Posted on 12/19/2001 7:19:53 AM PST by dirtboy
GEORGETOWN -- This quaint mountain town's latest celebrity didn't get the boot Tuesday, but the stripper-turned-mayor was warned to clean up her act or face a possible ouster or recall.
"I am very pleased," said Koleen Brooks, the 37-year-old mayor who is also a hairstylist at the Dare-2-Be-Different salon. "I do realize they can vote me out."
The town's elected selectmen met at Town Hall on Tuesday night to air their grievances.
Brooks listened to the list of accusations and complaints that started after some townspeople alleged she bared her breasts in May at a local watering hole, a month after she was elected. Brooks has denied the charge.
"The board is trying to impeach her," said resident Rick Payne, 57, who attended the meeting. "The people elected her. Can you spell 'recall?' Let the people decide."
Most recently, Brooks faced allegations that she was tape recording city officials without their knowledge. Brooks has admitted she wanted to record statements made by the town marshal, but she said she intended to alert him of the recording.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation looked into allegations that Brooks attempted to hire a hit man to do harm or kill a police officer with whom she has feuded.
She was issued a summons last week for disorderly conduct and harassment after swearing at that same officer at a local bar. Brooks said she yelled at him because he was in the bar longer than the allowable time for on-duty officers. The summons alleged that Brooks used a curse word and an offensive gesture.
"Sorry if I cussed," Brooks said of that incident. "I asked him why he had to be such an asshole. I didn't make a gesture."
The CBI never filed charges in the hit-man allegations but continues to investigate whether a town prosecutor who was dating Brooks alerted her of the initial CBI probe.
Brooks accused town officials of conducting a "witch-hunt" and called the hit-man allegations "nonsense."
Brooks said she's being targeted because she wants to change Georgetown, protecting it for middle-income families and resisting efforts to turn it into a retirement community.
On Tuesday, selectmen said town staff have threatened to quit because they are intimidated by her.
"There's more concern on your part about how many bar checks were made, how many cell phones were issued to the police department," selectman Coralue Anderson told Brooks. "There's more concern about that than Interstate 70, than what's happening with the town sewer or water plants."
Four of five selectmen present also discussed a policy that would ban secret tape recording of town officials and clamp down on media leaks. Brooks said the new policies were aimed at her. The board tabled a vote on the policies.
"You want to tell me how to act, how to dress, what to say," Brooks said. "You want me to be all alone in this."
Brooks said she has received lots of fan mail since her saga became public. She said women have also bared their breasts in solidarity with her.
"They feel I'm getting picked on for a lot of things I've done in my life," Brooks said. "I've never made my life a secret."
Some of this is personality, some is local politics. The so-called establishment in Georgetown doesn't like Brooks and doesn't want growth or more business traffic - Georgetown is an old Victorian mining town that is getting a lot of money from preservation funds being generated by gambling in other Colorado towns without having to put up with casinos. A few years back, Colorado allowed small-stakes casino gambling in the mining towns of Black Hawk, Central City, Cripple Creek and Georgetown to help the economically-depressed towns to develop. Black Hawk has been completely overwhelmed by casino development and lost its historic character, Central City hasn't done much because Black Hawk is between it and Denver, and Cripple Creek, from what I have heard, has maintained some kind of balance between casino development and historic flair. Georgetown voted to not allow casinos, but still gets restoration money from the common fund - so a lot of town people would rather just get the preservation money and not worry about attracting more tourists and business, something Brooks wants to do and therefore she is a target for the NIMBY types.
However, Brooks has done a good job at making herself a target as well. She neglected to tell voters that she has some serious short-term memory problems because of a car wreck a few years ago and requires an aide to literally remember stuff for her. And, from what I have seen, she tries to abuse her powers as mayor and has pissed off the local cops with her attempts to control the police department. Hopefully, the meeting detailed in this story will end some of the hijinks on both sides...
I don't know how it is in Arkansas, but in New York, Miami, Mexico and Panama. The girl typically comes to your table to "share" a drink. Since drinks in these places cost an arm and a leg, this is good for business. The dumb girls make a blatant hustle, the slightly smarter girls "pretend" to be interested in you, the dumb and/or lonely guys fall for it all of the time. :-)
If you were a she-male, I would say you have a lot of balls for posting on this site. Would "guts" suffice? Good to have you on board. It takes all kinds to make the world go round.
The years of substance abuse prevent me from remembering the name of the bar I preferred in Morrison. Evergreen was getting too gentrified for my taste.
My bad, I missed the context of your question. The Bear is in Evergreen, still open, although from what my wife tells me, it isn't quite as rowdy as it used to be, but it's still pretty wild.
The years of substance abuse prevent me from remembering the name of the bar I preferred in Morrison. Evergreen was getting too gentrified for my taste.
I think that bar has become a restaurant called the Morrison Inn. Morrison is probably more gentrified than Evergreen now - lots of millon-dollar homes built to the south of town up among the red rocks...
I was thinking the same thing about former members of the Clinton administration.
Too bad. My sister used to rent an old place on the backside of 'Red Rocks' amphitheatre, we could sit in the backyard and enjoy the tunes.
I vaguely recall various members of the Dirt Band used to show up at the Bear.
They haven't developed much around Red Rocks - the houses start a couple of miles to the south...
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