June 2009

Colorado Springs Utilities is frequently portrayed as the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of the Arkansas Valley. That portrait is largely unjustified, in my opinion -- something conjured up by critics in Pueblo who are envious of our town and like to use it as a foil for venting assorted frustrations. But stories such as this make one wonder if there isn't a little validity to the critique.

Pueblo West is a partner in the SDS pipeline project. But unlike the senior partner in the deal, CSU, Pueblo West isn't willing to flush its precious water down the river in order to curry favor with the city and county of Pueblo. Pueblo West gave CSU the lead in negotiating various agreements, and various giveaways, that helped grease the skids for SDS. But PW didn't sign on to an agreement requiring that the Springs and other SDS partners use their water to guarantee minimum river flows through downtown Pueblo. PW says that it doesn't have a drop to spare. And that's become a major bone of contention, threatening to further complicate things for CSU.

PW is suing Pueblo County, in an effort to counter the county's heavy-handed efforts to force compliance with an agreement PW says it isn't party to. That's making folks in Colorado Springs nervous, because it threatens to slow the progress that's recently been made on getting approval for the long-delayed project. And that has led to what appears to be a little arm-twisting on the part of CSU.

It's likely that things will work out in the end. The question is, who will have to give what in order to get past this sticking point? And that makes me just a little nervous, since it seems that the 800-pound gorilla of the Arkansas Valley, though it can occasionally flex its muscles, has also been an easy touch when it comes to making "concessions" to folks downstream.

Maybe, in order to move things forward, the Springs will be forced to use even more of its water to make up PW's share. But at this point, given all the other shakedowns this city has endured, it would just be more water under the dam.

P.S. An update in Wednesday's Chieftain (which is a much better source of regular information about regional water issues than the Gazette, unfortunately) indicates that Pueblo West, while not backing away from its position, is willing to sit down with SDS partners and talk.

I don't buy a lot of the hype about Gov. Bill Ritter's "new energy economy." As I've blogged about before, it's not a real "economy" at all if it can't exist or persist without leaning on the government crutch. And supporters of the concept fudge definitions and resort to accounting gimmicks when they tally the number of jobs created.

But what really rankles me about the Ritter administration is the regulatory war that the governor and other Democrats have waged on the state's "old energy economy," which was bringing a lot of revenue, jobs and economic activity into the state until Ritter took office. We've gone from boom to bust on Ritter's watch. And while macroeconomics forces beyond the governor's control play a role in that, his anti-"old energy economy" policies and attitudes are a factor.

A report in the Denver Business Journal tells the story:

"Oil and gas executives surveyed about where they are inclined to invest their company’s money have ranked Colorado last among the states.

The latest survey was issued June 24. It’s been conducted annually for three years by the Fraser Institute in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Arizona was left off the list for lack of information.

The survey ranks states as well as other countries.

The first survey, in 2007, ranked Colorado at the top of the list of places executives considered positively for oil and gas investment. By 2008, the state’s ranking had fallen to No. 52 out of 81 locations around the world.

The June 2008 survey said executives had grown wary of the state’s efforts to tighten rules governing oil and gas operations here. The new rules took effect April 1." ...

.... The report said investors listed several reasons for shifting investments to other areas, ranging from high tax rates, labor shortages, or costly and time-consuming regulations.

The survey quoted an unnamed executive saying that in Colorado, “operational, legal, and air quality rules and regulations are being instituted at a dizzying pace. It is hard to keep up with as an operator. Most of the regulators instituting and enforcing these new rules have little or no experience in the industry and do not understand operations. Often they cannot answer questions or help, even with their own rules.”

Colorado’s new oil and gas regulations were backed by Gov. Bill Ritter and environmental groups as needed to protect Colorado’s wildlife, environment and public health assets. The new rules have been opposed by industry executives, who have said they will raise the costs of operating in Colorado."

The Ritter administration denies that it is responsible for the downturn in the state's energy fortunes. But Colorado's plummet from the best place to do energy development in 2007, to the 52nd "best place" in 2008, tells a different story. And if you look at the hit the state undoubtedly has taken in terms of revenues collected and jobs lost in the last few years, you would see that this goes deeper than just energy industry perceptions. And perceptions have a nasty habit of becoming reality, as we all know.

