Stefan Hermans / Dreamstime

If the health of an elected body can be measured by the level of communication among its members, the Fort Collins City Council would seem to be in a coma—at least that’s the impression a citizen would get after logging on to a so-called “public access” e-mail account set up by the city in 2003 so that elected officials’ e-mails, which are public records under state law, could be reviewed and inspected by their constituents.

In reality, though, almost all e-mail conversations between elected officials and city staff occur off the public grid. And unless a citizen was savvy enough to demand those e-mails under state public records laws, if indeed they even suspected the communications existed, such backdoor exchanges would remain unknown and unaccounted for.

Since June 30, only 15 e-mails initiated by a City Council member appear on the public-access account, along with another 60-some messages from the city’s communications staff detailing media interviews and other PR matters.

But behind the scenes, the council’s seven members have sent and received more than 7,000 messages in the same time period, the vast majority of which do not appear on the public-access account. The only way an interested citizen would know they exist at all is through a request under the Colorado Open Records Act. The city manager’s office, handed such a request by Face the State, estimated the cost of compiling e-mails for the past 90 days for public review to be more than $1,600. The effort would take at least two weeks.

The public-access account was set up in 2003 after local reporters pointed out that the city had no simple method for citizens or journalists to quickly check council members’ e-mail. E-mail is commonly used to debate issues, discuss matters before the city and respond to citizen complaints and inquiries; while many messages might be mundane, they nevertheless allow for a glimpse into council members’ personal interactions and thought processes. For years, the public-access account allowed an unfiltered view into the workings of government; the only exceptions were personnel matters considered to be confidential and generally not releasable under state law.

Yet, the city never adopted a formal policy of requiring e-mail to be routed through the public-access account; instead, said city spokeswoman Kelly DiMartino, it was only a “practice,” one that has become almost completely dormant.

The trouble is that the public—whom the public-access account purports to benefit—has no way of knowing that the messages on the now-anemic account are only a tiny fraction of the messages actually exchanged among city council members. Those asking to see the records aren’t told that thousands more exist and are only accessible through the expensive and time-consuming process of invoking open-records laws.

Because there is no formal policy requiring council members and other city staff to send their e-mail exchanges through the public-access account, it’s completely arbitrary which messages can be accessed instantaneously for free and which must be paid for. It all depends on whether the e-mailer chooses to route the message to the public portal or not. Most apparently choose not to.

“There’s not anything here that’s to try and hide anything,” said City Manager Darin Atteberry. “If ultimately where you’re headed is that it’s difficult to get access to e-mails from Fort Collins City Council, I would disagree with that. … If the average citizen walked in and said, ‘I’d like to see my council member’s e-mail,’ first of all, we would tell them that they could do a CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) request.”

Only, that wasn’t the first thing a Face the State reporter was told when he asked to see council e-mail. A city communications-department employee simply pointed to the public-access account, which must be viewed in person at City Hall; there was no mention that the information it contained only scratched the surface of what was available. Likewise, DiMartino, the city spokeswoman, conjectured that few e-mails turned up on the city’s public-access account because, “there are very few e-mail conversations going on amongst council members.”

That was also the take of one of the council members.

“The simple truth is that it’s remarkable, really, how little conversation is done between council members at this point,” said David Roy, the one elected official responsible for most of the 15 e-mails on the public-access account. “The good old days when we were rambunctious and embedded every waking thought through (e-mail) has been a long time. Truthfully, and this is no exaggeration, Kelly (Ohlson, the Mayor Pro Tem) has never sent an e-mail. Aislinn (Kottwitz) maybe has sent one to the group. … In terms of mulling over and looking at issues using e-mail as the prism, it just really isn’t happening, as you’ve noticed.”

Only after Face the State filed a Colorado Open Records Act request—on its own initiative, without any suggestion to do so from the city—was it revealed that there is, in fact, much more conversation occurring than the public-access account would indicate.

Fort Collins’ approach stands in contrast to policies at some other public bodies.

In Boulder, for example, citizens can sign up to a listserv, which forwards council members’ messages straight to their in-boxes. This system has been in place since at least the late 1990s. The Larimer County commissioners recently switched from an internal email system, which was only publicly accessible at the county courthouse, to a Google-based system that anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can access on the Web.

