October 18, 2011 06:52 PM UTC

Big Money, Bad Judgment, Usual Suspects Swamp DPS Board Race

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• by: Colorado Pols

A report from the Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus yesterday:

Denver school board candidates who consider themselves “outsiders” are accusing three other candidates of working together as a kind of unofficial slate backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. The detractors contend that a school reform agenda initially spearheaded by former DPS Superintendant and current U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet – and now being carried out by his successor, Tom Boasberg – is behind the effort to secure three of Denver’s seven school board seats that will be decided Nov. 1 in an all-mail election.

More specifically, at-large candidate Happy Haynes, southeast Denver District 1 candidate Anne Rowe and Jennifer Draper Carson from District 5 in northwest Denver have – according to their opponents in the race – allowed “deceptive attacks” to “tarnish” the Denver School Board race in their quest to advance a reform agenda that includes privatizing public schools…

The controversy erupted in the same week the first campaign finance reports for the race were filed. Made public on Tuesday, the filings suggest that the three so-called “slate” candidates have strong backing from the same group of six wealthy Coloradans, including University of Colorado President Bruce Benson and former University of Denver Chancellor Daniel Ritchie, currently chairman and CEO of the Denver Center for Performing Arts. When Benson secured his post at the university, he promised school officials that he would not endorse candidates or otherwise get involved in partisan causes. The Denver school board race, however, is non-partisan.

In total, the six donors contributed $261,000 – split evenly – to the same three candidates – Haynes, Rowe and Draper Carson. A $30,000 contribution was made by Benson; $78,000 came from Ritchie, $75,000 was listed from Henry Gordon, president of Strata Capital in Englewood; a $30,000 contribution was made by Scott Reiman, founder of Hexagon Investments in Denver; $15,000 was reported in the filings from Richard Saunders, founder of Saunders Construction in Centennial; and Kent Thiry, chief executive of DaVita Inc., gave $30,000. Richard Sapkin, managing principal with Edgemark Development LLC in Denver, donated an additional $10,000 each to Haynes and Rowe.

The campaign contributions are said to be some of the most significant in the history of Denver School Board elections…

The battles over “reform” plans at Denver Public Schools have been raging since now-Sen. Michael Bennet was superintendent. As most of our readers know, we’ve taken a generally dim view of the over-the-top attacks on Bennet, his successor Tom Boasberg, and the continuous state of petty controversy on this board. The dismally failed attempt earlier this year to recall board member Nate Easley, and dubious relationship between that effort and fellow board member Andrea Merida, are all matters of record. We thought then, and still believe, that the recall attempt was foolhardy to an embarrassing extreme for everyone involved.

What a shame, then, that the “reformers” seem determined to make us eat our words: GOP kingpin-turned CU President Bruce Ben$on’s huge checks to these candidates add partisan stigma to their campaigns, even with a thin excuse that it’s not a partisan race–he still pledged to stay out of politics. And remember, there was a legislative attempt to put fundraising limits on these races–a bill scuttled by Republicans. Now we’re in a situation where school board candidates are raising more money than some congressional candidates?

That’s just not right, folks.

In fact, it invites the sort of attacks we have tried to defend them from. For example, it was disclosed last week over at Squarestate that Nate Easley actually attended a party celebrating the Douglas County School District’s embattled religious school voucher program last May–given the lines that have been drawn on this board between “reformers” like Easley and their “progressive” opposition, it’s hard to imagine a more foolish thing to have done. While we don’t believe that Easley would support a program like Douglas County’s in Denver, and even if he did we can’t possibly imagine it passing…would he like to explain celebrating it?

In the end, these circumstances combine to create a situation that in all probability looks much worse than it actually is–the boogeyman of Douglas County’s religious vouchers is most unlikely in Denver, and statistics show pretty clearly that reform efforts at DPS have generally improved graduation and college entry rates. But the flood of money and bad judgment could result in this election flunking, if you will, the “smell test.” Which sometimes matters a lot more.

(Cross-posted from Denver Pols)