Jeff Jahnke

When the GSA Las Vegas conference spending scandal was revealed, GSA Administrator Martha Johnson stepped down and a host of other employees involved were fired. After the JP Morgan $2 billion loss, the trader mostly responsible for the loss and his boss were publicly pushed out. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned after the 2006 midterm shellacking.

Accountability matters. But, so far, it doesn't seem to matter to Governor Hickenlooper. 

In the case of the the Lower North Fork Fire, the mistakes were made by the Colorado State Forest Service, which is headed by Jeff Jahnke. 

Hickenlooper, though, doesn't appear inclined to hold Jahnke responsible, telling 7News: "As much as you want someone to be found responsible and held accountable, we don't know for sure, yet, I don't think, how responsible anyone was and whether this wasn't just a freak act of nature."

That's BS, Governor, and you know it. As 7News pointed out, serious errors were made: 

The facts from the Governor's own review show that the Colorado State Forest Service violated its own prescribed burn plan by not monitoring the burn area for a minimum of three days, specifically Sunday, March 25 — the day before the fire reignited and escaped.

"There was one break of protocol where no one went and looked at the fire on Sunday. Now, Bill Bass thought that did not contribute to the escape of the fire because they came back on Monday morning and the fire was completely out, or they felt it was completely out. And while they were there just kind of walking around and rolling up hoses and leaving, they judged the fire to be completely controlled, suddenly this freak wind came up," said Hickenlooper.

Wind was forecast ahead of time. On Saturday, the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Watch for the burn area to take effect Monday. By Sunday, the watch became a Red Flag Warning to take effect Monday. A Red Flag Warning is issued by the National Weather Service to call attention of forecast users to special conditions that may result in extreme burning conditions. It may forecast rapid changes in weather conditions which may increase the fire danger rapidly.

Serious errors were made in the controlled burn, serious errors that destroyed homes and lives. As the review of the fire reveals, it was not some freak accident.

The Colorado State Forest Service screwed up, and it's time the press start asking Hickenlooper about Jeff Jahnke and others who should be held responsible. 

(Photo via Colorado Department of National Resources)

Peter Blake of the Colorado News Agency recently recounted an example of another Colorado governor who actually took responsibility for mistakes of the state:

When a state worker in a front-end loader dislodged a 6.7-ton boulder on Berthoud Pass in 1987, it rolled into a bus full of tourists, killing nine and injuring 15. It took six years, but the state ended up agreeing to a settlement of $2.5 million.

But that case didn’t involve governmental immunity. The plaintiffs’ attorneys filed under the federal civil rights act, and they named individual defendants as well as the state. The settlement went well beyond the immunity limits, which were somewhat lower then. That’s because Gov. Roy Romer didn’t want tourists to think the state could kill them with virtual impunity. [Peak emphasis]

Attorneys for North Fork fire victims might try a similar tactic—or something even more imaginative. Or they can go straight to the state claims board, which would determine whether there was negligence and recommend damage awards for each plaintiff. The legislature would still have to appropriate the money.

Did Hickenlooper's non-response to the fire give people the impression that the state could kill them and destroy their homes with impunity? Blake quotes the husband of a woman killed in the fire saying "It is just disgusting to see their arrogance…They bathe themselves in immunity."

Blake's hard hitting salvo comes on the heels of a bungled early response by the Hickenlooper administration. While most of the press, per normal form, gave the Governor a full and free pass, one TV station brought down the hammer.

7News brutally took Hickenlooper to task, calling his administration's report on the fire "soft" and "political." During the press conference announcing a deal on victim compensation in the Lower North Fork Fire, Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman even cited the 7News report as clarifying the issue for him.  

When the press gets done serenading Hickenlooper and editorializing against Speaker McNulty, maybe they'd like to get back to their job holding Hickenlooper accountable for his administration's inept response to a recent tragedy.

And the first question they should ask is the question posed first by Peter Blake: People died, Governor, so will anyone in state government be fired?

Both CBS4 and 7News found school districts racking up insanely indefensible bills, such as Denver Public Schools spending $200,000 on fast food in a year, or school districts across the state hosting GSA-like conferences at the swanky Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs. If public school districts complain about budget cuts, their complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears if they're found paying for $30 hamburgers at the Broadmoor. 

It's not just major television stations uncovering these unexcusable wastes of taxpayer dollars. Education reform activist Regan Benson found that Jefferson County schools spent over $68,000 on just pizza in 2011. As Benson points out, that $68,000 could be better spent hiring seven part-time para-professionals who are used to support teachers and students, which, after all, is how education dollars are meant to be spent. 

The wasteful spending of Colorado school districts and the GSA junket in Vegas are both small amounts in comparison to their total budgets. But they destroy the lack of trust the public places in public officials to spend tax money. If you can't trust someone to spend the money you already give them properly, why in the world would you agree to give them more?

(Photo Credit: Flickr/ Mack_L)

Check out the full report here.