A review of those municipalities’ publicly available e-mail shows the expected plethora of information that’s notably missing from Fort Collins’ system. The Boulder City Council averages two dozen back and forth e-mails about city business a month for the past six months; they’ve sent 31 in September alone. The in-boxes of the Larimer County Commissioners are crammed with hundreds meeting notices, e-mails from citizens and other sundry messages detailing the often-humdrum aspects of running a local government.

Compare that to the paltry 80-odd messages in Fort Collins’ public-access in-box over a three-month period—most of which are press releases and media updates—and it’s easy to see why some would have the impression that nothing is happening in Fort Collins.

Both Atteberry and DiMartino said the reason the public-access account has become at best ineffective (and at worst, misleading) is because of disuse. Hardly anyone utilized the public computer set aside for citizens at City Hall, to the point where the computer was eventually reassigned to an employee some years ago. Apparently, the vast majority of council members, and those within the city who e-mail them, simply stopped routing their messages through an account that no one used.

“(It) really had very little interest on the part of citizens,” Atteberry said. “Frankly, to my knowledge in the past couple of years, we’ve had no requests.”

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By Greg Campbell, FACE THE STATE

Since October 2004, inmates in the Larimer County Detention Center have racked up more than $1.3 million in unpaid bills for wide-ranging services, and those on work release and home detention have gone in the red for an additional $82,500.

As odd as it might sound, if every inmate who got a haircut in the jail over the years actually had paid for it—along with those who’ve skipped out on other bills accrued during their incarceration, such as for medical co-pays—it would offset a projected 2011 revenue shortfall at the jail nearly four times over.

Although most of the costs of running the jail are borne by taxpayers, the inmates themselves are on the hook for certain fees and services in an effort to defray operating costs. Every inmate is charged a $30 booking fee at the time they’re processed into the facility. Those who bond out are charged a $10 bonding fee, and inmates who need to see a doctor or dentist are charged $15 medical co-pays per visit.

But of course, not every inmate has the means to pay these fees—if one doesn’t have $30 in his or her pocket at the time of booking, regardless of how wealthy they may be, the jail doesn’t collect. Instead, the inmate goes into debt to the Sheriff’s Office.

The same is true of medical co-pays. By law, the sheriff must provide medical care, whether or not the inmate can pay for it. “Medical care” extends to such things as over-the-counter medications like aspirin ($5), prescription drugs ($8, with a $30 monthly cap for indigent inmates) and even Chapstick and antifungal cream ($2 and $3, respectively).

If an inmate can’t pay, the charges are tacked onto his or her bill.

Inmates even can put haircuts and beard trimmings on their county tabs; cosmetologists visit the jail once a week. Taxpayers pick up the bill for poor inmates to receive each of those services once a month, at a cost of $12.50 and $6, respectively. Cpl. Julie Berney, the jail’s accreditation manager, said the county gives inmates a trim so that they can look respectable for court appearances.

Family and friends can make deposits in inmates’ accounts so that they can afford certain small luxuries from the jail commissary, such as candy bars or name-brand toothpaste. Debts owed by the inmate are deducted from those deposits.

But all too often, inmates simply skip out on their bills. The only option with destitute prisoners is to send them a bill after their release and if they fail to pay, as is often to the case, to turn the account over to a collection agency.

“Obviously, with the jail overcrowding, we release them even if they don’t pay (their fees),” said Sheriff Jim Alderden. “We don’t want to keep them there, so it just goes on the thing as money that’s owed to us. The medical expense is the same way. We can’t deny them medical care, so we try to do a cost recovery for services we provide.”

Alderden called the amount owed by inmates “significant, but not surprising.”

“Frankly, the majority of our clientele are indigent, and they don’t have any money,” he said. “When we passed these laws (allowing for the collection of certain fees, like for booking), it was like, ‘OK, we’ll recover something,’ but unfortunately in the hierarchy of the things that get assessed by the courts, we’re like number 17 on the list of where any money goes. The first dollar is going to go to court costs, then fines, then victim restitution. Paying for their incarceration is way down on that list.”

