June 19, 2009 08:24 PM UTC

9News, Denver Post Channel National Enquirer

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post front-paged a story today from a crack team of Post & 9News reporters trying to make a big deal out of what is really a minor story:

At a time of layoffs, furloughs and budget cuts in Colorado municipal governments, about 600 officials from towns large and small have convened at a Vail resort for three days of taxpayer-funded networking and seminars interspersed with parties and golf.

“It’s a little extravagant, don’t you think?” asked Ed Bagwell, director of the public-services division for Teamsters Local 17 in Denver. “We’ve heard complaints from our members. Why are they spending this much in a down economy?”

Some attendees at the 87th annual Colorado Municipal League Conference were in seminars such as “Natural Disasters: Preparation and Response,” put on by the Evans city manager, and “Do as I Say and as I Do: Making Municipal Facilities Energy Efficient,” put on by an architect and a Lafayette council member.

“No one can say this is a junket,” said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League. “This is a quality conference, and people recognize it as such.”

But a reporter, producer and photographer from 9News who visited the conference Thursday found plenty of municipal officials who had decided to forgo the panel on “Maintaining Your Infrastructure in a Tight Economy” and instead hang out in the halls and lobby.

Unaware she was speaking to a reporter and being taped, Glendale City Council member LuVerne Davenport said the city brought six people to the conference so they could rotate through the panels and no one would have to go to all of them.

So what do they do when they are not in the seminars?

“We goof off,” Davenport said.

What’s with the “Gotcha” journalism, 9News? This isn’t Watergate – you should identify yourselves as reporters. Davenport is obviously not the brightest bulb in the lamp, and Glendale certainly went overboard on how many people they brought to the conference, but still…secretly tape-recording these conversations? Really?

And how can you actually be riled up over this: Instead of going to every seminar, some of the people hung out in the hallways!!! So what?

We can’t say we have much of a problem with these kinds of conferences, because it makes sense for local municipalities to get together and exchange ideas. It’s also really not that big of an expense, as the facts bear out:

Aurora expects to spend $2,000 in sending two council members and two staff members, one of whom is participating in the Colorado Consortium on Performance Measurement. Aurora, one of the founders of the consortium, serves on its steering committee.

Aurora, which is the third largest city in Colorado, spent $2,000 whole dollars on this conference! Throw the bums out!

The story is also disingenuous in how it calculated the total amount spent, saying that $180,000 total was spent for all cities combined. But without the proper context, that number is meaningless. It’s like calling a baseball player a .500 hitter without noting that he’s only had 10 at-bats in the entire season.

It’s not like all of that money could have been spent in one chunk to do something else, because it is split up among dozens and dozens of different municipalities. While $180,000 seems like a big number, when you break it down by municipality it doesn’t look as scary. Glendale should rightly be criticized for sending so many people from a small area to the conference, but they shouldn’t be lumped into the same pot of criticism as Aurora, which has a large city budget and spent only $2,000.

What do you think? Poll follows…

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