ISSUE # 3 ... STONE WALLS NOT TRANSPARENT

Stone Walls Not Transparent

Stone walls are awfully easy for the government to erect, and terribly difficult for ants to penetrate!
We have seen a disturbing lack of transparency for the last thirteen months. We will cover the disconcerting history (the untold story of the undisclosed and false data behind Ordinance #30) in another issue.
In the last few days, The Red Ant filed Colorado Open Records Act requests (similar to a federal Freedom of Information Act request), on a variety of unpleasant Burlingame-related topics:
1) The unfounded basis for the false claims in the City's press releases on the two audits.

2) The initially submitted opinions/reports from the Burlingame auditors (before they were "negotiated.")

3) The basis for the City's claim that the "miss" between the brochure and actual on Burlingame included $32.9 million of "construction inflation."

"You Can't See the Audits You Paid For"---Click Below to Learn Why!

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ISSUE # 2 ... THE RED ANT

Mayor Gets it Wrong. Hospital, School Get it Right.

Single women listen closely when men use the "commitment" word. So this one did not get past us---

Mayor Ireland recently stunned some citizens as he announced at a meeting on August 8th that the Hospital and the School Board had made "commitments for a number of units at Burlingame II at FULL COST." I was more than a little peeved to think that the leadership of those publicly funded organizations would write multi-million dollar blank checks when the per unit cost is unknown but expected to be well over $500,000. How could responsible board members even consider creating such sky's-the-limit liability, especially given the known fiscal mismanagement of Burlingame? And most particularly in the case of the Hospital, which has just recovered from its own issues of confounding debits and credits! This announcement seemed hardly consistent with the seriousness with which those board members appear to take their fiduciary duties. Surely the zeal for employee housing had not so overshadowed their common sense!

First stop: City Hall, with a formal (Colorado Sunshine Law) records request for documentation of those Burlingame II "commitments." The official written response came from Steve Barwick, City Manager, stating Mayor Ireland was speaking of those boards' "verbal commitments." Little comfort there. Would those boards really have given their word, absent cost estimates and due diligence?

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ISSUE # 1 ... THE RED ANT

Aspen civic affairs can be difficult to dissect. Staying current is tedious work at times. Somehow I became interested and engaged, and occasionally observe things the local papers overlook in the ant hill at Hopkins and Galena, -- Aspen's City Hall. Along with help from some opinionated friends, I will share news bits and personal commentary through an email blast, The Red Ant. Expect some entertaining surprises from time to time.

The Red Ant will eventually archive our commentary, your comments, and related pieces on a blog. If we find enough community interest in our chosen topics, we might expand our reach to other formats. Stay tuned by getting our email commentary. If you prefer your local news a little more traditional, click the link below to unsubscribe.

Surprising Burlingame Survey Results

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