In comparison to the Larimer County jail, which in 2009 had an average daily inmate population of 465, the state Department of Corrections, with 33,000 inmates, is carrying only $17,882 in write-offs related to unpaid inmate bills. One difference is that the DOC doesn’t charge for booking, and other fees are significantly less than at the county level. The co-pay for a doctor’s visit, for example, is only $3 at the DOC as compared to $15 in Larimer County.

But another difference is that the DOC requires its inmates to work. Their salaries—which range from 30 cents to $1 per day—accrue in inmate bank accounts, which are automatically debited whenever a service is rendered. As with the county jail, inmates are not denied medical care or other certain services (such as legal mailings) if they don’t have enough money in their accounts, but they work the debt off.

In contrast, Larimer County inmates aren’t required to work but can shorten their sentences—and therefore the amount of time that they can rack up charges—through good behavior, participation in meetings or therapy sessions and other incentives.

Alderden predicts that revenue coming into the jail—in the form of bonds, county contributions, inmate housing fees charged to other jurisdictions, and other monies—will be about $360,000 less in 2011 than in 2010. In an e-mail to the county manager and budget director sent in early September, he laid out several cost-saving measures, including eliminating some jobs, whittling at the budget for inmate medication and even cutting the hours of the department’s press liaison. He thought about raising fees on inmates where he could, but many are already at their statutory maximum. And considering the outstanding balance for current fees, making them more expensive seemed pointless.

Were he able to collect the entire amount owed, it would provide a “very short-term” solution to the funding shortfall, Alderden said. More dire financial challenges loom, particularly the expiration in 2014 of a 0.2-cent jail operations tax that Alderden predicts will plunge the office into a $5.6 million deficit. If there’s any reason for optimism for the sheriff, it’s that it will be someone else’s headache by then. Alderden is term-limited and will leave office after the November election.

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By Gene Davis, DENVER DAILY NEWS

The city’s newest budget calls for an increase in a variety of traffic fines to help close an estimated $100 million shortfall for the next fiscal year budget, Mayor John Hickenlooper announced yesterday.

City Council still has to approve the budget.

The budget plan also would add five furlough days for city employees, abolish nearly 160 full-time positions, reduce library hours and dip into the cash reserves to help balance the 2011 budget.

The upcoming fiscal year marks the third consecutive year city leaders have been faced with closing a budget shortfall.

Hickenlooper had to address the $100 million shortfall due in large part to a continual decline in sales tax revenue, a primary source of funding for the city’s general fund.

“We in the city have to live within our own means just like the people at home, and we have to make sure we balance our budget and live within those means,” he said.

The decision to raise the fines for more than 20 traffic violations was made because it was a way to keep the city safer while also generating revenue, Hickenlooper said. He added that the new fines, even when raised, would put Denver in line with what most other jurisdictions in the metro area charge. The traffic fine increases would include:

- Operating an unsafe vehicle would go from $40 to $85;

- Going 5-9 miles per hour over the posted speed limit would go from $40 to $79;

- A prohibited turn would go from $70 to $128;

- Failure to signal for a turn would go from $40 to $75;

- Not wearing a seat belt would go from $30 to $57;

- An obstructed window or windshield would go from $30 to $59.

The budget plan also would eliminate the ability for people to save money by paying their fines early. The raising of traffic fines and elimination of the early payment discount is expected to save the city $3,582,000.

Libraries also would take a hit in next year’s budget. Seven libraries would have reduced hours, which would result in the elimination of more than 15 jobs, if Council OKs the budget.

Many of the budget cuts would not be as noticeable, such as renegotiated contracts with the unions representing Denver police, fire and sheriff officers, and a restructuring of operations throughout the city.

Hickenlooper said there are signs that the economy is beginning to recover, but acknowledged that many people are unemployed and struggling to get by. He credited Denverites for their “certain Western spirit of toughness” as they face the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

“Within that toughness is a willingness to find innovation and create new ways of doing things that eliminate barriers to progress, to a certain extent,” he said.

