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Is Denver Becoming One Of The Worst-Run Cities In America?

Is Denver Becoming One Of The Worst-Run Cities In America?

by | Jul 26, 2019 | Main Articles

Despite $1.46 Billion Budget, City Among 50 Worst; Auditor Cites Pay-To-Play Politics At Public Works, Parks

Community Circle: Community road upkeep and care was once a major focus of Public Works. Now, however, bike lane buildup has become department’s top priority.

by Glen Richardson

Albeit city salaries are about $1 billion annually, Denver can no longer crack a spot in America’s 100 best-run cities, falling into the 50 worst-run big cities in the nation, ranked 117.

A study released last month by WalletHub compared America’s 150 biggest cities to determine the best and worst run municipalities, based upon their operating efficiency. The online financial website constructed a “Quality of City Services” score — comprising 37 key performance indicators grouped into six service categories — that was then measured against the city’s total per-capita budget. The website that recently ranked Denver the 13th best city to live in is owned by Washington D.C.-based Evolution Financial Inc.

Among comparable big cities, Las Vegas (46th), Portland (65th), Boston (67th) and Houston (73rd) were ranked in the top 75 best run cities, providing residents with much more bang for their buck. Moreover, Aurora (54th) and Colorado Springs (58th) were significantly better at planning, coordinating and managing than was the City of Denver.

Public Works Problems: Beset by city’s massive buildup and seeming inexperienced leadership created city’s Convention Center crisis. Meanwhile political projects sink department’s community service.

Spending Spree

Numbers have hinted at Denver’s dismal performance since Mayor Michael Hancock first took office in 2011. Rather than a city manager, Denver has a strong mayor, weak city council system. The mayor can approve-veto any council ordinance or resolution and is responsible for the city budget and appointments to city departments. The city now spends nearly $1 billion annually on salaries alone, up from $600 million just eight years ago. The city’s budget has grown each year since 2010. Denver’s $1.46 billion 2019 budget is up 3% from 2018.

The number of municipal employees has grown by more than 20%. General Administration — which includes the mayor’s office and the city attorney — has grown by 48%. Hancock’s 2019 budget calls for hiring another 260 full-time employees spread across 11 cabinet-level departments. Staffing in departments like Community Planning & Development has grown by more than 80% during Hancock’s first two terms.

Even more worrisome, during the May municipal election, the mayor proposed the creation of several new offices, including a Department of Transportation & Infrastructure. That division would replace and significantly expand the out of control Public Works Department.

Political Patronage

Neighborhood dissatisfaction with Denver’s quality of service — a key component in rating America’s best and worst cities — is reflected by the political patronage in appointments made by the Hancock Administration. Too often they have trouble using taxpayers’ funds wisely (if not improperly) or abusing their positions, critics claim.

Beauty Becoming Beast: Denver’s parks and parkways have been one of city’s biggest assets. Plagued by political pressure, pathetic managing department projects are late, property being sold off.

Hancock named Eulois Clarkley Executive Director of Denver Public Works in November 2017. He oversees 1,300 employees responsible for city road maintenance, trash collection, design-constructions of streets, public buildings plus parking management.

Clarkley’s selection as Public Works Director was made chiefly to create and expand Denver bike lanes. His exceptional job of adding multiple bike lanes has incensed dozens of neighborhoods. The former Deputy Director of the Houston-Galveston Area Council, seemingly lacks experience managing the $340 million department budget let alone overseeing contracts for the city’s massive construction projects that created the Convention Center scandal.

Park-Rec Problems

Appointment of Allegra “Happy” Haynes as Executive Director of Denver Parks & Recreation nearly four years ago is another example. Besides the Parks & Rec job she remains the At-Large Board Member of Denver Public Schools.

Park Hill Pillage: One of eight city golf courses managed by Denver Parks & Recreation, the 155-acre Park Hill Golf Course is being sold to a developer.