While Ritter is out touting his gimmicky "new energy economy," the state's "real energy economy" -- the one that actually produces reliable and affordable energy for most Coloradans -- has been withering on the vine. If the Republicans can't turn this into an effective campaign issue -- if they can't pin this tail on this donkey -- then they really are in complete disarray.

Local doomsayers -- and this city seems to have more than its share -- are fond of painting the gloomiest picture possible of our circumstances. And the gloom really descends when they're pitching more government, higher taxes or some other panacea for all our economic and social ills. But the view from the outside looking in is decidedly different, as I've pointed out here before.

In the midst of the 1-A fight, for instance, when backers of the measure were suggesting that the only way to create local jobs was paying companies taxpayer "incentives," and implying that our competitiveness would tank without it, Forbes was rating Colorado Springs in its top 10 list of places to do business and start a career. 1-A backers ignored that because it contradicted their line of argument.

There's nothing on a ballot at the moment that the better-living-through-bigger-government crowd is pushing (that comes this fall), so perhaps the movers and shakers will take note of another accolade just bestowed on this cultural and economic backwater: Businessweek’s ranking of Colorado Springs as the 8th best place in the country to start over. Those in town who seem to feel that this is the proverbial end of the line might be surprised to see us portrayed as a great place to start over -- meaning that we're a city of the future, where opportunity beckons.

Earning such ratings doesn't mean the city can be complacent about creating a vibrant economy and maintaining its top-notch quality of life. Hopefully, it will inspire us to do even better. But it does suggest, contrary to all the self-criticism that goes on here, that we must be doing something right, and that we have a solid foundation on which to build something great.

The key to finding our own unique identity -- a Colorado Springs "brand," if you will -- isn't in mimicking other cities, in my view, but in making this nationally known as the "American Dream City" -- a place where opportunity, affordability and personal freedom (along with all the other elements of the American Dream) are celebrated and maintained, partly because we keep the size, cost and regulatory power of local government in check.

Some leaders see this city's strong conservative-libertarian-independent streak as a vice; as something to be embarrassed about, apologized for and overcome. They believe it holds us back from being like Portland, Boulder, Santa Fe, Austin . . . . or whatever "progressive" city they point to as a model. It's a point of great frustration for these folks that locals stubbornly resist going along with their big plans for turning Colorado Springs into someplace else -- into someplace it's not.

But why not view our conservative-libertarian-independent streak as a virtue and a strength -- as something to embrace, build-upon and make the centerpiece of the Colorado Springs "brand"? Other cities may already have adopted "The American Dream City" as their slogan (so maybe we could call it "Freedom City, U.S.A" or something like that). But how many large cities in the U.S. actually put into practice the American values of self-sufficiency, limited government, protection of property rights, opportunity for all, the sovereignty of the people, etc? Not many, if any.

Most American cities are moving in the opposite direction, often with disastrous consequences. They're the kinds of places many of us left in order to come here. But this is a city where American ideals are still taken seriously, and where the American dream (as corny as that sounds) still lives. That's something that separates us from the pack, sets us apart. It can be a point of pride. It can be the "brand" we market to the rest of the country -- and an ideal we continue to strive for internally. It would make this a magnet for like-minded companies and people, and a model to which others can point as an example of a city that does it differently.

One purpose of this website, and of Local Liberty Action, is to put American ideals into action in the Pike's Peak Region, by helping to create the new paradigm just described. We call it "the Colorado Springs model," but it could just as easily be called "The American Dream City," "Freedom City, U.S.A," or whatever one chooses. We already have the foundations for such a city in Colorado Springs. We just need to resist taking the well-worn path so many other cities have taken -- toward bigger government, higher taxes, suffocating regulation, excessive planning, etc. --and blaze a different path, in which the private sector leads and limited city government lends support; in which non-essential functions of government are outsourced or shed; in which the economy thrives because improving the business climate is a consistent priority; in which local educational institutions act as incubators of innovation and excellence; in which policies are rejected that would needlessly drive up the costs of housing, homeownership and living, or create barriers to entry and opportunity; where municipal fads are rejected, in favor of sticking to the governing fundamentals and getting them right.