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By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
City parks officials on Friday submitted the finalized version of a new controversial admissions-based events policy for Denver parks.
Parks and Recreation Manager Kevin Patterson said the new permitting process does not equate to selling or leasing public park land, but instead creates a permitting process no different than for a picnic site.
“While there has been a great deal of conversation about sale or leasing of park land, I want to be clear that this is neither of those instruments. This is a permit,” Patterson wrote in a letter to the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. “It grants exclusive authority to an entity to use the space for a period of time, like a picnic site. A permit is simply to make sure there are no added conflicts for the use of the space from other people or entities who may want to schedule an event, whether it is a family reunion, wedding, or an admission-based event.”
The Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board in August voted 10-7 to adopt the new policy. Patterson submitted the finalized policy to the Office of the Clerk and Recorder on Friday.
The policy identifies seven city parks where admissions-based events can be held, but Patterson said his department will only accept applications for Civic Center, Confluence, Skyline, Ruby Hill, Parkfield, and Stapleton Central parks for the 2011 season. All event facilities and special occasion sites for Confluence, Skyline and Centennial are on the table as well.
The other park identified in the policy is City Park, but Patterson said the park won’t be considered in 2011.
There was confusion on Friday as to whether Sloan’s Lake, which was originally in the policy, was completely removed from the policy, per the request of Councilwoman Paula Sandoval. Sandoval said the park was completely removed from the policy, but a spokeswoman for Parks and Recreation said the city will re-evaluate whether to include the park under the admissions-based policy for 2012.
“Although (Sloan’s Lake) is being removed for this year, it is being reassessed for permanent removal,” said parks spokeswoman Jill McGranahan.
Sandoval, however, suggested to constituents on Friday that Patterson agreed to remove the park completely.
“Although some of you may not be pleased with the news, I feel the overwhelming majority of District 1 residents will be happy to learn that this is the case,” Sandoval wrote to constituents.
Other special occasion sites include City Park Meadow and Flower Garden. The other event facilities include Molkery, Chief Hosa, the Washington Park Boat House and a facility at Stapleton Central Park.
The original policy called for a limit of 10,000 patrons per event, but that was restricted down to 7,500 in the final version.
Fees have not yet been established, but a proposal is expected to reach the City Council this fall, said Patterson. City officials have estimated that the city could gain as much as $500,000 per year as a result of the new policy. Parks and Recreation will benefit directly from a so-called “seat tax” attached to the events, which the department has maintained will directly benefit public lands and spaces.
Under the policy, a party or organization will only be allowed to obtain an admissions-based permit once every 30 days. Also, only once every 15 days will an admissions-based event be allowed to take place in any one park.
The policy also guarantees that 80 percent of the park will remain free and open to the public when an admissions-based event is taking place. Patterson said the final policy makes admissions-based events the lowest priority after all of the other permitting categories have picked dates and times in the November permitting process.
Patterson has recommended that a review of the policy with the Advisory Board be held in October 2011.
Critics have maintained all along — during the nearly four-year process — that opening public parks to ticketed events violates the principle that parks are for the public and therefore should remain free and open to the public at all times.
The controversy intensified in 2007 after local AEG Live concert promoter Chuck Morris attempted to hold his two-day Mile High Music Festival in City Park. Concerns were immediately raised over noise disturbing nearby zoo animals, traffic interfering with neighbors and residents being unable to access their free and open public park. The festival was soon moved to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City.
A task force was then convened — including citizens — which examined fees, site plans, locations and policies.
Opponents say the City Charter prohibits any admissions-based events at city parks without a vote of the people. The City Attorney’s office has said an admissions-based policy does not require a vote of the people.
Dave Felice, who has led the charge against the admissions-based policy through the group Parks Are For People, wrote to his followers in a recent e-mail that they never had a chance against city officials who supported the policy all along.
“Whenever they got a chance, the people spoke out against it, and it didn’t matter,” wrote Felice.

