that I was doing it) that odd year elections
were non-partisan ones, and that even years were partisan ones. He asked
where I got such information! I told him that I should be well informed as I
worked for the clerk & recorder in the elections division. He was still
unconvinced and maintained that the only election this year was for the
president.
I asked him if he knew that his own paper had been running stories on the
commissioners race, and his reply was that he was unaware of this and also
thought that this was a non-partisan race.

This is just the sort of thing that the Camera is famous for. People inside
of this org don't know shit. They don't communicate with each other. They
don't know the political process, and those that do are not involved.
----
On even yet another point was that while I was discussing ad space with Mr.
Otto, several of Boulder's finest showed up. They were there to respond to
the report of a man with a gun. I barely spoke to them. One of the officers
already knew me from the past and they left without incident.

Today I spoke with Mark Beckner, Boulder's chief of police. He seemed to
have forgotten our meeting in June in his office. He told me that Boulder
had an ordinance that made it a crime to openly carry a loaded firearm. I
pointed to SB03-24, which he said he wasn't aware of. This is nonsense,
because during our last meeting he said that he was and that Boulder PD
officers were also. He stated in June that Boulder's anti-gun ordinance was
unenforceable and essentially illegal. It has since been removed from the
city code by the city attorney.
After some prodding, Mark looked this up and said "Oh, you're right, I get
so confused with all the new laws."
This is the police chief of the city of Boulder!

A sheriff friend of mine told me that he had heard the call to the Camera
and right off knew that it was me. He hung out near the Camera in his patrol
car, waiting to intercede on my behalf. One of the things that he noted was
that a BPD commander came up on the air and said that they should block in
my truck so I couldn't flee.
They knew whom they were coming to deal with, and the idea that I would try
to flee was laughable. The female cop that I talked to was smiling the
entire time. They hung out for a few minutes, and after seeing that I had
legitimate business with the staff of the Camera, left without incident.

In the previous twelve times that I visited the Camera it was unarmed. I
wore the gun this time to seek some attention, and of course it worked
beautifully.

paul