July 25, 2010 06:10 PM UTC

DPS as proxy for Romanoff vs Bennet & the conflicts of interest

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• by: RockyMtnModerate

Watching the proxy battle being waged in the Senate primary, I think it’s time that the players on both side put an end to the conflicts of interest and commit to complete transparency. The clouds hanging over the motives of Andrea Merida, Theresa Peña, Tom Boasberg and to lesser degrees other members of the DPS Board have darkened so much that they make all of them less than credible.

The relationships between Merida and Romanoff on one side and Peña and Bennet on the other side put anything they say or any vote they cast in question of whether it is out of genuine conviction or politically motivated. Boasberg’s conflicts are of a completely different nature but are troubling as well.

Merida, I believe, clearly crossed a line in publishing an OpEd piece questioning Boasberg & Pena and by extension Bennet without clearly disclosing that she was being paid by the Romanoff campaign. I do not think that her questions and blunt words for either had anything to do with being paid by Romanoff but the appearance has damaged her credibility and unfairly tainted Romanoff. To be certain, Merida has been an outspoken critic of Boasberg and the DPS Board majority including Peña since the day she joined the Board and during her campaign for the seat. I have contacted two people I know who volunteer for Romanoff who both told me that her role there is as a field organizer focused on the Latino community and the parts of Denver she represents and organizing the Teachers for Romanoff which apparently is a large group.

So contrary to what the Bennet campaign is trying to stir up I don’t think her OpEd in the Denver Past had anything to do with her job with Romanoff. Having watched how she’s conducted herself, I think she would have written the same piece and would have been raising the questions she has whether she was working for Romanoff or not. If those are her beliefs and the questions she has, I think she not only has the right but the obligation to ask the questions. If there are questions she thinks need to be answered, it is her duty to raise them and to raise them as loudly as possible. The mistake and problem is when she does so without disclosing what could be the appearance of a conflict of interest. A simple “I am a field organizer for Romanoff but am writing this solely in my capacity as a DPS Board member” would have done the job.

Merida created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and I believe should remove herself from any paid position with the Romanoff campaign.

On the other side of the Senate race, Theresa Peña has crossed the line on several occasions as well. Although her job for Bennet as Treasurer is an unpaid position, she clearly has “skin in the game” and an interest in how the DPS Board handles questions about things that went on while Bennet was Superintendent. For her to publicly attack Merida in the papers and at Board meetings and accuse Merida of having political motivations for raising questions is as rife with conflict and as inappropriate as Merida’s own actions.

There are a lot of questions that have been raised about the financial dealings that went on under Bennet and the impact those are having on the pensions and longterm condition of DPS and PERA. For Peña to dismiss those questions as political is a disservice to DPS, their teachers and all state retirees.

Peña’s close relationship with Bennet and her continued role with his campaign create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and I believe she should remove herself from any official position with the Bennet campaign.

Tom Boasberg is a lifelong friend of Bennet who was Bennet’s #2 and was closely involved in some of the issues that there are now questions being raised about. Until all of the information is brought into the light and made available for scrutiny, any efforts by Boasberg to hinder that scrutiny create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. Boasberg’s personal attacks on individual members of the Board border on insubordination and show his lack of understanding of either the role he serves vs that of the DPS Board or of the seriousness of the questions being raised. It has been reported that Boasberg actively fought against an amendment at the Statehouse to subject the DPS financing and condition of the retirement system under greater transparency and open records requirements. Boasberg has said it was not needed and was duplicating existing regulations.

Given his involvement with the financings under question and his personal ties to Bennet, Boasberg should be going out of his way to be as open and transparent as possible and should take extraordinary steps not to give the appearance that he is attacking or trying to undermine Bennet’s critics. He should invite a full public inspection of all of the DPS and DPS pension financing transactions including who was involved, the real costs associated, potential upside or downside and he should call for PERA to release the most recent reports immediately for public viewing.

At the end of the day, the DPS Board needs to get back to doing their work and not be using it is a proxy to attack or support Romanoff or Bennet. If there are legitimate questions about Bennet’s tenure at DPS, they should be asked and answered fully but Merida, Peña & Boasberg do their candidates and DPS families and employees a disservice by allowing their roles to be blurred. They are all entitled to support who they wish and they should all continue to fulfill their obligations to DPS but the conflicts of interest need to be ended and absolute transparency brought to the past financial transactions at DPS, the current condition and outlook for the DPS pension and PERA pension system.