That's part of the larger vision behind what we're doing at LocalLibertyOnline.org and Local Liberty Action. We invite every resident of the Pike's Peak Region, no matter their party affiliations or ideological inclinations, to join us in that effort.

I agree with today's Denver Post editorial, which argues that the charter school movement will suffer if failing charters aren't weeded out. Not all of these alternative public schools make the grade, and a few actually make their conventional school peers look good. But why don't we read more editorials (In the Denver Post or any other major paper) arguing for a similarly Darwinian approach when it comes to conventional public schools?

Here, once again, we see a double standard at work.

One explanation, I suppose, is that it's almost assumed that a certain percentage of conventional public schools will fail their students, so there's no sense in fighting it, or imposing the same standards of accountability. Charter schools are expected to succeed; conventional schools get a pass. Closing every conventional public school that doesn't make the grade would result in legions of vacant buildings, each a reminder of a system in decline. Think of the red faces that would cause.

And the fact remains that it's still very difficult and rare to close a conventional public school based on performance problems, while charters are easier to hold accountable by design. That built-in accountability is one of the primary reasons why charters generally seem to serve their customers better than conventional public schools.

Hold charters accountable, by all means. But hold conventional schools equally accountable and we might see the system as a whole improve.

U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, Democrat from Washington State, has taken a novel approach to plundering the U.S. Treasury, which might be called "do-it-yourself earmarking." It's a way of cutting out the middle man in the pork-barrel process -- your local member of Congress -- by letting Americans go directly to appropriators with their earmark wish-lists. Just file a funding request, hoist it up the flag pole and voila: In a few short months it might just start raining money!

No need to hire an expensive lobbyist. No need for quid-pro-quo campaign contributions. It's Uncle Sam as ATM -- only you don't need a secret pin number to make a withdrawal. And the best part is, it gives members of Congress "plausible deniability" if embarrassing pork barrel projects make the papers. It's no longer their request; it's your request. Don't blame the messenger; all they were doing was passing it along to the right people.

This latest innovation in earmarking came to light earlier today, after The Seattle Times reported that McDermott was seeking a $250,000 federal earmark for the replacement of window sills at The Rainier Club, an exclusive private dinner club in Seattle. That's when the 11-termer conjured up the following defense. He really didn't think the funding request would go through, he told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but he made it anyway, because some folks in the district asked him to. "Everybody in my district is entitled to make a request," he said. "I will let the (appropriations) committee with the responsibility make the decision." And whatever committee members decide on the matter is just fine with McDermott, apparently.

So there it is, folks. Everyone in McDermott's district is "entitled" to request an earmark. You are. So's your neighbor. So are the folks who run the supper club. It's a free-for all, in other words; he has no responsibility for screening the requests, or modifying them, or rejecting those (like this one) that are too trivial and parochial to justify the use of federal funds. And he wants us to believe he trusts wiser minds on the appropriations committee to make such calls. "The congressman argued that his colleagues controlling the purse strings sort through requested earmarks, usually funding things deemed most important," reports the P-I.

A McDermott staffer scoffed at any suggestion that the Rainier Club earmark was a favor to fat cats. "People who know Jim well . . . would chuckle out loud if the implication is that he's in the pocket of business interests," he told the Times. But this misses the point. The problem isn't that McDermott is "in the pocket of business interests," but that he's in the pocket of taxpayers, at the behest of an elite private club that should pay for its own damn window repairs. The problem is that such outrages have become routine in the era of do-it-yourself earmarking.

Good news, everyone. Pueblo, Colorado, can now officially be certified as a crime-free city. There are no robberies, no rapes, no spousal abuse or purse-snatching or petty crimes to prosecute. That leaves Pueblo DA Bill Thiebaut with so much time on his hands that he can focus his prodigious crime-fighting skills on another culprit -- on Colorado Springs -- by interjecting himself into the Colorado Springs-Pueblo water feud. This has nothing to do with law enforcement, though. It's an obvious effort to score political points with The Pueblo Chieftain and a few others in the Steel City who can't stop beating the war drums.

