ISSUE # 3 ... STONE WALLS NOT TRANSPARENT

Stone Walls Not Transparent

Stone walls are awfully easy for the government to erect, and terribly difficult for ants to penetrate!
We have seen a disturbing lack of transparency for the last thirteen months. We will cover the disconcerting history (the untold story of the undisclosed and false data behind Ordinance #30) in another issue.
In the last few days, The Red Ant filed Colorado Open Records Act requests (similar to a federal Freedom of Information Act request), on a variety of unpleasant Burlingame-related topics:
1) The unfounded basis for the false claims in the City's press releases on the two audits.

2) The initially submitted opinions/reports from the Burlingame auditors (before they were "negotiated.")

3) The basis for the City's claim that the "miss" between the brochure and actual on Burlingame included $32.9 million of "construction inflation."

"You Can't See the Audits You Paid For"---Click Below to Learn Why!

So far, the City has been unable to produce the support for #1 and #3 above, and repeatedly refuses to make public the auditors' initial reports in # 2. The law makes documents such as performance auditors' reports/correspondence public documents. The City has no legal or ethical basis to refuse to supply them to the Audit Review Committee of the Citizens' Budget Task Force or the public. When the newly-formed Audit Review Committee's informal request was refused, The Ant made a formal C.O.R.A. request which was denied as well, on flimsy grounds. This will require litigation to compel the City to produce the initial auditors' reports written before successive reports were negotiated. The citizens' Audit Review Committee (with some CPAs and management consultants on board) is quite keen to the fact that the auditors' detailed findings are clearly inconsistent with the publicized "summaries" promoted and spun by the City, and lapped up by the naïve (?) or complicit (?) press to exonerate the City. Look for the committee's soon-to-be-released report which should create some embarrassment in the ant hill at Hopkins and Galena.

Is it worth expensive litigation to compel the City to live up to the sunshine laws in this case? Probably not. If the public pays attention, the City's refusal to make the documents public sends the critical message. Aspenites don't need to hear it from a judge. We, ourselves, need to hold our elected officials more accountable.

Okay, so that is the status of issue #2. The City stonewalls all who ask for the initial raw audit results. Given the crying need for transparency and credibility, if there is nothing to hide, why not make the reports available to the citizens who PAID FOR THEM--the REAL clients?

The Black Hole of "Inflation"--Click Below to Read More

For issue #3, the City has claimed that $33 million of the $75 million misstatement in Burlingame costs is explained by "construction inflation." Since mid-May, many of us have been confounded by this nonsensical number, and have repeatedly asked for some documentation, calculation or support for that number.

Dissatisfied with the City's "We have no idea" answer, in June, The Ant offered to actually dig through the records and perform the reconciliation gratis for the City. Presumably, the price was too high. No deal.

Finally, The Ant filed a CORA request, and not surprisingly, the City had to formally acknowledge that they had no support for this "plug" number, which they randomly decided to call "inflation." A "plug number" is accountant speak for "we have no idea."

The Ant thinks it's a shame to allow government officials to blame the old scapegoat of "inflation" when their real answer is "we have no idea, and we are too lazy to dig into the numbers." Is the public so complacent as to accept such baloney?

Press Release "Spin"

Spin is now expected political behavior. To call this "spin" would be far too generous. The gross misstatements/dishonesty of audit results are the most egregious behavior I have seen in the time this Council has been in office.

While the list of misstatements is long detailed---the City has indirectly acknowledged (by their inability to respond), in the CORA process that they have no support for their official communications which claim that the auditors:--"verified" that Burlingame was "delivered on budget." (There was no budget, no verification.)--stated that "funds were properly spent." (Completely fabricated claim.)--found "no intentional misstatement of facts" (grossly exaggerated claim.)--were "independent" (Particularly given that one auditor is currently pitching the City for a very lucrative Burlingame consulting assignment.)-- made a half dozen other such unfounded claims, which the newspapers lapped up without independent research or even reading the detailed audit results.

In the real world, a client does not make false or misleading claim about their auditors' reports! That is far out of bounds of acceptable spin! Will Aspenites hold their officials to at least minimum "real world" standards?

Jack Johnson dug the hole deeper in his guest column in both newspapers making false claims about areas of audit work which was never undertaken, or intended. Johnson just fabricated "audit findings" which sounded good, and trumpeted them as evidence that Burlingame was a "huge success". (See my responseshttp://www.aspendailynews.com/section/letter-editor/128806 and http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20080814/COLUMN/274937993&parentprofile). I hope that Aspenites do not accept the continuing pattern of obfuscation, cover up, false claims, and blatant untruths. The tenants of democracy, good governance and ethics are universally accepted as fundamental to maintaining a functioning society, and trump our diverse positions on workforce housing, the environment or growth. Aspen citizens are not likely to have their rights and expectations trampled this way for long."Spin" may be the euphemistic, contemporary word for what was one called "government propaganda." Consider the words of the master propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, describing his craft-- "the art of simplification, constant recapitulation, appealing to the instinctive and the emotional and simply ignoring unpleasant facts." Sound familiar? Maybe like the much-referenced Burlingame brochure?

The Red Ant is a new source of commentary on local civic matters. It is published on no particular schedule, or with any organization of thought. For now, it is just an email commentary, hoping to spawn a blog to include your comments as well. Please send The Ant your opinions in an email with permission to post them when we create the blog. RedAntAspen@gmail.com

Comments

[The Red Ant]

An Anonymous contributor said:
"Issue #3 is another serious blow to the blowhards in City Hall! "