Off Limits

Halliburton is a sponsor of the Colorado Adopt-A-Highway program -- but rather than make a big deal out of its do-goodness by adopting a place of prominence in the Denver metro area (where it could easily be trash-bombed by those snout-nosed kids that like to protest outside the company's 17th Street offices), the company is sponsoring a stretch of I-70 just outside the Western Slope town of Clifton. As part of its agreement with the highway department, Halliburton cleans trash out of the sagebrush at least four times a year and tries to separate any recyclables from the usual garbage.

Halliburton didn't return calls from Off Limits. Too bad, because we only wanted to know the worst piece of trash ever collected on its adopted stretch of highway -- a softball of a query, considering the questions some international reporters are asking these days. For example, why the Pentagon recently suspended $159.5 million in payments to a subsidiary of Halliburton for billing for meals it never provided to soldiers.

Oil for food? How about trash for cash?

Their bark is worse than their bite: Earlier this month, John Bennett, executive director of the Denver City Council, sent an e-mail to assorted lobbyists -- including usual suspects Maria Garcia Berry and Greg Kolomitz -- advising them that as of the May 10 meeting, "no lobbyist will be allowed in the Council front office during City Council meetings unless invited in for a discussion by a member of Council. Once the discussion with the Council member is over, the lobbyist should leave the front office. Lobbyists may watch the meeting from the Chamber or may remain in the main hallway." The action was being taken, he advised, because "some of our members have complained, justifiably so, that the lobbyists are crowding around doorways, interrupting conversations and so on."

The policy change -- which was followed a few days later by a heated council committee discussion of other proposals for regulating lobbyists, including having them wear name tags -- took at least one of those members by surprise. "I was not involved in the sudden decision to not let lobbyists in the Council front office during City Council meetings," Councilman Charlie Brown noted in his own e-mail to Bennett. "If this is now our official policy, we need to change the wording on our door to read '451 City Council Open -- Walk In (Pit Bulls and/or Lobbyists Excluded).'"