"Want to do business with the City of Aspen?" writes Post blogger Michael Conniff. "Here’s all you’ve got to do.Count on spending the best five years of your life and be willing to pony up $250,000 just in case something goes wrong and the Aspen City Council will find it hard to say no to your pleas. Also: it doesn’t hurt one bit to pour resources into local nonprofits and be the kind of guy that nobody doesn’t like. That’s more or less what went down in the late afternoon Tuesday at Aspen City Hall, where the City Council approved the Aspen Club & Spa expansion by a 3-1 vote, with only the irascible Mayor Mick Ireland saying nyet to fractional housing at the Club. (Councilor Torre recused himself because he has long taught tennis at the Club.) The key was Steve Skadron, who was assuaged by Aspen Club president Michael Fox’s willingness to put together the quarter-million dollars just in case the whole thing goes south. Derek Johnson and Dwayne Romero, who both know more than a smidge about doing business, also voted yes."
The Aspen Club & Spa's endless quest for expansion hit another hurdle when the Aspen City Council asked for plain old cash on the table.
Andy Gillis of Carbondale has had it with yet another tongue-in-cheek missive from Aspen gadfly Andrew Kole and asks a simple question: what's the point?
Posts filed under 'Aspen City Council'
Last year, as one part of the mission of Common Sense Alliance, I prepared a report to the Colorado Transportation Legislation Review Committee, a group made up of state legislators charged with overseeing state transportation projects. The general perspective of the report was that the state needed to take action to protect its citizens from the complete collapse of federal oversight of transportation funding. Despite that rather gloomy assessment the report also noted that "efforts to secure remediation of this problem at the federal level will continue", and we are now back to work on that approach.
Problems with the way the Department of Transportation (DOT) is doing its job can be reported to their Office of Inspector General (OIG). Beyond that, the federal government has now set up an Integrity Committee, to whom complaints can be addressed regarding problems with the way the OIG is doing its job.
Last week, I sent the letter below to the Integrity Committee, along with a complaint* regarding both the DOT and the OIG.
Any federal elected official or candidate might find the link below to be especially interesting, as it recounts the practical and real world methods used by federal employees to avoid taking responsibility to fix problems brought to their attention. I have not attempted to contact any elected officials or candidates, as I do not have any particular connection to any of them that might cause them to take notice. If you do have the ear of a federal elected official or candidate, please feel free to pass this email along.
* http://www.entrancesolution.com/Integrity%20Complaint.htm
Dear Integrity Committee,
The enclosed complaint is being sent to you at the suggestion of Valerie T. Blyther, Investigative Research Analyst for FraudNET at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
A central aspect of the problem being reported is the manner in which it was handled by staff of the Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, and that appears to be your specific area of responsibility.
However, the full authority of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency would be better suited to respond to the broad scope of deficiencies in the oversight of federal transportation funding which is detailed in this complaint. The mission and purpose of the Council to “address integrity, economy, and effectiveness issues that transcend individual Government agencies”, and “continually identify, review, and discuss areas of weakness and vulnerability in Federal programs and operations with respect to fraud, waste, and abuse” could have been written in reaction to the situation I am reporting.
The inevitable buck passing that occurs as a result of the bureaucratic compartmentalization of responsibility and authority has been a major problem that formation of the Council is clearly intended to overcome. The more pernicious failure of accountability that I encountered has been the consistent practice by nearly every federal official contacted to avoid acknowledging or discussing any of the information with which they are presented – apparently in order to evade any responsibility to act on that information.
If the intent of the architects of your agency was to make the Integrity Committee the enforcer of personal accountability by federal employees, the power to do so will need to be extended far beyond the various IG offices.
It is somewhat surprising that your intake method does not start with the Council, who then makes a determination regarding whether to pass the information on to the Integrity Committee. Regardless, I trust the Integrity Committee is perfectly capable of forwarding this request to the full Council for action that will “transcend individual Government agencies”.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Jeffrey Evans
June 29th, 2010
Want to do business with the City of Aspen? Here’s all you’ve got to do.
Count on spending the best five years of your life and be willing to pony up $250,000 just in case something goes wrong and the Aspen City Council will find it hard to say no to your pleas. Also: it doesn’t hurt one bit to pour resources into local nonprofits and be the kind of guy that nobody doesn’t like.
That’s more or less what went down in the late afternoon Tuesday at Aspen City Hall, where the City Council approved the Aspen Club & Spa expansion by a 3-1 vote, with only the irascible Mayor Mick Ireland saying nyet to fractional housing at the Club. (Councilor Torre recused himself because he has long taught tennis at the Club.) The key was Steve Skadron, who was assuaged by Aspen Club president Michael Fox’s willingness to put together the quarter-million dollars just in case the whole thing goes south. Derek Johnson and Dwayne Romero, who both know more than a smidge about doing business, also voted yes.