The department which includes the Golf Enterprise Fund, has a budget of more than $150 million. A staff of 550 full-time plus 1,500 part-time employees manage 240 parks and parkways, plus 14,000 acres of mountain parks, 309 athletic fields and eight golf courses.

She has overseen the destruction of several city open spaces, including agreeing to the redevelopment of Park Hill Golf Course that’s outraged neighborhoods along with former Mayor Wellington Webb. Of 14 recommendations in the May 2017 Golf Enterprise Fund audit by Auditor Timothy O’Brien, CPA, Denver Golf fully implemented five, partially implemented three, and did not implement six at all.

Golf Double Bogie

Haynes and Denver Golf haven’t yet created a strategic plan and city officials think it will take through the end of 2020 to finish it. If this occurs, it will be two years from the time the agency stated implementation.

Denver Golf claims the delay is due to projects such as the music festival at the Overland Golf Course, and because the agency was waiting for Parks & Recreation to finalize a 10-year strategic plan. Financial procedure documentation, rotation of duties and performing accurate counts of assets have yet to be implemented.

“This should’ve been an eagle for Denver Golf,” Auditor O’Brien suggests. “It looks more like a double bogie.”

Bidding Scandal

Management has become so bad at City Hall that following the Public Works bidding scandal, the Denver Auditor’s Office began looking at the city’s Public Works, Parks & Recreation and Public Health & Environment departments. Audits discovered that the city allowed some contracts to be longer than recommended with inadequate justification and didn’t verify that some companies were in good standing to do business.

Dismal Denver Days: Soaring spending and sliding quality of service has dropped Denver into the 50 worst-run cities in America. Big cities like Las Vegas (46th) and Boston (67th) provide residents with a bigger bang for the buck than Denver ranked 117.

The auditor found that none of the three departments had policies for handling conflicts of interest for each project put out to bid. “You don’t want city employees that are part of the procurement process to be influenced by tickets to a ballgame or a meal or something like that,” Auditor Tim O’Brien explains. Right now in Denver, only vendors that are awarded non-competitive work must disclose contributions.

Auditors also found that when disclosures of political contributions were required, few contractors submitted the form to the Clerk & Recorder. The auditor sampled 41 city contractors from the three agencies and found that only five had provided the disclosures. Parks and Rec officials say they had discussions about conflicts, but the conversations were never documented.

Audits Ignored

Worse yet, two city agencies haven’t fully implemented recommendations made in three separate reports from Denver Auditor O’Brien. In addition to the Golf Enterprise Audit, personally identifiable information in the city’s July 2017 Salesforce audit and the November 2017 Software Asset Management assessment weren’t followed through.

Keeping City Upright: Denver’s elected City Auditor Timothy M. O’Brien, CPA, right, helps keep city from getting worse. Many of his recommendations, however, are not fully implemented or not at all.

“I’m disappointed to see so many of our recommendations not fully implemented or not implemented at all — especially after agencies agreed to them,” Auditor O’Brien worries. “The city needs to take our recommendations seriously because they help improve stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”

Meanwhile, in the Salesforce Personally Identifiable Information audit, Technology Services fully implemented five out of six recommendations. Technology Services fully implemented two of the four recommendations in the Software Asset Management assessment, conducted for the auditor’s office by Deloitte & Touche.

Wellington Webb’s Fraudulent Defense Of Park Hill Golf Course

Wellington Webb’s Fraudulent Defense Of Park Hill Golf Course

by | Jul 26, 2019 | Editorials

There he defiantly stood on the veranda of the public Park Hill Golf Course, the three-time former mayor of Denver, Wellington Webb, who is still very much a political powerhouse in the city. He had called an emergency press conference to give out a clarion call to all citizens to save 155-acre Park Hill Golf Course as open space against the ravages of one more rapacious high-density developer, this time Westside Investment Partners, Inc. and its unctuous CEO and snake oil salesman Andrew Klein.