For the second time in his tenure, Thiebaut is acting as if he exercised authority over water quality and management issues in Fountain Creek; this time, by submitting a letter to the Army Corp of Engineers designed to toss a monkey-wrench into the Southern Delivery System pipeline project. But his views on the matter are irrelevant, as his earlier attempt to intervene showed. Thiebaut a few years back dragged Pueblo into a federal lawsuit, claiming that Colorado Springs waste water spills were violating federal Clean Water Act regulations. He was unceremoniously dumped from the suit, however, by a federal judge who ruled that this exceeded his authority.

How much taxpayer money Thiebaut wasted on this lark is unknown. One can't help believing those resources could have been put to better use, since Pueblo is not, contrary to my lead, a crime-free city. But this has nothing to do with the law, or with water quality, or with Thiebaut's sincere desire to serve as eco-enforcer on Fountain Creek. It's about politics, plain and simple -- about Thiebaut's desire to curry favor with a few crusty old water warriors in Pueblo (and possibly distract public attention from some major housekeeping problems in his office).

Thiebaut must have gotten a call from Bob Rawlings, publisher of the Chieftain, who has long played the role of puppet master on such issues, suggesting that a letter from Thiebaut might help slow the recent progress Colorado Springs has made on clearing away hurdles to SDS. The ploy probably won't do much in that regard, because Thiebaut's opinions on Fountain Creek are as legally and morally relevant as the tooth fairy's. He has no expertise. He has no legal standing. He has no jurisdiction, unless a body is found floating down the creek, south of the Pueblo County line.

But it plays well, as propaganda, with Springs-bashers in Pueblo. And it wins Thiebaut another merit badge with Rawlings, whose editorial page can come in very handy when re-election time comes around.

It seems a minor victory, coming as it does after a long series of stinging defeats, but U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn this week thwarted another attempt by U.S. Rep. John Salazar (of Colorado's 3rd District) to close off options for Fort Carson expansion at the Pinon Canyon training site. The proposal is on life support, after being battered by bad PR and a series of legislative setbacks, including some delivered by Gov. Bill Ritter and other Colorado political "leaders." But Lamborn deserves credit for outmaneuvering Salazar's latest anti-expansion efforts in the House -- and doing so even while Salazar was gleefully boasting to area newspapers about what a breeze it was driving another stake in Pinon Canyon's heart (for which he received a nice pat on the head from the usual quarters).

Three versions of events were published Thursday, in The Gazette, the Pueblo Chieftain and The Denver Post. A complete picture of what went down is best gleaned by reading all three.

The Post story is particularly interesting, because it has Salazar trying to make a virtue out of defeat by saying that he’s done waging war on the expansion concept, at least for now. It verges on an admission that he and other expansion opponents are engaging in overkill. But that attitude only emerged after Lamborn outflanked Salazar’s latest assassination attempt, by changing minds and votes on a key committee at the 11^th hour.

The Post:

"Given that the Army already can't expand without lots of money approved by Congress, Salazar decided there were enough restrictions in place that for now he will no longer push the legislative ban.

"At the end of day, we have concluded that Piñon Canyon is off the table for the foreseeable future," said Eric Wortman, Salazar's spokesman, noting that Salazar can continue to deny funding for the expansion through his spot on the House Appropriations Committee.

"It is what John wanted all along — for everyone to take a timeout," Wortman said."

It's dishonest to say Salazar is seeking a "timeout." He's on record as wanting to permanently kill the idea. He's on record saying that it would never happen while he's in Congress (something that hopefully can be changed in the next few years). And he was out in the media, boasting about his latest victory against the Army, even before it was a done deal. Lamborn's last-minute counteroffensive left him with egg on his face.

Realizing that The Denver Post story would raise the hackles of the "ranchers"-turned-activists who have turned the expansion proposal into a cause celebre, by claiming, hysterically, that it's part of a secret plot to kill cow culture in Southeastern Colorado, Salazar hustled to maintain his hard-line credentials, generating this story in today's Pueblo Chieftain. Salazar had his staff crank out a strong anti-Pinon Canyon statement after the Post reported he was showing a reasonable side. "The fight to permanently end expansion may be a long one, however, for as long as I serve in Congress, I will fight any effort to advance an expansion of Pinon Canyon," it said in part.

