“It’s like a Fellini movie!” said a delighted caller yesterday evening.

I knew what he was talking about  - like me, he was taking a break from the Olympics to watch our intrepid city council members, as they wrestled feebly with issues so bizarre, so unseemly and so surreal that they seemed not just Fellini-esque, but otherworldly.

The once-stately, now tastelessly renovated council chambers, where generations of elected officials have done their best to solve the mundane problems of a small city in the West, are now no more than a stage set, where players in our own theater of the absurd strut their stuff.

SNL and Second City never had such a cast! Samuel Beckett never imagined goings-on so strange!

Shakespeare did.

“… Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

The always good-humored Daniel Chacon from the Gazette was there, doomed to cover the meeting from start to finish.

I wondered what the sainted Mayor Bob Isaac would have made of such goings on. Marijuana dispensaries? Vast tent cities of the homeless? Douglas Bruce ranting incoherently for 50 minutes? Councilmembers hurling insults at each other? Sean Paige and Larry Small squaring off, ready to settle things outside (or so it seemed)?

Maybe it’s just as well that Mayor Bob didn’t live to see this doleful day. He would have been justifiably appalled.

Here are few suggestions for Council:

1. Limit speeches from the public to three minutes. Limit your own remarks from the podium to two minutes.

2. End meetings after four hours, and continue them the next day if necessary. These marathon sessions are not the pure expression of the democratic ideal, but perverse and eccentric, serving only a few bloviators on and off the podium.

3. Stop conducting, enabling and participating in such travesties. Don’t pretend that you’re innocent bystanders - your own learned helplessness has enabled the process.

4. Sean, don’t mess with Larry. He was a Golden Gloves boxer - he could probably still do some serious damage, if he got overly peeved.

If you were a band, you’d be booed off the stage. Take a hint from your crosstown rivals  - let’s call ‘em Denny & the Commissioners. They quietly dealt with the whole marijuana question in three days, without drama, without public fights between commissioners, without dragging John Suthers into the process, and without fanning public hysteria.

Yup, it’s a pretty tight group, even if, like Fleetwood Mac, there may be tensions between band members. Denny H. on drums, Wayne W. on bass, Jimmy B. on lead guitar, Sallie the lead vocalist, and Amy content (for now!) to sing backup vocals. They do a nice clean gig, and they know what audiences want … and that’s all you need from a local garage band.

And you guys? They made a movie about you - it’s called “This is Spinal Tap.” Check it out - aging, irrelevant, delusional metalheads who still think the world is waiting for them to lay down power chords. I can hardly wait for your upcoming world tour.

I’d be there, of course - but I got kicked out of the band years ago.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on February 24th, 2010 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: Bob Isaac, City Council, county commission, Daniel Chacon, Douglas Bruce, Fellini, Fleetwood Mac, homeless tent cities, John Suthers, larry Small, Marijuana, Samuel Beckett, Sean Paige, Second City, Shakespeare

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Interminable? Infuriating? Representative democracy at its best/worst? Yes.

Yesterday’s budget markup session, during which councilmembers wrangled over proposed cuts in the city budget and finally came to reluctant consensus, was the penultimate act in the ongoing drama of our city.

What was once comedy, as the city blundered through the USOC deal, has become tragedy It turns out that the city wasn’t crying wolf after all and that, absent multiple miracles, we will lose much of what we once cherished.

Some observations.

-Mayor Rivera was clearly the smartest guy in the house. He knows the budget inside out, understands how the various pieces fit together and ran the meeting smoothly and effectively. Alone among councilmembers, he addressed the various proposed cuts/revenue enhancements coherently and intelligently - and refrained from speech making.

-For a newbie, Sean Paige was impressive. At his suggestion, council agreed to fund community centers, Rockledge Ranch, the Pioneers Museum, and visitor centers for the first three months of next year. That may allow various segments of the community to coalesce around rescue plans, and save some of these irreplaceable assets from closure. And although “temporarily” closing buildings may seem reasonable, closures have consequences. As Tom Gallagher noted, “Empty buildings deteriorate quickly.”

-It was Dr. Johnson who said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Unhappily, that adage didn’t apply to Council, whose minds appeared to be not wonderfully concentrated, but sadly dispersed.

The usually sensible vice Mayor Larry Small, visibly frustrated by the city’s annual $1.4 million payment for “erosion and sedimentation control” on the Pikes Peak highway, suggested that the city just withhold the payment.

City attorney Pat Kelly gently reminded Small that the city’s payments were made to satisfy a court-approved settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, and that, under TABOR, such payments take priority over almost any other city expenditure.

