May 11, 2010 12:57 AM UTC

Ryan Frazier, Occasional Councilman

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels reports:

Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier had the worst attendance record of any of the 10 council members from May 2006 through April.

Frazier, a Republican running for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District seat, missed 16 council meetings and 12 executive sessions out of 100 meetings during that four-year span. In the same time frame, two other council members running for office this year each missed five meetings and one executive session.

Frazier is one of four Republicans running in the 7th CD, which covers all or parts of Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties. He faces Michael Deming, Mike Sheely and Lang Sias…

Frazier was first elected as an at-large council member in 2003, and re-elected in 2007. His council and campaign financial disclosure forms show he was employed by Avaya, a telecommunications firm, from 2006 through March 2009. He is a partner in Takara Systems, but doesn’t receive any income from that investment, campaign manager Jake Zambrano said. Frazier blamed Sias’ campaign for circulating the records. At least three Republicans have provided the Denver Post with the documents, which are on the Aurora government website.

Whatever Ryan Frazier’s excuse might be, day job or smear campaign, the fact is this high an absentee rate in any job would be grounds for dismissal–politicians are routinely castigated for missing considerably less work than this. Fellow congressional candidate Cory Gardner has been getting beat up all year for missing legislative days to campaign–and what did Senate candidate Jane Norton have to say recently about candidates who skip out on work?

Norton told the assembled crowd that she had quit her job to run for Senate, while her opponent, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, is still employed by the county.

Those running for office and other elected officials shouldn`t use taxpayer money or time to campaign, she said. [Pols emphasis]

Evidently, some friends of Frazier’s CD-7 primary opponent Lang Sias agree. One can try to claim they are “smearing” Frazier with this, but it’s not like they forced him to play hooky.