So the promised cease fire was just a false hope. The pandering must go on.

Lamborn took some heat after a similar Salazar amendment passed by a significant margin last year. Local critics often point to that vote as evidence that Lamborn is ineffectual in defending the district’s interest. But this time he worked the issue hard and won, which wouldn’t have happened unless he changed Democrat votes on the committee. Once a majority of committee members really understood the issue, and understood that continually lobbing mortar rounds at Fort Carson was not only gratuitous but could do lasting damage to this state’s economy and relations with the Pentagon, reason thankfully prevailed. Lamborn deserves credit for pulling this off.

This isn’t some tipping point, that will turn the tide of political or public opinion in favor of at least giving Fort Carson expansion a fair hearing. That's still a long shot, in my view, given the political forces arrayed against it. It's one minor skirmish won in a war that's probably lost. But it gives one a glimmer of hope that we'll perhaps see an end to the gratuitous hammering away at the issue, and at the Army, for hammering's sake, by short-sighted politicos hoping to score points with the vocal minority of Coloradans who have dominated the debate.

This demagoguery already has cost the state money and soldiers. And it has the potential to do even more harm in the future, if extreme actions and rhetoric (which Radio host Mike Rosen addresses in today's Pueblo Chieftain)continue to win the battle over reasoned debate.

All talk of a "federal energy policy" is a fiction. It implies a coherence and direction that just isn't there. An administration can lend some rhetorical and material support to certain energy policy hobby-horses, as the Obama is doing with so-called "green energy," but focus, discipline and direction are impossible as long as the legislative branch is pushing and pulling in other directions.

Congress is now working on its 3rd major energy bill in 4 years. Each of the previous measures, dating back to 2005, were hailed at the time of passage as a "landmark" measure, which offered a comprehensive and holistic "answer" to the nation's energy quandaries. But the fact that Congress keeps writing new "landmark" bills betrays the terrible truth; that each of the previous measures, like the measure now in the works, brought confusion rather than coherence to the nation's energy policy.

These were essentially pork-barrel bills, larded-up with federal largess for industries or niche technologies favored by members of Congress. There is no way for any administration -- even one headed by Obama the Magnificent -- to bring order out of such chaos. And that's why the country is destined to pin-ball from energy crisis to energy crisis, with Congress writing a new "landmark" energy bill in response to each of them, without ever establishing the rational and reality-based energy strategy that an economic powerhouse needs to survive.

I believe Congress pauses for six years between the writing of major highway funding bills. And although this can lead to pork-barrel pillaging on an obscene scale, when the bills periodically come up for renewal, the federal funding formulas and policies then set in place (even if they're flawed) at least bring some focus and coherence to federal highway activities in the years between bills. Perhaps we need to take a similar approach with federal energy bills, by limiting Congress to the passage of one "landmark" measure every five years or so.

A badly-written bill might set the nation on the wrong path for half a decade. But any course of action is arguably better than the paralysis, waste and chaos we see under current circumstances.

Years ago, when I decided to move to Washington, my father, a child of The Depression who fretted about my employment prospects, offered this practical reason for endorsing the decision. "Washington is recession proof," he told me, because the government would be there, and still be growing, even when the rest of the economy was tanking -- even if the rest of the nation lay in ruins. Dad was right about this, too, as today's Washington Post explains.

Washington is riding out the recession in relative style, even if sky-high home prices have come down to Earth a bit, according to a Brookings Institution report. "In line with other studies, Brookings reports that the Washington area's economy has been shielded from the full brunt of the recession because of the dominance of the federal government and contractors, which has kept employment stable," according to The Post.

Government is the biggest single "industry" in America today. And that industry is booming with Barack Obama at the helm, as work formerly contracted out to the private sector is brought "in-house" as part of Obama's "in-sourcing" initiative; as agencies grow in size and power; as an explosion in government spending, borrowing and money-printing takes place; as the nationalization of productive sector industries moves ahead, with nary a peep of protest from the world's most famous capitalists. Lobbyists haven't gone away: on the contrary, they're enjoying a field day, as they do whenever more power and money is concentrated in the capital city.