Mayor Rivera noted tartly that the whole situation was the fault of/instigated by a certain “Mr. Hazlehurst” (who had noisily demanded that the Pikes Peak Highway be paved during the 90’s, thereby setting the stage for the Sierra Club lawsuit.)

-Like Rivera, Darryl Glenn was concise and to the point. After an angry three-way exchange between council members Gallagher, Herpin, and Martin concerning city employees, Glenn quickly moved the discussion away from fault-finding and toward the business at hand.

-Some council members, apparently in love with the sound of their own voices, and unwilling to deprive their captive audience of even a fragment of their marvelous musings, spoke with Seinfeldian eloquence-i.e., about nothing. Gallagher was the worst offender, although his ramblings were, as always, eminently quotable. Cliches abounded-two councilmembers actually claimed to have spent “sleepless nights” agonizing over the budget.

-Most council members seemed to believe that, like the necromancers of ancient times, they could divine the will of the voters from the election results. Other than Gallagher, not one mentioned the USOC deal (Gallagher called it “the you-sock thing”), preferring to believe that the voters just wanted ‘em to cut everything except police, fire, and potholes.

-After 2 ½ hours, Mayor Rivera finally called a break. I spent a few minutes chatting with city officials from parks, from the museum, and from other once-vital parts of the city. They were close to tears. Many of them had devoted decades to building and maintaining one of the country’s finest park systems, and a remarkable network of “cultural facilities,” only to see them threatened with destruction by a ravaged economy and antic voters.

-The entire process was chaotic, tiresome, messy and often reeked of incompetence. Council members sometimes appeared unable to understand the basics of their own budget and listened vacantly as city officials patiently corrected their misconceptions. But that’s the reality of democracy, and of government of, by, and for the people. If you let the smartest guys in the room run things, you get Enron, Vietnam and world financial meltdown. If you let city council run the city, you get blunders, correctable mistakes and occasional brilliance.

The dedicated folks who by serving on council subject themselves to such “meetings from hell” deserve our thanks. As the wise Gandalf the Grey once said, “Sometimes, all courses lead ill.” This was such a time.

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on November 10th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: budget, City Council

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There’s something inherently distasteful about a common governmental process that allows elected officials to appoint other should-be elected officials.

Consider Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s out-of-the-blue appointment of Michael Bennet to the Senate seat vacated by Ken Salazar’s resignation or New York Gov. Basil Paterson’s (who only ascended to that office after Eliot Spitzer’s dalliance with ladies of the afternoon became known) appointment of an obscure upstate Congresswoman to succeed Hillary Clinton.

And we haven’t even mentioned Rod whatshisname…

This afternoon, City Council will give each of 19 hopefuls ten minutes of face time, as they seek to choose The One to occupy the District 3 seat.

As a resident of District 3, I’ve got a dog in the fight. But after skimming through a few of the candidate’s responses to half a dozen innocuous questions posed by the Gazette, I’m dismayed.

Save only Sean Paige, our earnest job seekers delivered clichés by the bushel, or responses so eccentric that you wondered how they’d made it this far on their journeys through life.

One refused to answer most of the Gazette’s questions, noting that she would respond during her 10-minute interview this afternoon. Clearly, she doesn’t think that newspaper readers are an important constituency-and she’s right. The only votes that count in this “election” are those of the eight people at the council dais.

Another suggested that the city ought to start a bank, make loans aligned with civic purposes, and thereby rake in the dough. Sounds good to me - and I’ll be the first in line to apply for a small loan!

But, as one who once sat for many hours at that dais, thereby wasting what should have been the most financially productive years of my life, some unsolicited advice for this afternoon’s supplicants.

• Keep it short. Don’t use your full ten minutes. Council members would rather have a bomb thrower than a blowhard as a colleague.
• Remember, you don’t know anything, compared to the masters of the universe whom you aspire to join. Don’t talk about all your great ideas and programs-they don’t care.
• If selected, you’re the rookie. Your job: keep quiet, bring snacks, and volunteer for unpleasant duties.
• You’re appointed; they’re elected. Until you win an actual election, you’re a seat filler. Defer to their wisdom.
• Make it clear that you respect and support your superiors. They don’t want or need dissenting voices, or new forms of critical analysis. They’ve got Douglas Bruce to do that, not to mention Sean Paige.

Good luck! I hope you all lose-but someone will be the biggest loser of all, and get appointed. To you, my sympathies. Have fun working like a dog for $6,250 annually … would have been great pay in 1909, though!

