January 25, 2008 12:37 AM UTC

Jared Polis: Typical politician or forgetful?

• 1 Comments
• by: WinstonSmith

As many of you may have read recently, state lawmakers are looking to audit State Board of Education expenditures from recent years. Included in these expenditures is $997 from former board member Jared Polis. That isn’t the story though. The interesting part is that the Board supposedly spent $3,500 on a “retirement” party for Polis. He denies this and says he paid for it himself. Ok..that could be true. But the story goes on to say that the board spent $385 on flowers and $212 on a clock for Polis.

The part of this tale that I have a problem with is comes from Lynn Bartels’ story about Jared and his $212 clock. According to the story, Polis simply “doesn’t remember the gift.” I suppose when you are a multi-millionaire, gifts worth hundreds of dollars might be below your radar. The ironic part of this whole thing is that he received this gift days after Amendment 41 was enacted, which prohibits gifts of more that $50/year to state employees. Apparently, Amendment 41 excluded State Board of Education Members from its rules.

For someone that proclaims to be a champion of ethics in government, Polis seems adept at making certain the rules apply to everyone but himself. It is possible that he is simply forgetful and not thoughtful, but I suspect that he is simply another typical politician who says what people want to hear and only follows the rules when convenient. We don’t need more politicians like Jared Polis in Congress.