Even if tax revenues plunge, due to a down economy, the "government bubble" never really bursts -- especially when economic downturn, in the inverted logic of the moment, becomes a justification for growing government, and spending more, rather than tightening the government's belt and siphoning less from the productive sectors of the economy.

Washingtonians may claim to feel the country's pain, but they truly live and operate in a world apart, in which the normal rules of economics, like the normal rules of everything, don't really apply.

This story in the Denver Business Journal raises a question that's been nagging me lately: Why does it take a catastrophic economic downturn for governments to start thinking seriously about the merits of de-regulation as an economic development tool. The city of Denver is temporarily waiving certain building development fees, in an effort to encourage home improvement projects, as a way of boosting the local economy. And it seems to be working, according to the Journal:

"The free permits issued under the city’s “Home Renovation Bonanza” program saved residents an estimated $85.774 in fees, officials said. Building-permit fees normally range from $20 to several thousand dollars, depending on the value of the project.

The program aimed to boost the local economy by encouraging home-improvement projects. The free permits, available June 1-15, are for common improvement projects involving single-family homes and duplexes.

“We wanted a bonanza and it seems we got one,” Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “We hoped to stimulate the local economy by offering an incentive for residents to make improvements to their property. This is a good sign that people are moving forward and doing what they can to get our economy back on track.”

But why does it take an economic downturn before local governments begin to think seriously about clearing away the hurdles they erect to entrepreneurship, enterprise and personal initiative? Why are Denverites getting permits and paying fees for "common improvement projects" to begin with? Hickenlooper's statement tacitly acknowledges that the fees are an obstacle -- a disincentive -- to home improvement and economic activity; he concedes that they're something the city can do without, at least on a temporary basis, in order to help kick-start the economy. So why not make Denver's "Home Renovation Bonanza" a permanent thing? If it can do so much short-term good, wouldn't the benefits be multiplied over the long haul?

This isn't tenable, from the average politico's perspective, because, in Denver's case, the fees fund a city bureaucracy. If you permanently slash or eliminate these fees, you would also have to slash or eliminate the bureaucracy they sustain, and you would relinquish control over something -- in this case home renovation activities -- that the city and the politicians who run it want to control. It's become a racket, in other words -- one legitimized by official sanction. That's why Denver's "Home Renovation Bonanza" can only be a temporary thing; can only be a tease to the public about what life might be like if it didn't have to jump through so many hoops, and pay so many bribes, to get through the bureaucracy.

Imagine how much more robust the American economy could be if governments at all levels made clearing away economic disincentives a top permanent priority, rather than a short-term respite, to be continued, an anchor on the economy, once the crisis passes. Obamanomics focuses on massive government spending in order to prime the sluggish pump. There are other ways to skin this cat, however. The economic benefits of slashing red tape, eliminating onerous fees and taxes, clearing away the myriad economic disincentives that government creates -- of instituting reforms that get the government off the economy's back, in short -- aren't even talked about, at least at the federal level. Doing this would mean admitting that government is far better at killing jobs than creating them. And that flatly contradicts the statist world view.

First the good news: Jan Doran recused herself from ethics commission deliberations involving Mayor Lionel Rivera, a friend and political ally of hers.

Now the bad news: Doran had to be pushed and prodded into doing the right thing, after initially denying that her connections to Rivera created a real or perceived conflict of interest.

And then there's this troubling subtext to the situation: Neither the City Attorney nor members of City Council saw Doran's role in the Rivera case as problematic. It took outsiders, private citizens and the Gazette to raise the red flags. Had some of us on the outside not voiced objections, no one in city leadership would have done so. The impartiality of the commission, the process and the outcome, would have been compromised. Yet no one at the top said a word. The question of "why?" will hang like a cloud over all that follows, even if the commission, minus Doran, goes on to do a credible job.