Continue Reading June 1st, 2010
Dear Aspen Club Family,
I want to take this opportunity to update you on the status of The Aspen Club project approval and ask for your help.
The approval process has been an amazing journey so far. Despite the challenges, I am still awed and humbled by the continued strong support you have shown for me and the project as we have gone through this long endeavor. I can't thank you enough. I believe that we are now getting close to the end of the process and will be getting a decision soon. Our next meeting before City Council is on Monday, May 24. A favorable vote is far from guaranteed.
This is why I am asking for your help. I would like each of you to reach out directly to our Council members about the Club and your support for the project. Your expression of support can make a big difference at this critical juncture.
Please write a quick email consisting of just a few sentences or leave a short message for our Council members.
Continue Reading May 17th, 2010
The march of the bears is upon us again and this time the bears are not to blame.
They’re hungry: we all know that, and yet repeat offenders are put to death. In response, Aspen City Council deemed in March 2009 that wildlife-resistant trash cans would be not only the norm but the requirement. But here’s the problem: the requirement by the City of Aspen has been all but ignored by all but a few of the citizenry.
Continue Reading May 7th, 2010
So we have Marilyn Marks resigning from The Red Ant blog, the waspish Elizabeth Milias berating Aspen City Manager Steve Barwick, and the gnatty Andrew Kole professing his love for blondes in a bottle.
Just another day in Paradise, where the insects are only human.
In the loony bin of Aspen politics, I have been trying to make sense of the nonsensical, particularly when it comes to the Aspen Election Commissions (EC) past and present, a formerly innocuous body that may yet assume superpowers. I finally figured out why everything seems so loony, thanks to a letter Tuesday in the local fishwrap from Ward Hauenstein, a new member of the newly reconstituted EC. (See his full letter below.) In asking for public comment, Hauenstein wrote: “As a new member I have no surviving complaints submitted to the last EC, save the Zimet complaint.”
That’s right: the entire Mayoral and City Council “controversy” produced exactly one formal complaint to the Election Commission, from Millard Zimet, said to be a very smart man. The rest of the noise came primarily from two people: Marilyn Marks and Elizabeth Milias, later a controversial EC member.
Continue Reading April 27th, 2010
The Pitkin County clerk recently blocked distribution of a citizen’s initiative petition mandated under the state constitution - on the grounds that a petition which affects the levy of taxes violates the Pitkin County home rule charter. This is one of the more peculiar political decisions in recent memory.
Continue Reading April 15th, 2010
You may be shocked and even apalled to hear this--and I am shocked myself--but I am actually going to defend failed Aspen Mayoral wannabe Marilyn Marks.
Continue Reading March 24th, 2010
Like the blue folk of “Avatar,” Hollywood is facing an Oscar scandal of massive proportions without a clue as to what happens in the end.
I know because I live in a town that is still trying to recover from Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), the method of misbegotten democracy just adopted by the Academy Awards in this exponential age of ten nominees for “Best Picture.” In the old days—starting in 1946 and persisting until last year—the movie that came away with the most votes won in a simple exercise of plurality rule. To win “Best Picture” this time around, a picture like “Avatar” has to achieve more than 50 percent of the vote—and that could take multiple rounds of voting.
So what’s the big deal? In Aspen, Colorado, where I hover—home to an IRV election in 2008—the new system of ranking voters has left an election still fundamentally flawed and unresolved, with lawsuits from citizens and city officials determined to defend themselves till the final credits against all charges. Litigation about the Aspen Mayoral and City Council elections is still looming as we speak.
Not unlike the City of Aspen, the Academy has gone to a ranking system, with movies gauged by Academy members from 1 to 10. If any movie wins a majority on the first ballot, the party’s over and the new (or old) king of the world can pop the champagne.
Continue Reading February 10th, 2010
I can't help but share this Christmas Eve communique from Elizabeth Milias's Denver lawyer. I can only imagine that Elizabeth, a former Pentagon spokesperson, insisted that the word should go out on the eve of Christ's birth that she has been wronged by the heathens.
Enjoy....
Continue Reading January 3rd, 2010
"When Aspen Public Radio reporter Mitzi Rapkin broadcast a series of stories on the Aspen Election Commission controversy this fall," reports Curtis Wackerle, "she found her professional credibility called into question by Elizabeth Milias, one of the subjects of her story.
"Milias, who was on the Election Commission, sent what she described as a “nastygram” to Rapkin’s boss, Aspen Public Radio Executive Director Andrew Todd, where Milias told Todd that “it’s tough to get good help these days.”
Continue Reading December 11th, 2009
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