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By Christine Vestal, Stateline Staff Writer

Washington Post/Getty Images More than 240,000 water pipes break every year in the United States — about one every two minutes. Although states offer local governments low-interest loans to help pay for upgrades, localities are mostly on their own to pay billions of dollars in repair bills. When a cold snap hit the Southeast last January, water pipes broke all over Jackson, Mississippi, including those that fed the state capitol and the governor’s mansion. Like everything else in the city of 140,000, state government ground to a halt for three days. To prevent a repeat occurrence, Jackson’s Democratic Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. asked the state to underwrite a no-interest bond for $6 million to upgrade the pipes that supply drinking water to state buildings. Lawmakers agreed, but Republican Governor Haley Barbour and other top officials declined to approve the proposal, saying the water system in Jackson is Jackson’s problem. Barbour’s office suggested the city seek the needed money from a state revolving fund that loans localities money for water repairs. Over the past 12 years, Jackson has borrowed more than $14 million from the fund. This time, the mayor wanted to lighten the burden on ratepayers by seeking an interest-free loan. “Although $6 million is a drop in the bucket,” says a city aide, “it would have helped us leverage borrowing in the capital market, leaving less that future ratepayers will have to pay.” Technically, Jackson’s problem is, in fact, Jackson’s problem. Like most other cities, Jackson owns and operates its water utility and is responsible for maintaining it. States step in only when there’s an emergency, or to help disadvantaged communities that cannot afford to pay for safe drinking water systems. But states have a lot to lose if repairs to local water systems are delayed for too long. Businesses suffer, diseases can spread and emergency repairs can be costly. As a result, some states started taking a more active role in repairing crumbling municipal water works — at least until the recession began in December 2007. “States have been feeling pressure from localities in terms of more demand for funding,” says Rick Farrell, executive director of the Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities. “Unfortunately, they’re not in a position to fill the void.”  Instead, some states are looking at creative ways to maximize the federal money they themselves get for water facilities. How big is the problem? According to the U.S. Geological Survey, water main breaks result in the loss of up to 1.7 trillion gallons of clean water each year, at a cost of $2.6 billion. That loss is an issue of increasing concern as regional water shortages become more common. In addition to breakdowns in delivery, the failure of antiquated sewerage systems results in as much as 10 billion gallons of untreated wastewater flowing into the nation’s drinking water sources each year. Although states primarily play the role of regulator — guarding watersheds against pollution — they also are charged with deciding which cities and communities should get low-interest loans for water infrastructure repairs. States distribute about $6 billion per year through state revolving funds, which include federal grants plus a 20 percent state match. States manage the programs by recycling principal and interest payments from the localities that borrow the money and combining them with annual federal grants and state matching funds. Created by the Clean Water Act of 1977 and expanded by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996, the money is intended to help localities — which own about 84 percent of the nation’s water utilities — bridge the gap between the rates they collect for water and sewerage and the cost of maintaining safe water systems. In many cases, states supplement the fund with further borrowing and, to a lesser degree, tax revenues. Mississippi makes $2.9 million in general revenues available to localities for emergency wastewater repairs that cannot wait for a loan processed from the revolving fund. Other states have been more aggressive in supplementing local sewerage relief. California lawmakers this year approved $11 billion in bonds for water infrastructure, because of the devastating economic effects created by water shortages in farming regions. Similarly, Pennsylvania has invested more than $1 billion in water infrastructure through general obligation bonds. “Infrastructure surely is not the sexiest word in the English language,” Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell wrote in a recent article, “nor does it command the attention of the media or the average person on a daily basis. That is until a bridge collapses, the water is contaminated, a levee breaks or a school is shuttered in your own backyard.” Neighboring Maryland has a special fund to clean up its major water resource, the Chesapeake Bay. Levying a so-called “flush tax” on users of public sewerage systems and owners of private septic systems, the state created a wastewater cleanup fund that last year came to $203 million. In addition to using it for environmental restoration of the state’s watersheds, the money went for repairs to local wastewater systems, including those in the state’s largest city, Baltimore. A growing gap Although the state revolving funds and supplemental funding streams are important sources of capital, they don’t come close to covering the widening gap between the cost of maintaining the nation’s aging water infrastructure and the fees charged to the business and residential customers who use the systems. At the heart of the problem is the fact that most cities and communities do not charge their customers rates high enough to cover the true cost of providing clean drinking water and removing wastewater. Among developed countries, the United States and Canada have by far the lowest rates for clean drinking water and sewerage.Yet despite a growing awareness that most U.S. water rates do not cover the costs of maintaining the infrastructure, most mayors are loathe to support unpopular water fee increases. Clean water is assumed to be a permanent benefit, and guaranteeing it is not at the top of the average citizen’s list of public priorities. “Out of sight, out of mind,” says Steven Brown, executive director of the Environmental Council of the States, whose members oversee the state revolving funds. “Every state has multiple pots of funds they can use to assist local governments, but those are among the first budget cuts that get made,” Brown says. This year, however, the most sought-after source of local water maintenance funding was the federal stimulus law. States distributed $6 billion in federal stimulus money to localities in the form of grants and low-interest loans. The money — which had to be fully committed by March 2010, according to stimulus rules — was quickly soaked up by local water authorities that had a long list of critical projects waiting for funding. More than 240,000 water pipes break every year in the United States — about one every two minutes, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Without adequate funding to replace aging pipes, the number can be expected to grow. A patchwork of concrete, iron, steel, and even terra cotta and wood makes up the nation’s 54,000 separate water utilities. With some sections more than 200 years old, the hidden network is decaying, cracking and springing leaks beneath city streets at a rapidly increasing rate. As it turned out, Mississippi wasn’t entirely unconcerned about the Jackson water problem hampering state government. The state Department of Transportation decided to use its own money to drill a well right outside its main office near the Capitol building in downtown Jackson. That well will prevent future city water breakdowns from paralyzing the DOT. But it won’t help solve the rest of Jackson’s water problems. —Contact Christine Vestal at cvestal@stateline.org