Doran's potential conflict of interest was obvious (to everyone except city leadership, that is). But what about the possible bias of another commission member, Stephen Hook, who once served under City Attorney Pat Kelly? As Mayor, Rivera was technically Hook's boss. That doesn't mean he and Hook were buddy-buddy, of course. I have no idea how they got along, what kind of work Hook did on staff, or what loyalty and affection (if any) he might have for Kelly or Rivera. But the possibility that he might be protective of either individual, given their past association, is enough to raise doubts about his objectivity.

One more recusal might risk throwing the process into real disarray. But it really hasn't gone very far, given the commission's foot-dragging. And it shouldn't take council any more time to find two fill-in commissioners than to find one.

I hope such comments don't make me seem like a head hunter. I'm as unhappy as anyone about the embarrassment this is causing the city. But this wouldn't be an issue if the people in charge of the city had been a little more scrupulous, a little more diligent, and a little less oblivious to how such things are perceived from the outside looking in. A few members of City Council have begun kicking at the community's watchdogs, in an effort to deflect criticism. But they have no one to blame but themselves for the situation. These are all self-inflicted wounds.

There's been a lot of heady talk in Washington about reforming a military equipment procurement system which everyone (except certain defense contractors) admits is broken. But among the most intractable barriers to change is the role pork-barrel politics plays in how weapons programs get approved and funded, as The Washington Post's Dana Milbank points out in today's piece.

The Pentagon may not be asking for a new destroyer, at least not right now, but that destroyer will still be built if it means work for a shipyard in a powerful congressman's home state. Reforming the system isn't fully in the executive branch's power, in other words, as long as the legislative branch is bent on misusing and abusing the power of the purse strings.

Because charter schools are seen as a threat to conventional public schools; because charter schools tend to outperform conventional schools; because charter schools offer an avenue out for families trapped in failing conventional schools; because charter schools break with public education convention; because there are lists of families waiting to get into the best of them. These are just a few reasons why charter schools have so many enemies in the public school establishment. And it explains why these enemies are so quick to pounce at the slightest evidence that a charter school is faltering or falling down on the job.

A dozen conventional public schools can be failing their students, and performing below standards. A dozen conventional schools can suffer from discipline problems, lousy teacher morale and poor financial management. But nobody says a word about those schools, because it's business as usual. But if one charter school fouls up, falls short or draws complaints, it suddenly becomes big news, generating the sort of coverage we've seen lately about The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs and the Cesar Chavez charter schools in Pueblo and the Springs. The sharks start circling, hoping to drag one of these charters off their pedestals. Doing so shows that they aren't really very different, they aren't really a cut above, after all.

We've seen a spate of stories in recent months, for instance, about some racially-tinged incidents at The Classical Academy, a well-regarded charter school in Colorado Springs. The school took quick action to address the situation. But I kept wondering, when reading the stories, whether similar incidents go on all the time at conventional public schools, without generating a peep from the media. Bullying incidents happen, racial incidents happen, sexual incidents happen and discipline cases occur regularly at conventional public schools, I'm sure, but it's unnoticed beyond school walls. But when The Classical Academy is involved, it becomes big local news. The double standard is in full effect.

Now we see a similar pattern with the Cesar Chavez charter school network in Pueblo and Colorado Springs.

From today's Pueblo Chieftain:

"The superintendent of Pueblo City Schools wants Colorado’s commissioner of education to launch an audit of the finances and testing practices at the Cesar Chavez School Network.

John Covington sent the letter to Commissioner Dwight Jones last week, enclosing clippings from various newspapers regarding the salaries paid to network executives and issues surrounding state achievement tests . . .

. . . .Pueblo City Schools charters Cesar Chavez Academy and Dolores Huerta Preparatory High in Pueblo, are under contracts expiring in 2012 and 2014, respectively. The charter school network operates two elementary schools in Colorado Springs and an online program under the Colorado State Charter Institute and plans to open a school in Denver later this year under a charter from Denver Public Schools.

News reports, instigated by a growing number of parents and former employees, recently reported on the salaries paid to Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Hernandez, his wife and Chief Operating Officer Annette Hernandez, and Jason Guerrero, the school's chief financial officer. IRS filings pegged Hernandez’s compensation at more than $261,732, his wife at nearly $135,000 and Guerrero’s pay at just under $248,000.

