Boulder Residents Don’t Want Rail Yard in Their Town

Does the "B" in NIMBY stand for Boulder?

The Denver Post reports that the more than 400 residents who turned out to protest putting a 90-acre maintenance facility for the light-rail commuter system in Boulder ran out of adjectives to express their outrage.

Two of the seven proposed sites for the mile-long facility are in Boulder, but residents there said U.S. 36 Corridor offiicals should continue their hunt for a more suitable site.

Mass transit no doubt appeals to the environmentally minded residents, but the aspect of a maintenance facility for those light-rail trains stretching a mile along one or more of their neighborhoods, holds very little appeal.

The rail system is part of a years-long process to improve transportation between Denver and Boulder and FasTracks officials are still mulling over just where to put the corridor. Should the corridor shift to other metro areas, the two sites in Boulder would fall off the list of options for the maintenance facility.

Survey Finds Mortgage Rates Higher for Colorado Blacks, Hispanics

If you're Hispanic or African-American and living in Colorado, your chances of paying higher-than-average interest on your mortgage is considerably higher than your Anglo neighbors.

The Denver Post reports on a North Carolina's newspaper's survey of 25 mortgage lender that showed nearly 15 percent of all African-Americans paid a high interest rate on their mortgage, as did 12.4 percent of Hispanics, in 2004.

The study found African-Americans in both Colorado and the U.S. received higher-interest-rate mortgages at four times the rate of whites. The ratio for Hispanics in Colorado was 3.4-to-1, while only 2-to-1 nationally.

A similar study conducted by the Denver Post in 2001 reflected nearly the same trends.

While analysts of the latest study said the disparity between Hispanics and blacks and Anglo home buyers could be due in part to minority home buyers not shopping around for the best rate, the Post's 2001 study showed race and ethnicity were given more weight than income.

Specifically, the Post's study found a black family in Denver earning $70,000 was often charged a higher interest rate than a white family in the same area earning $30,000.

Based on the outcome of that study, Fannie Mae and the Responsible Lending Task Force created a $3 million emergency mortgage fund set up to give victims of predatory lending an opportunity refinance their homes and get a lower interest rate. To date, no one has taken advantage of that fund.

Qwest Sweetens MCI Bid

Qwest has raised its offer for MCI, adding more cash and protections against a decline in Qwest stock. The offer is now 20% higher than the Verizon deal that MCI has agreed to accept. I'm sticking with my prediction that Qwest will lose this one.

Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself

The Rockies lost one of its true iconoclasts and most talented writers last night when Hunter S. Thompson died of a self-inflicited gunshot wound. Thompson had become something of a self-parody over the last decade, as his personal demons took tighter hold and his once-prodigious output declined. It may be that his infatuation with drugs, booze and the outlaw life (“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone,� he once wrote, “but they've always worked for me.�) prevented him, in the end, from attaining the true literary greatness that had always been his goal.