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Unemployment rate drops. Here’s good news. The unemployment rate in Boulder County fell from 6.1 percent in August to 5.5 percent in September, reports the Boulder County Business Report on Oct. 21.

Camera weighs in. The Daily Camera Sunday, Oct. 11 released its endorsements. They chose: incumbents Suzy Ageton and Matt Applebaum plus newcomers George Karakehian, KC Becker and Fenno Hoffman. They mentioned Barry Siff as the strongest of the candidates they didn’t endorse, and devoted a paragraph to why they didn’t endorse Macon Cowles. (Oct. 11, 2009)

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Media make endorsements. The Boulder Weekly on Oct. 9 endorsed incumbents Appelbaum, Cowles and Ageton along with newcomers Tim Platt and Fenno Hoffman. Also on Oct. 8, Elephant Journal‘s Waylon Lewis “endorsed” . . . everyone. Nary an unkind word about anyone. His official endorsements come later. He emcees a candidate debate, co-hosted with New Era Colorado, at the Fox Theatre Monday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. (details). … The Daily Camera‘s influential Voter Guide comes out Sunday, featuring their endorsements and lots of ads. It’ll be fun to see who has ads, and to try to guess who paid for them.

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Camera to publish weekly Longmont tabloid. Whew, we can finally talk about a secret we were keeping now that it’s been officially announced. The Daily Camera people take on Longmont, with longtime Camera editor Clay Evans at the helm. Report by Boulder County Business Report, Sept. 24 2009 here. And the report in the Daily Camera itself.

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Saving the News. Two good accounts have appeared about the lively forum, “Saving the News: Denver and the Future of Journalism,” held in Denver Sept. 16. While I avoid editing and posting the videos I shot there, these two articles are very useful. John Temple, former Rocky Mountain News publisher, wrote about it in his blog here. Prominent national media critic and strategist Steve Outing, a Boulder resident, wrote about it on the Save the News organization’s blog here. Savethenews.org is a project of the nonprofit Free Press, whose motto is, “Reform Media, Transform Democracy.”

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“Xcel flips switch to make Boulder first SmartGridCity,” as reported by Art Mass of Colorado Energy News, Sept. 9 2009. The system will “raise power reliability, provide customers with more information about their energy use, and enable customers and the utility to remotely control energy use in the home.”

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Romanoff

Former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff is considering challenging lackluster Dem appointee Senator Michael Bennet, reports Denver’s Westword (Aug 31). “This is a nightmare situation for Dems. For one thing, Romanoff has more personal magnetism than Bennet, who radiates a sort of bland competence rather than anything approaching charisma,” writes crack Westword politics/media reporter Michael Roberts. Doesn’t sound like a nightmare. Sounds like a chance to hold Bennet (and, by association, Udall) to task for weirdly thinking they must make kissie-face with corporate lackeys, aka Republicans. (UPDATE: Romanoff‘s makes it official: He’s running, reports Westword Sept. 16.

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Boulder City Council member Macon Cowles complained about the Daily Camera in an op-ed piece in your paper of record Sunday, Aug. 30. That spunky littleCamera, he charged, is not reporting the Council’s many accomplishments, while overreporting the “pops and scrapes” debate (with a slant favoring developers). And, as if to prove his point, the Council charged ahead at its Sept. 2 meeting, deciding to give a tentative nod to development in the former Boulder Junior Academy site west of 4th and Alpine. Only problem is that the “congregate care” planned for the site may end up being a millionaires-only kind of thing. Oh good, more millionaires.