"Slow Food Roaring Fork/Aspen and Chef/Owner Mark Fischer of Restaurant SIX89 are sponsoring the Seventh Annual Summer Harvest Social..."
The Hudson-Reed Ensemble, always full of theatrical surprises, has a new trick up its sleeve: the formidable David Ledingham as the original Tricky Dicky, the Bard's Richard III.
Patrick Holloran will direct ACT's fall musical 1776. Performances will be held at the historic Wheeler Opera House November 4 - 14, 2010.
I’ve seen some lousy reporting at the Aspen Daily News—including the one this year about a drunken editor trying to bribe a cop—but some of the worst ever can be found in Brent Gardner-Smith’s coverage of the resignation of Hugh Zuker, a candidate for Pitkin County Sheriff.
Continue Reading 1 comment July 20th, 2010
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
Add comment June 29th, 2010
Want to commit a crime on your summer vacation? Consider the advantages of sumptuous Aspen, Colorado, where the local City constables are likely to either be lenient or lose the evidence entirely.
Among the missing evidence at the Aspen Police Department (APD), according to a story in the Aspen Daily News, was “a sword used in a 2004 assault, two miniskirts, lidocaine and syringes, a ‘victim’s white panties’ from a 2009 case, a glass dove seized in 2003, and a sports drink stolen from City Market.”
I’m not sure which is more upsetting—the sword or the sports drink.
Continue Reading Add comment June 21st, 2010
Why hammer a man so beloved? Why criticize the most popular politician every to walk these particular crags of the Rockies?
One way it is to make sure you don’t really know the man, that you won’t take the chance of succumbing to his charm. The other piece is to simply see what he’s done and what he’s become—regardless of what people feel about him.
No doubt the retirement of Sheriff Bob Braudis of Pitkin County, Colorado, at the end of 2010 means he rides off blithely into the sunset after two decades in the saddle, all but untouched by the likes of me and his most vociferous critics. I could go into great detail—and I have—as to the Sheriff’s particular disregard for drug laws he doesn’t like, and his attachment to his close friend, the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson Jr., and his consistent disregard for actual law enforcement, even as his county became a safe haven for the distribution of controlled substances.
Instead of exhaustive detail, I want to focus on a single moment in the career of Aspen’s famous Sheriff, a man likened to a latter-day version of Wyatt Earp.
Continue Reading Add comment May 5th, 2010
I don't doubt that Mr. Braudis believes he acted out of love for the community, but I'm not sure that enabling and protecting addiction, dealing, and substance abuse, and standing by while your “family” self-destructs, is the best way to show your love for the community. As in many real families, I think tougher love is called for.
Continue Reading Add comment May 4th, 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 Add comment April 15th, 2010
The Colorado state constitution provides “we the people” with the power of the initiative petition so that private citizens can propose legislation to be placed on the ballot. This power extends to the state as a whole, municipalities, and “home rule” counties such as Pitkin, and tax issues are legislative questions which are subject to the initiative process.
So, in Pitkin County, the circulation of a petition on a question of taxation is a state constitutional right.
The first step in the county initiative process is to have the form and content of the petition reviewed by the county clerk. Despite three separate attempts, the Pitkin County clerk has refused to approve the content of a local tax initiative, citing a provision of the Pitkin County Home Rule Charter that prohibits petitions on the “levy of taxes”.
County clerks take an oath of office that they will uphold the state and federal constitutions, and yet we have a letter from Pitkin County clerk Janice Vos Caudill in which she says that “as an elected official, one is sworn to uphold the Home Rule Charter…”!
Continue Reading Add comment March 16th, 2010
By January people where asking the obvious question, the question they've asked before under different circumstances: where in the world is Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis?
One source in local law enforcement said he was in Europe. Another said he'd been gone since Thanksgiving. But as per usual in the Sheriff's tenure, no one seemed exactly sure, and no one in the press seemed willing to ask.
Now we know and the news is not good. The Sheriff was indeed in Europe with his girlfriend, but upon his return he was hospitalized, in serious-enough condition to be put in intensive care in a Denver hospital.
Continue Reading Add comment January 25th, 2010
I decided over five years ago I was going to leave Andrew Kole alone, mainly because I thought he was harmless, small-minded, and insignificant. Unfortunately, though small-minded and insignificant, he is not harmless: the time has come to say that virtually everyone in Aspen agrees that Andrew Kole is an annoyance, a pest, and (much worse) a back-stabber. The number of people who can’t stand him could him an Aspen election twice over.
Totally by coincidence, twice in the past week two people came up to me in Parallel 15 and started to rant about him, with both whistling the same old tune: he acts nice to your face and then he stabs you in the back and then he acts like he can’t understand why you don’t like him.
Continue Reading 5 comments January 8th, 2010
This just in from Aspen activist Jeffrey Evans on the entrance to Aspen.....
Continue Reading Add comment December 19th, 2009
