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New Year's party won't be pooper

After last year's yawn, Webb unveils $500,000 millennium blueprint that includes mile-long bash

By Dan Luzadder

Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Still feeling as if Denver's 2000 New Year's Eve was a hangover without the hooch?

Were you  like city officials  too worried about the Y2K bug to boogie?

Well, dig out those party hats and dust off the noisemakers. Mayor Wellington Webb is giving Denver an evening of millennium madness after all.

On Thursday, Webb unveiled plans for a citywide party that will begin at noon on Sunday, Dec. 31. The party is to celebrate what he calls the "true millennium"  the one that begins at a moment past midnight, Jan. 1, 2001.

The party  for which Webb plans to raise at least $500,000 in private donations  will feature an elaborate fireworks display along the 16th Street Mall, centered at Writer Square at the D&F Tower.

Two members of the Millennium Commission  Sharon Magness and Bob Sturm  have already kicked in $100,000 each.

How much the big bash will cost taxpayers isn't known yet, but Webb said many city workers will work that Sunday  from extra police officers, firefighters, paramedics, public works employees and city hospital personnel, to workers at cultural facilities such as city museums, the zoo and public libraries.

Special programs for children and families are being scheduled at those facilities.

Webb acknowledged that Denver residents were disappointed when the city did not put on its own celebration last New Year's Eve, especially after they watched other cities around the country and the world celebrate the arrival of the new century in high style.

"There are always a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks," Webb said Thursday at a press conference at Writer Square. "But we had lots of concern last year about Y2K and ... our first priority was to make sure that everything worked."

With the Y2K bug officials squashed, Webb said, it's time for a world-class party.

Webb said many people told him how impressed they were with the Eiffel Tower pyrotechnic display in Paris last New Year's Eve, created by renowned fireworks artist Pierre-Alain Hubert.

"So, I went out and got him," the mayor crowed Thursday.

Hubert  who was hired to do a July 4th fireworks display at Fiddler's Green this year that some fans said fizzled  is planning a "mile-long celebration" that will extend from the 16th Street Mall into the Central Platte River Valley.

Fireworks will ignite when the tower clock ticks midnight, but the celebration preceding it will go throughout the day  including daylight fireworks.

Webb said Denver's major attractions  Ocean Journey, the Colorado History and Art Museums, the Denver Zoo and Botanical Gardens  will be open at noon that Sunday and will be free to the public.

Artists and street performers as well as local musicians are being hired to perform along the mall and at temporary stages on the street.

Contact Dan Luzadder at 303-892-2600 or Luzadder@RockyMountainNews.com.

October 13, 2000

-- (dedicated@civil.servant), October 18, 2000

Answers

Despite the semi-popular millenium parties last year, most people here in New Zealand will be celebrating the millenium change over this new year.

So for all of you who have recently met in LV and elsewhere, how about coming to NZ during our summer party season and enjoy a new millenium without any Y2K issues.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), October 18, 2000.

You pickin up the tab on that offer Malcolm?

-- freeloader (life@of.the.partay), October 18, 2000.

I am a sheepophobic.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), October 18, 2000.