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on October 6th, 2009 :: Filed under Uncategorized
Tags :: City Council, Sean Paige

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The “great recession,” as pundits now refer to our ongoing economic woes, has had predictable consequences in our city.  We’ve seen businesses downsize or close, government revenues contract and neighbors pack up and move away.

But it was nevertheless surprising to hear Councilman Jerry Heimlicher announce that, five months after having been elected to a second full term, he’s resigning and returning to his Tennessee birthplace.

The reason?  He’s concerned that Ford might follow GM into bankruptcy.

Heimlicher worked for Ford for nearly 38 years, enjoyed substantial success and now receives a reasonably generous “executive pension.”  He anticipates that, should Ford file bankruptcy, his pension would be drastically slashed.

“I had a lot of friends at GM,” he told me, “and when I saw what was happening to them, Mary Margaret and I began to have conversations about our situation, and we decided to make changes before we might be forced to make them.”

That means selling their comfortable home, which is perched on the side of Cheyenne Mountain, and moving away. It means reducing expenses, and positioning themselves for an unknowable future.

“We’ll be going to our 50^th high school reunion in Tennessee, where we both went to the same school,” Heimlicher saidd, “and it just feels right to take this step.”

At the council meeting when Heimlicher formally announced his decision, Vice Mayor Larry Small, who was presiding over the meeting in the absence of Mayor Lionel Rivera, thanked him for his service. 

Visibly moved, his voice cracking at times, Small noted that they had followed similar paths in their lives, culminating in their present posts on City Council.

Heimlicher was a model councilmember.  He was diligent, informed and responsive to his constituents.  A few years ago, when a blocked sewer main led to flooded basements and backed-up sewers in every house on my west side block, Heimlicher was our champion. 

Sweeping aside Colorado Springs Utilities’ absurd contention that it was somehow our fault that the main had blocked up, and that utilities bore no liability for the mess, he convinced his colleagues on council to change official policy, compensate us and compensate any future victims of such accidents.  He was there the night of the spill, talking to homeowners and getting the facts, as well as communicating with utilities officials and other members of council.

I know from experience that it’s easy to pontificate, and easy to get your name in the paper.  It’s not so easy to spend an evening dealing with angry homeowners and harried utilities workers. And it’s even more difficult to solve such a problem.

Jerry’s experience in business served him well.  He was used to solving problems, used to difficult situations and unafraid to take a stand, and defend it.

There will, I’m sure, be a couple of dozen applicants for his seat.  As Sen. Michael Bennet knows, it’s a lot easier to get one vote, or five votes, than to raise money, walk the precincts, work Rotary, Kiwanis and the Lions, and win an actual election.

Whoever is selected will inevitably be compared to Jerry.

He or she should be prepared to be found lacking. There’s an old story, attributed to a now-obscure rhythm and blues performer who, during a concert, followed  Bo Diddley on stage.

“Man,” he said, “that Bo just goes out there, and digs a hole so deep on the stage, that you go out and just fall in it — and nobody even notices that you’re there.”

So long, Jerry — we’ll miss you.

 

 

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on September 10th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: bo diddley, City Council, Ford, GM, Jerry heimlicher, larry Small, tennessee

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The city charter is not exactly a pleasure to read.

Unlike the United States Constitution, its words were not composed by highly literate, profoundly intelligent men who were deeply conscious of the weight of history and who together deliberated at length over each phrase, each word and each article.

The Constitution was written by our founding fathers-the charter, by lawyers and politicians. Enough said.

Yet the charter makes interesting reading, especially as the Independent Ethics Commission investigates (or pretends to investigate) the mayor’s alleged ethical breaches.

Here are some salient sections.

“The Council shall be the judge of the election and qualification of its own members and of the grounds for the forfeiture of the office of Mayor or Councilmember subject to review by the courts in case of contest.”

So council may, upon the vote of a majority of its members, kick out the mayor or any other member of council, and let him/her sue for reinstatement.

“Any three (3) electors may commence recall, initiative, or referendum proceedings by filing with the City Clerk an affidavit stating they will constitute a Petitioner’s Committee and be responsible for circulating the petition and filing it in proper form, stating their names and addresses and specifying the address to which all notices to the Committee are to be sent, and setting out either:

(a) The name of the officer or officers sought to be removed and a general statement in not more than two hundred (200) words on the ground or grounds upon which removal is sought;

(i) For the recall of Mayor or a Councilmember at large, the petition must be signed by electors entitled to vote for a successor of the incumbent sought to be recalled and such signatures must be equal in number to at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the total ballots cast for the office of Mayor in the last preceding election for such office.”

It’s easy to take out a recall petition - but you’ve got to get a ton of signatures.

