Author: Pam Zubeck

In a setting straight out of the TV series “Cold Case,” Kathy Boatman oversees 21,364 boxes of records for El Paso County that detail public life from the county’s birth in the 1800s to the present. The volume alone is overwhelming. Four spacious rooms at the Health Department complex on South Union Boulevard bear shelving…

The razing of outbuildings and installation of chain-link fence to block off a mostly vacant strip of stores usually indicate the end for an outdated shopping center. For the Citadel Crossing, they’re signs of rebirth. Demolition recently got under way on one phase of the center’s face-lift and soon will start to make way for…

Fourth Judicial District prosecutors might be faced with prosecuting fewer cases due to additional budget cuts revealed Thursday. District Attorney-elect Dan May pleaded with county commissioners to reinstate $304,000 removed from his budget in recent days after an error was discovered. The additional cut brings May’s total 2009 budget reduction to $1.14 million, about 11…

El Paso County may have tiptoed to the line separating church and state in promoting a Christmas giveaway the Department of Human Services is hosting for its clients with the help of an evangelical group. In a news release, the county cited the Music Evangelism Foundation’s Web site as a source of information for the…

El Paso County officials might be planning a 2009 ballot measure and went behind closed doors Monday to discuss legal issues surrounding a measure. County commissioners met in closed session “for the purpose of receiving legal advice on specific legal questions related to legal issues associated with a ballot question that may be proposed in…

El Paso County property owners could be in for a shock next spring.The county assessor is reappraising properties and will be sending out notices in May informing owners what their land, homes and businesses are worth on the tax rolls.For the first time in more than a decade, they’re likely to be lower.Most property owners…

Army Sgt. Vincent Callender and Hazra Kishun recently tied the knot in a most unceremonious way. No organ music. No bridesmaids. No fanfare. They simply filled out a marriage license application and paid a fee at the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office. But they didn’t escape a bit of schmaltz that goes with…

For Florence Paradise, celebrating the final Mass at St. Joseph’s in Fountain on Sunday was like losing her family – all at once. “I’m devastated,” said Paradise, who’s attended the church since it moved to a downtown building in 1936 when she was 2. The merger of St. Joseph’s with Holy Family parish in Security…

El Paso County’s pension fund will need a cash infusion to stay afloat because it’s now paying out more than it takes in. The fund needs an additional $4.7 million annually to meet its obligations over the long term, pension officials told county commissioners Monday. Retirement plan officials said the fund has lost 29 percent…

The El Paso County Assessor’s Office doubled as a wild animal refuge last summer when an employee brought two baby raccoons to work.Ramie Saragian, who temporarily adopted the critters after they were abandoned under a porch, needed to bottle feed the pair often.”It wasn’t distracting at all,” County Assessor Mark Lowderman said in an e-mail.…