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By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS

Uncertainty remains over how revenue collected from a controversial voter-approved city ordinance that requires police officers to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers will be spent to create additional impound space.

When Denver voters in 2008 approved Initiative 100, they also approved a $100 land acquisition fee intended to be used to purchase or lease additional impound space. Denver’s impound lot holds 2,082 vehicles. But the lot is often near capacity, and space has always been a factor for the Denver Sheriff’s Department, which maintains the lot.

Earlier this year, discussions were taking place over where to build a new impound lot. One proposal was to build the lot near the existing lot at 5160 York St. But neighbors of the Elyria Neighborhood complained and pointed out that a FasTracks station is planned for 48th and Brighton, which has the potential to transform the neighborhood through transit-oriented development.

Since then, discussions have fizzled, said Capt. Frank Gale, spokesman for the Denver Sheriff’s Department. Despite ongoing capacity problems and the continued collection of the $100 land acquisition fee from unlicensed drivers, Gale said the department does not have an immediate need to expand the lot.

“The way things are going right now there’s not an imminent need to expand, said Gale. “I-100 is law, it’s being enforced, vehicles are being impounded, and there’s no imminent need to create anymore expansion right now.”

Back in April, city officials were discussing overcapacity problems with the impound lot, pointing out that the city was having trouble selling abandoned cars from the impound lot. The city holds about two public auctions per month.

For reasons unknown to city officials, more vehicles are being left abandoned at the impound lot. They believe I-100 is a factor, but also point to reasons such as the down economy. Things got so bad last year that Sheriff’s officials asked that the Denver Police Department only send them vehicles that need to be impounded as evidence in felony crimes.

That resulted in a drop of total impoundments of 18,719 in 2008 to 14,785 in 2009, which equates to a loss in revenue for the city at a time when the mayor has had to manage several budget shortfalls. The city lost about $340,000 as a result of taking in less cars.

Budget officials have said that if the city were to build a new impound lot, the city would make an estimated $400,000 in additional revenue from increased impoundments.

Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz believes that a stalled proposal by Councilmen Paul Lopez and Doug Linkhart to repeal I-100 is affecting progress on building a new impound lot or expanding the existing lot.

“The sheriff’s department explained it has been put in a bind by the Lopez/Linkhart proposal to repeal Initiative 100,” Faatz recently wrote to a constituent. “The sheriff’s department needs to know whether to plan for the capacity continuation that I-100 would require, or plan for lesser needs. Projections could affect location.”

Linkhart told the Denver Daily News last week that the proposal to repeal the ordinance has stalled, but said he is still interested in moving it forward, possibly as a voter-referred ballot proposal. The deadline has passed for the proposal to make the November ballot.

“I do think that we should repeal 100,” he said. “There’s costs to the city, there’s costs to individuals, there are unintended consequences that people are dealing with.”

Linkhart said a friend of his recently had their car impounded because an unlicensed mechanic was driving the car. He said it was a very difficult process for his friend to claim the car from the impound lot.

