VOL. 01 NO. 210 | DECEMBER 21, 2016 | COLORADOSTATESMAN.COM/THE-HOT-SHEET | © 2016

DENVER – Shopping done? Presents wrapped? All of us are apparently either late or procrastinating this year, according to the National Retail Federation. They say only 1 in 10 of us have finished our festive holiday shopping. Feeling better now about being just one of many giftless faces in the crowd? We hear there are a few ‘maids a milking’ left on the shelves …

Onward and upward … Unless you were booked on a Frontier Airlines flight this last week (rim shot.) The overwhelming news story of the last 24 hours  – from anyone with a reporter’s notepad and pencil or camera – has been their apparent lackluster performance of late. Our favorite headline coming from Westword … “I was a Victim of Frontier Airlines’ Ineptitude at DIA.”

Need we say more?

The First Shot

“He is getting an extra 20 percent for simply showing up and maintaining the status quo. This is a prime example of all that is wrong with government.”

– Colorado State Treasure Walker Stapleton

“All that is wrong with government”

Retirement funds for state employees may not be meeting projections, but that won’t stop the man charged with managing PERA dollars from receiving yet another raise (his second this year). Oh, yeah …

Greg Smith, CEO of the laboring Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association will receive another 3 percent pay bump thanks to a vote Tuesday. How much does Smith take home for managing the state’s lumbering retirement plan … just a mere $406,000 in 2017.

ColoradoPolitics.com breaks it all down … Smith will receive an incentive payment of 20 percent for leading the $47 billion, 300-employee retirement system, which amounts to nearly $79,000. Smith’s current salary is $394,000.

The pay raise received harsh criticism from Colorado’s state treasurer  in a statement issued by his communications guy, Michael Fortney:

“It is unconscionable that Greg Smith will receive a 3 percent raise and 20 percent bonus for doing absolutely nothing to address PERA’s growing unfunded liability,” Stapleton said in the statement. “This bonus is not tied to any performance. He is getting an extra 20 percent for simply showing up and maintaining the status quo. This is a prime example of all that is wrong with government.”

Remember when it was called tabloid?

Other than the massive coverage of the recent Frontier Airlines meltdown, the second most covered topic in the last 24 hours has been … “fake news” (duh). Colorado media (quoting a lot from Thomas Jefferson) decrying the ill-effects of fake, untrue, fabricated, false, imaginary and just plain wrong news. Or in short, debunking the BS.

Fake news had a measurable impact in Colorado. Just before the election, journalists here scrambled to debunk a bogus news site called “The Denver Guardian,” which spread a false story about a purported murder-suicide involving a FBI agent linked to Hillary Clinton email leaks. (ColoradoPolitics.com  ColoradoFOIC)

“The Denver Guardian” created by a guy – perhaps (as Trump surmised) a 400-pound guy from his bed (or perhaps his mom’s basement).

Most of us remember the supermarket checkout stand littered with outrageous tabloid headlines:

Father Goes in Hospital for New Kidney – Leaves a Woman

Bigfoot Keeps Lumberjack as Love Slave

Supreme Court Justice Scalia – Murdered by A Hooker

Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby

In attempt to embarrass or shame state lawmakers for their social media use, a left-leaning blog is now asking (demanding) lawmakers sign THEIR pledge. The site using its bandwidth to target only … Republican lawmakers. Read more at ColoradoPolitics.com.

Liberal-propaganda sites BigMedia.org and ColoradoPols.com demanding others to stop the spread of fake news?! Ha! Now that’s a good one to tell around the holiday party punch bowl. HA HA HA HA HA HA! (Still on the floor laughing).

How does a 17½ percent pay raise sound?

A pay raise sounds pretty good, right? A bump in salary is almost always a welcome surprise. What if we told you the raise was for more than $30,000 a year and tax payers were footing the bill? Let’s just say … it’s apparently good to be 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May whose new salary will be (thanks to a vote by El Paso County commissioners) $215,000 a year.

A little perspective here … Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman earns $80,000 a year.

How much does your district attorney make? Here’s a breakdown of the top earners thanks to the Gazette.

Second Judicial District Attorney Mitch Morrissey of Denver County currently makes $219,000. When Beth McCann is sworn into that office next year, the position may receive 2 percent raises in both 2018 and 2020. The 18th Judicial District Attorney, George Brauchler (Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties), will have his pay bumped to $195,000 in January and increased to $210,000 by 2020. And Stan Garnett, of the 20th Judicial District (Boulder County), currently makes $190,000 per year and will move up to $212,000 by 2020.

No, it’s not your imagination … there ARE more

Let the registering of new voters begin! Of course, we kid (sort of … OK, not really). The number-crunchers have released new census data that confirms what anyone driving on I-25 already knows … Colorado’s population is exploding!

How much? Colorado added an estimated 91,726 people over the last year, for a total of 5,540,545, topping 5.5 million residents for the first time. Of the 10 biggest states population-wise, only Florida is growing faster. Time to move to Kansas everyone! We hear the weather’s fine!

Colorado has always been a welcoming state but this speedy import of thousands has its short and long-term costs. Yes, the state hopes that these new residents will contribute to the tax rolls … big BUT … what about the immediate strain on Colorado’s roads, education, health care and our patience? All things that will need immediate attention by state lawmakers come January. Read here in the Denver Business Journal and at ColoradoPolitics.com

Just for Laughs

Today in History

1995 – The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.

1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries, and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.

1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.

1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre.

1913 – Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross”, the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.

1861 – Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.

1620 – Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

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