Former Mayor Wellington Webb

Webb was eloquent and passionate about a subject near and dear to his heart. After all, as he pointed out, as mayor he had done more than any other recent mayor for parks and open space in the City and County of Denver. Moreover, his critique of what is happening in Denver as a result of the Hancock administration was absolutely spot on. He accurately noted the destruction the Hancock administration had brought and was continuing to bring to the Queen City of the Plains. He declared:

“As our city has transformed drastically in the last few years, we cannot allow precious open space to become another casualty of development.

“Once developers chip away at this open space, there will be no excuses to go after more, including our parks.

“I think open space and park space is one of our most important commodities. If we allow this park space to be sold and redeveloped into a concrete jungle, I believe no park in Denver is safe.

“Because what do we get in its place? Housing like that across the street, where you walk out the door and you’re on the sidewalk with no greenspace.”

Park Hill Golf Course

“Once this is gone, it’s gone for good. It’s gone forever — gone for our children, our children’s children. Gone for what?

“That’s not the Denver I remember. But when I came here from Chicago, I didn’t want Denver to be Chicago. I wanted Denver to be Denver.”

We could not have said it better ourselves. Westside’s Founder and Managing Principal Klein tried to con Webb and the public by asserting that he would build “affordable housing” and maybe if the neighbors begged pathetically enough, a grocery store with a nice large parking lot. Webb correctly understood that such claims by Klein were little more than “a trick to garner support.” Klein will brutally rape Park Hill for every penny he can get out of it, while buying off whatever neighborhood quislings he can to mimic lines that he feeds them.

But there is one big problem with what Webb did, and it shows that he doesn’t really care about what is happening to Park Hill Golf Course or Denver as a whole. Michael Hancock and his merry band of destructive high-density developers would not be in power today if it were not for Wellington Webb. If Webb had given the same Park Hill speech and call to action just a few weeks before the June mayoral runoff between Michael Hancock and Jamie Giellis, then Jamie Giellis would be mayor and Park Hill Golf Course would have been saved.

What is, in fact, important to Webb is that all of his friends and acquaintances got their concessions at DIA renewed resulting in millions in profits for them. His daughter Stephanie O’Malley was appointed early on by Hancock to be Manager of Safety, an all-powerful position that oversees the police, fire and sheriff departments. This post was one that she was totally unqualified for. When her ineptitude became too embarrassing, he gave her the odd title of simply “Mayoral Appointee” with no responsibilities or job requirements for which she brings down a six-figure salary. She has the ultimate no work job all thanks to his Honor and his administration.

Webb lives in Park Hill and his neighbors have been begging him to speak out and oppose the sale for months. He has come out now when it simply doesn’t matter anymore. The sale to Westside took place a little over a week later for $24 million. Westside’s only problem is that in 1994 under the Webb administration, the Clayton Trust took $2 million in return for a conservation easement keeping the open space for perpetuity. Westside and Klein must get the easement cancelled and the property rezoned by the City Council.

Predatory Developer Andrew Klein

Webb has urged citizens to petition, protest and pressure the mayor and the City Council not to lift the easement and/or grant the rezoning. He notes that incumbent council members including two of the mayor’s strongest allies lost re-election bids largely in reaction to the excessive development scheme in their districts.

But Webb knows the three new council members will make no difference whatsoever in a 13-member City Council filled with corrupt lackeys of the mayor. Going to City Council meetings in Denver is a joke. The elected officials couldn’t care less what the public thinks. Klein and Westside would not have paid $24 million for the property if the fix was not already in with the mayor’s office and the City Council and Webb knows it.

Webb’s entire charade concerning Park Hill Golf Course was done so he can tell his neighbors and friends that he did “all he could do” to prevent the destruction of the neighborhood when, in fact, he did nothing when it really mattered. If you live in Park Hill and see the old mayor wandering around you may want to note to him the saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” He has been caught this time in his sham defense of Park Hill Golf Course and at least some of his neighbors now know it.

Even Wellington Webb should be ashamed of himself.

 — Editorial Board

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