Other controversial stories have raised questions over I-100. An Iraqi war veteran whose car was impounded in 2009 was forced to raise nearly $4,000 to cover bond and fees associated with driving with an expired Missouri driver’s license. Even though the Denver district attorney’s office dismissed the traffic charges, Furman’s car sat in the city’s impound lot because of the ordinance.

Jefferson County resident Daniel Hayes introduced the ordinance to voters in 2008 as a means to cut back on illegal immigration and accidents involving uninsured drivers. Because undocumented immigrants don’t likely have a valid driver’s license, he figured requiring police officers to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers would do the trick.

To release a car from the city’s vehicle impound lot, drivers must pay $2,500 bond, a land acquisition fee of $100, a processing fee of $30, a $120 tow fee and storage fees.

Hayes attempted to add teeth to the law in 2009 by asking voters to absolutely require police to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers. He said at the time that police officers were using their discretion and not impounding enough of the cars. That initiative failed.

Meanwhile, Lakewood city officials last month referred to voters a vehicle impound ballot initiative to the November ballot. The local police union there has opposed the measure, and the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police has opposed the measure. Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy is opposed to the initiative as well.

Several business groups in Lakewood have also come out against the proposal, including the West Chamber of Commerce and the Alameda Gateway Community Association.

Coloradans for Safe Communities, a coalition of business leaders, community groups, public safety advocates and elected officials, has launched a campaign in opposition to the Lakewood ballot proposal.

“I don’t want my family and I getting stranded without our car just because I forgot my wallet, it’s not safe,” said Ken DeBey, a 45-year resident of Lakewood. “I care deeply about my community, and I am very concerned about the negative impacts this impound initiative could have on our city.”

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By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
State Sen. Paula Sandoval took the City Council special election last night to fill the District 1 vacancy left by former Councilman Rick Garcia.
Sandoval, a Democrat who has represented northwest Denver for the past eight years at the State House, says her first priority is going to be dealing with the city’s new zoning code update.
But with the city facing an $80 million shortfall going into the next budget cycle, Sandoval also acknowledges that she will have her work cut out for her.
“Maintaining core city services in light of the budget issues is going to be challenging,” she told the Denver Daily News following her victory.
Sandoval, the wife of well-known former State Sen. Paul Sandoval, won the election last night with 23 percent of the vote, as of the last count by city elections officials last night at 9:18 p.m. Susan Shepherd, a former union political organizer, came in second with 17 percent of the vote, as of the last count last night. State Rep. Jerry Frangas, a Democrat, came in third with 15 percent of the vote.
Sandoval fills the seat left by Garcia as a result of his appointment by the Obama Administration to act as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new regional director. He was sworn in in March.
Sandoval says many issues face northwest Denver, including redevelopments and repairs along Colfax Avenue and Federal Boulevard within her district, as well as the relocation of St. Anthony Central Hospital to Lakewood. The vacant lot will be a large piece of land up for development.
Sandoval, who for the past 25 years has co-owned Tamales by La Casita, Inc. along with her husband, said she understands there will be a transition from the State House to city issues, but she says she is up to the task.
“I’m very excited and honored to have been elected the next City Councilperson for District 1,” she said following her victory. “I know I have a lot of work ahead of me transitioning from the Senate to the Council, but I’m up to the task.”

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Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
The Denver City Council last night gave approval to $65,000 in liability claims stemming from one incident described as “unwarranted police brutality” and a separate civil action against the Denver Public Library system for allegedly firing a disabled security guard after he complained about adverse working conditions.
Eric Winfield, 29, describes his “ordeal” as being about exposing police brutality incidents, especially those by the Denver Police Department. His self-described nightmare began after Game 3 of the Rockies-Boston Red Sox World Series game in Denver on Oct. 28, 2007 — an incident that left him badly beaten when police allegedly mistook him for another suspect.
Meanwhile, Denver Public Library security guard Kevin Thomas alleges in a complaint against the city that library officials refused to allow him to drink water while on duty, something he needs to do as a result of his condition known as renal dysfunction, a condition that affects the kidney. The black security guard claims that by the time he was fired in December 2007, he had experienced discrimination as a result of his disability and the color of his skin.