(1)  Recall . All petitions shall be returned and filed with the Clerk within sixty (60) days from the issuance of such blank petition forms. (1979; 1985)

And you have almost no time to do it, especially compared to the time granted to collect signatures for an initiative.

(3)  Initiative . All petitions shall be returned and filed with the Clerk within one hundred eighty (180) days from the issuance of such blank petition forms. (1979; 1985)

The charter has some pretty stern words about the penalties that would be incurred by any “city officer” who failed to reveal any “substantial financial interest” in a city contract.

“Any City officer, employee, or appointee who has a substantial financial interest, direct or indirect or by reason of ownership of stock in any corporation, in any contract with the City or in the sale of any land, material, supplies, or services to the City or to a contractor supplying the City shall make known that interest and shall refrain from voting upon or otherwise participating in their capacity as a City officer or employee in the making of such sale or in the making or performance of such contract. Any City officer or employee who willfully conceals such a substantial financial interest or willfully violates the requirements of this section shall be guilty of malfeasance in office or position and shall forfeit said office or position…”

Conclusion: there’s a lot riding on this little contretemps. If council finds that the mayor has “willfully violated the (disclosure) requirements of this section,” then they would have little alternative other than expulsion.

But that won’t happen. The Ethics Commission, which now consists of two retired white guys, is toothless by design, and torpid by nature. They’ll have a genteel interview with the mayor, who’ll claim he did nothing wrong. Absent delivering a subpoena to UBS, they’ll have no evidence of any possible wrongdoing, so they’ll just pass along their non-findings to Council. They don’t want to rock the boat-just pass the buck.

And Council, far from saying “The buck stops here,” will most likely say “Buck? What buck? All is well…”

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on June 16th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: city charter, City Council, ethics commission

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It’d be pretty funny if the potential consequences to this particular brouhaha weren’t so serious to the city, and to all of us who live here.

In one corner, developer Ray Marshall and his company LandCo. Marshall’s not an easy guy to reach - at least if you’re a reporter for the Business Journal. He hasn’t written, he hasn’t called, he hasn’t e-mailed, he hasn’t texted … not even a tweet, to let us know what’s up.

But after we published a story earlier this week on the Web, and a follow up revealing that he was the subject of a criminal investigation, we got a long e-mail - from his P.R. firm!

According to the P.R. folks, there’s nothing to the stories! The million dollar Internal Revenue Service lien on Marshall’s residence? No problem - the IRS had no right to do it!! The statute of limitations has expired!! Those lawsuits? All settled, except one!! (Ah, er, Mr. P.R. guy, that just ain’t so.) And the criminal investigation? He’ll be completely exonerated!! And anyway, those lawsuits were frivolous - just disgruntled investors!! No word on why the investors went from being gruntled to disgruntled.

But Marshall did speak to Gazette reporter Rich Laden, who had previously written a long, mostly laudatory piece about the developer a few weeks after the U.S. Olympic Committee deal was announced.

And speaking of the Gazette, it’s funny to watch the daily’s reaction to being scooped.

Perhaps as a matter of policy, they never, ever, acknowledge the work of other newsgathering organizations, as in “The Business Journal reported, and the Gazette has confirmed that blah, blah, blah.” They write their own piece, and then post it as “Breaking News!!” Guess what? We broke it, not The G!!

Meanwhile, we’ve had a lot of comments/posts/e-mails from folks who wonder why the city was so lax in its due diligence. Surely, they write, the city with all of its resources should have known about Marshall’s legal and financial woes. Good questions-and we don’t know the answers.

Some speculation. If Marshall’s problems cause his exit from the deal, who’ll take his place? The list of folks who are both capable of taking such a deal, and willing to be heroes, is not a long one - but it includes some of the most illustrious figures in this city’s business community.

Finally, a word about leadership. There are many programs, some in existence for nearly a quarter of a century, which purport to teach leadership skills to city residents. Many councilmembers have passed through such programs. Now, they’re confronted with a situation which requires leadership - firm, decisive, uncompromised, and right now!

They’re going to have to take risks, to acknowledge their own past failures and move quickly. They can’t just sit there passively, hem and haw, pass the buck and hope that, by some miracle, everything will turn out just fine.

We’ll see. And we’ll see whether they have the guts to hold their scheduled “closed session” meeting in public, and let the rest of us know what they know - and what they’re going to do about it.

And I just figured out how to get in touch with Marshall … I’ll friend him on Facebook! That’ll show Rich Laden …

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Posted by John Hazlehurst on March 26th, 2009 :: Filed under Blog
Tags :: City Council, Gazette, marshall, Rich Laden, U.S. Olympic Committee

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