Pinnacol Chairman Ken Ross Explodes on Camera

by: Colorado Pols

Wed May 26, 2010 at 15:00:56 PM MDT

Gov. Bill Ritter called a trip by three Pinnacol Assurance board members "ill-advised," and there is now a bipartisan call for board resignations after a CALL7 investigation exposed a five-day luxury trip by Pinnacol staff and members of the governor-appointed board.

CALL7 Investigator Tony Kovaleski followed Pinnacol board members to Pebble Beach in mid-May, showing them accepting pricey golf fees, expensive rooms and luxury food and drinks apparently at Pinnacol's expense.

After reviewing the hidden-camera video, Sen. Morgan Carroll, who headed a committee looking into Pinnacol business practices last year, called for board Chairman Gary Johnson and board members Debra Lovejoy and Ryan Hettich to resign after taking the trip, saying it violated their independence as an oversight board. Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, in a phone interview also said the board members who went on a trip need to resign...

Other members of the judiciary committee, which approved Ritter's reappointment of Johnson and Hettich, also were outraged by the trip and the reaction of Pinnacol Chief Executive Officer Ken Ross.

"I'm very disappointed that the Pinnacol board chose to behave like they did, particularly coming off the heels of the legislative session we have just been through," said Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver.

Steadman said he was also surprised that Ross would be so upset about cameras capturing his golf outing when Pinnacol private investigators use hidden cameras to try to track people on worker's compensation when Pinnacol believes are faking injuries. He pointed out Pinnacol opposed a bill that would have limited their use of tracking workers with cameras.

The appearances of this swanky expenses-paid trip to Pebble Beach are absolutely bad enough, but you have to watch the video of Kovaleski's report (unfortunately 7NEWS' video playback is not embeddable)--in it you'll see Pinnacol CEO Ken Ross attempt to physically assault Kovaleski several times, having to be restrained by assistants and ultimately led away from the scene. He threatened to break Kovaleski's finger on camera. We don't think we've seen anything quite like it this side of the Jerry Springer Show or an episode of Cops: and this is the man who swaggers into the legislature each year to insist he doesn't need oversight?

If an incident like this, enough to unite such diverse figures as Sens. Morgan Carroll and Scott Renfroe in calls for board members' heads to roll, isn't enough to force the legislature to get control of this "quasi-public entity" in a meaningful way next year, we honestly don't know what will.