A brutal account
It was Winfield’s story, however, that made national headlines after photographs emerged of a badly bruised, bloodied and overall beaten Winfield who was on his way home with friends after watching Game 3 of the World Series back in 2007. Having just watched the game at the former Public House near Coors Field, Winfield and his friends and family headed to his sister’s apartment downtown for a little after-party, according to Winfield’s account of the incident. At around 1:45 a.m., Winfield and a few friends began heading home. As they walked past Le Rouge, a nightclub in LoDo, a fight had broken out by the club.
Winfield and his friends were navigating through the crowd in front of Le Rouge when he was pushed from behind into a car. Believing that Winfield was the suspect in the bar fight, Denver police punched Winfield in the face, threw him to the ground and repeatedly kneed him in the groin, according to Winfield’s account. The lead officer was Officer Antonio Milow, according to Winfield.
He was later beaten by several other officers, including Officers Glenn Martin and Thomas Johnston, according to the allegations.
With Winfield weighing in at around 160 pounds, he stood no match for the three officers, weighing at least 320 pounds, 180 pounds and 280 pounds, respectively, according to Winfield’s account.
Winfield, an oil painter, was transferred by ambulance to Denver Health following the incident where he was treated for a broken nose; lacerations above his eye and on the bridge of his nose; a burst blood vessel in his eye; bruised ribs; cracked and chipped teeth; and documented permanent nerve damage to both hands.
Winfield’s supporters established a Facebook page for him to raise awareness. At “Justice for Eric Winfield,” supporters talk about the concerns they have over police brutality, as well as concerns for Winfield himself. His painting has been affected by the permanent nerve damage, he says.
In the end, he spent more than a day locked up with felons before police charged him with assault on a peace officer. But when prosecutors reviewed the case five months later, the charges were mysteriously dropped without explanation.
“It’s coming to an end for me, but for the taxpayers and City and County of Denver citizens, it’s not coming to an end — it’s the same thing that’s been happening for years and years,” Winfield told the Denver Daily News prior to the City Council meeting last night. “It’s good for me that I can finally put this past me, but I still look forward to helping everyone else out with similar cases É this isn’t going to change anything.”
The Denver City Council last night gave approval to a $40,000 expenditure to settle Winfield’s claim.

Security guard alleges discrimination
An attorney for Kevin Thomas declined to share details of the disabled security guard’s complaint against the city. But court documents allege that Denver Public Library officials went out of their way to make life difficult for Thomas. One complaint is that Thomas asked to drink water on the job because of his medical condition, but that the request was denied.
When he complained about his treatment, Thomas was placed on disciplinary probation, according to the complaint. In November 2007, he was suspended for making his grievances known, according to the complaint.
Thomas was ultimately fired in December 2007.
He alleges that during his entire time working for the Denver Public Library system, library officials treated him differently because of the color of his skin, creating a “hostile work environment.”
Thomas’ attorney argued that he was denied due process, and city attorneys settled the case for $25,000, which the City Council gave approval to yesterday.
Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz, a steadfast fiscal conservative who always takes a close look at lawsuits against the city, said she backed the lawsuits last night because it seemed like the right thing for the city to do.
“I’m always hesitant to even approve them because I don’t want to encourage other people to file them, especially when I really don’t feel they’re meritorious,” said Faatz. “I can’t say that I really feel either one of these is meritorious, but I do feel that there are reasons that I can decide to go ahead and support it.”

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County commissioners in Colorado vowed to turn over control of their welfare programs to the state if Gov. Bill Ritter goes ahead with a threat to take over county programs that refuse to pay more for services, the Associated Press reports.

Weld County commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer told a legislative hearing on child welfare Friday that county officials were blindsided by a proposal from Ritter to take over county programs that fail to pay 20 percent more for programs. Kirkmeyer said counties can`t afford it and they`ll be forced to give up programs that are working.

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County officials turned out in force Tuesday to help kill a bill that would have put county commissioners in charge of their salaries. The bill is now dead for the year, The Durango Herald reports.

The Colorado Constitution gives the Legislature the power to set salaries for county elected officials – commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, coroners, surveyors and assessors.

That has always frustrated House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville. “We have no idea what their budgets look like, whether they can afford it, whether their constituents want it,” Weissmann said.

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