Denver city government’s #1 gadfly is at it again, as the Rocky Mountain News reports:
Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher is the target of an ethics complaint stemming from nearly $50,000 of payments this year to his spokesman – a city employee – for campaign-related work.
The city’s Board of Ethics is looking into the complaint and will discuss it in executive session May 24, said Michael Henry, the board’s staff director.
Denis Berckefeldt, the auditor’s spokesman, called the complaint “groundless.”
He said Lisa Jones, who filed the complaint, opposed the January special election, which Gallagher actively supported, and is unhappy that voters approved a measure to replace the Denver Election Commission with an elected clerk and recorder.
“Lisa Jones is grasping at straws,” he said Wednesday…
We’ll see. The Rocky’s report indicates that such an arrangement is permissible, as long as several conditions are met — including one that states work paid for from a campaign can’t be done on city time.
Dennis Gallagher has a reputation for being scrupulously honest, even when it puts him in conflict with others in city government. It will be interesting to see if there is anything to this complaint, but we’re skeptical until more facts are disclosed.
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The Denver dailies have trouble giving a topic a full account, constrained by space limitations and formatting conventions.
For a more complete story, readers should peruse the short yet compelling account over at Denver Direct, the blog that started it all.
The article was entitled “No One Audits the Auditor.”
…it makes me like Gallagher even less than before. Those Jefferson ads were asinine.
Doesn’t Gallagher’s reputation for scrupulous honesty come mainly from his own campaign speeches?
Everyone knew. I began checking the financials in late January & noticed Gallagher had not filed for his campaign promoting Ref. 1A. I wrote both Stephanie O’Malley, who should have asked the questions herself, and Dennis G. No response. I contacted everyone at the RMN & DP, including ediorial staff. The robo calls did not say who paid for them. I pointed this out. Stephanie O’Malley may be accomplished, but she is clueless about election administration. She is being paid $90,000 to do the job now, not beginning in July. There are many more issues. If Coffman’s hiring his crony to work elections is unethical, how was Hickenlooper’s appointment of the former Mayor’s daughter ethical? It wasn’t. So…are there
different standards for Denver & the State? Right now, anything goes in Denver. Want to register a new voter? Do it now while there are no procedures for checking driver’s liscenses. Don’t buy into the argument that O’Malley inherited problems – the same stories were being reported when Rosemary Rodriguez had the cushy job. She did nothing, allowed problems to fester and got a promotion. Poor Wayne Vaden had to resign, but he was rewarded with lucrative city contracts. What motivation does Stephanie have to fix anything? Kazakhvoter
Was it also unethical for Denver voters to elect her as Clerk?
… to appoint the mayor’s son (Ed Tauer) to a vacant seat a decade ago? (He subsequently won re-election to council and stepped into his father’s shoes when Paul Tauer retired as mayor four years ago.)
how far do we want to go with this nepotism thing?
Was it unethical to vote for Stephanie? I suppose after the damage was done (appointing a crony), it didn’t matter. Why the appointment was so egregious is Stephanie has absolute control over the election process. As for the Tauers – again, they don’t control the election process in Aurora. Election admininstrators should be held to a higher standard than other politicians. There are actually best practices and standards widely observed in most jurisdictions throught the country. Denver is an exception, oblivious to any concept of neutrality. See http://www.electionc…
since I don’t live in Denver.