What's clear from the 7News report is Governor Hickenlooper doesn't want to do the hard work of assigning blame and cleaning up the mess. 7News asked wildfire expert Rich Schell, former chief officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to review the Governor's report on the fire. Here's what Schell had to say:

“This needs to be reviewed on a serious, investigative basis, not like the Governor's task force report,” said Schell. “I describe the Governor's review as being very soft. I think it has a political undertone. Let's be realistic here, nobody wants to accept responsibility or be liable for this loss, the escaped prescribed burn.”

BAM! We're quite sure the Governor has never had the media deliver such a damning indictment of his leadership since he took office. 

Not only does the 7News investigation call the Governor's report on the fire into question, but 7News's Marshall Zelinger continually points out incorrect statements made by Hickenlooper, calling him out as someone not dealing with the facts on the ground. 

For example:

“And while they were there just kind of walking around and rolling up hoses and leaving, they judged the fire to be completely controlled, suddenly this freak wind came up,” said Hickenlooper.

Wind was forecast ahead of time. On Saturday, the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Watch for the burn area to take effect Monday.

Only sentences later Hick is again caught misstating the facts again:

[Hickenlooper:]“Now, we started this prescribed burn, there's no question about that. But, according to the Bill Bass report, the prescribed burn was started following and conforming to all the protocols and the way we do these things all over the state.”

That statement is not entirely accurate, as Hickenlooper mentioned earlier that the plan did find errors when the Colorado State Forest Service violated its own plan by not monitoring the burn on Sunday, March 25. [Peak emphasis]

Denver media take note: this is how you interview the Governor without kid gloves.

In terms of legislative action regarding the fire, Hickenlooper's most embarrassing statement comes towards the end of the article. When asked if he is “willing to encourage lawmakers to offer more than the $600,000 immunity cap,” which is what the Fire Commission bill is designed to look at, Hick says:

“We have a cap of $600,000; maybe we should be raising it? Maybe we should have certain exemptions from that cap? If people think we should revisit that and raise the cap, I'm happy to lead that discussion.” [Peak emphasis]

Well, actually, Governor, that is a bald faced lie. When asked about that exact issue last week, this is what Hickenlooper had to say:

[Hickenlooper] repeatedly declined to say whether the state should lift or waive its liability cap, which will divide a maximum of $600,000 between dozens of fire victims who lost millions.

Hickenlooper's honeymoon days are over. The days when he could turn on his charm and avoid all tough issues are no more. Marshall Zelinger of 7News just ripped the Governor a new one, exposing his bumbling leadership on an emotional issue that can't be aw, shucks-ed over. 

Governor Hickenlooper, the discussion on the liability cap has already begun. We guess Speaker McNulty was right when he said at a press conference on the proposed Fire Commission: “The Governor can catch up with us when [the bill] reaches his desk.”

But just within the past few days Coloradans have been reminded why having the sunshine is so important. Witness the latest investigative report from 7News' John Ferrugia and Arthur Kane:

In a time of tight budgets, teacher layoffs and increased fees, school districts are still spending money on expensive meals, teacher parties and even gift cards, a CALL7 “You Paid For It” investigation found.

CALL7 Investigators reviewed check registers and credit card databases for the major metro school districts and found thousands of dollars spent on a public relations consultant, gift cards, staff parties and meals at top restaurants. While the totals would never fix the districts' budget deficits, the spending shows that administrators are not cutting potentially wasteful at the time many schools are cutting education resources.

Typical of the genre, the story features a couple “Aha” moments in which local school district administrators have a hard time trying to justify some questionable expenditures. Metro area voters who may have to decide a number of local school tax initiatives this fall might be none the wiser if not for such investigative work.

It's important then to remember that a 2010 law requiring significant online financial transparency from Colorado school districts really made this story possible. A local news agency conceivably could have used the Colorado Open Records Act to uncover some or all of the information featured in the report. However, it would be difficult to generate the “probable cause” needed to spend even more resources and man-hours on an investigation.

The Independence Institute was at the forefront of the call for school spending transparency in 2009 and in 2010. More recently, my former intern Devan Crean and I were able to shine the spotlight on how well (or how poorly) local K-12 agencies were complying with Colorado's Public School Financial Transparency Act. In the immediate aftermath of that report, we heard from several school districts eager to fix their shortcomings.

Let's be clear. The results of neither the 7News investigation nor our 2011 issue paper necessarily indicate some sort of concerted effort among local education agencies to hide their financial activities. Jeffco Public Schools, a district featured in the article for a concerning apparent conflict of interest, actually posted a searchable spending database before the 2010 law was adopted. While transparency may sometimes prevent problems from occurring, in large bureaucracies it often may only help to show the problem is there.

On the other hand, my colleague Amy Oliver has found evidence that indicates why some higher education officials have lobbied this year against transparency legislation. Nine days remain until the end of the legislative session, and HB 1252 finally is scheduled to be heard tomorrow by House Appropriations. The likelihood of both passing the House and speeding through the Senate at this point seems like a daunting challenge.

The fight to preserve and expand government sunshine is ongoing. In spite of setbacks, we need to keep urging Colorado's education transparency train forward to make some more progress. And soon. If you can't defend it, don't spend it!