Another story, in the Colorado Springs Independent last week, resurrected cheating allegations dating back to 2005. At that time, according to stories in The Pueblo Chieftain, the school district’s director of assessment charged that answers on Colorado Student Achievement Program tests given at Cesar Chavez Academy had been erased but district officials did not follow up on the charges and the tests were not thrown out. Had they been, the district’s overall scores would have dropped."

I'm not objecting to the scrutiny these schools are getting. I'm not apologizing for any shortcomings, irregularities or misdeeds that such examinations bring to light. I'm fully aware that some charter schools are in deeper trouble than many conventional schools are.

I'm simply asking whether a double standard isn't at work in how this scrutiny is applied. All I'm arguing is that public education would be a lot better off, across the board, if that same level of skepticism -- that same eagerness to highlight deficiencies and problems -- applied to all public schools, equally, not just schools that the public education establishment wants to discredit or destroy.

Hello. Hello. Anybody out there? Earth to City Hall. Come in City Hall.

The Gazette this morning called on ethics commission member Jan Doran to recuse herself from deliberations in the Lionel Rivera case (not that the panel seems in any particular hurry to take action, given the way it keeps batting the ball back into the accuser's court, rather than picking it up and running with it), echoing some of the points I made here last week. But will it do any good? Will it spur someone in city leadership to force a resolution to the crisis, in recognition of the damage it is doing not just to the mayor but to city government itself? I wouldn’t count on it.

The mayor has ignored numerous calls -- here and here -- to clear the air. Council colleagues seem to have circled the wagons around him. The ethics commission's reluctance to act, and growing doubts about its impartiality, are undermining its utility as a means of getting to the truth. The city attorney sees no conflict of interest in Doran's political connections with the mayor, or, apparently, with her former deputy serving on the panel. The city manager isn't in a position to do anything, since she takes orders from the mayor and City Council.

Meanwhile, closed-door meetings continue on a rumored second USOC deal, even though the public is in the dark about who or what was responsible for the first USOC deal going awry. Rivera reportedly remains one of the city’s chief negotiators, despite unresolved questions about his role in the first deal. Paralysis, secrecy and defensiveness are pretty much all the public sees from City Hall. And then they wonder why public distrust of government is so high.

While this might all be the result of a dysfunctional city governance structure, in which clear lines of authority and accountability are lacking, it looks to the outside world like something else: like stonewalling, scheming and can-covering. And there will be price paid, sooner or later, for the public cynicism such appearances foster.

Mayor Rivera sent out signals last week that the city will be back asking for more tax revenue in November. There’s also talk of a second USOC deal in the works, which could require an even greater taxpayer “investment.” Public reaction to these efforts might be guarded even under normal circumstances, given the down economy and insecurity people are feeling. But they’ll become that much harder to sell unless the city addresses the situation and reverses these perceptions.

City Council can approve a second USOC deal without putting it to a vote of the people. Members can push it through even if the public is skittish about the secrecy in which it was negotiated, and still in the dark about how the first deal went bad. A number on council face term limits: they won’t be needing your vote again. They have little to fear from any political fallout related to the USOC debacle.

But not so with any revenue-boosting measures that council puts on the November ballot. Then they’ll need the public’s support, which will be harder to get if they lose the public’s respect and trust. It’s then that voters will express their full measure of displeasure about the way city leaders are performing right now.

It would be nice to have a memorial of some kind, somewhere, to the brave passengers and crew of Flight 93. Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the site where the plane came down after passengers led an uprising against hijackers, would seem like the best place to built it. But we do the dead no honors by allowing the U.S. government to seize that land, by threatening the use of eminent domain.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar traveled to Shanksville last week, attempting to negotiate an end to the impasse by meeting with landowners. But the shameful ultimatum he laid down -- sell within a week or we'll use eminent domain -- betrays the ugly truth, that the federal government is bullying Americans off their land, is trampling their property rights, in order to meet some deadline for getting the project finished.

All the folksy charm Salazar can muster doesn't disguise the fact that he's in this case an intimidator, a henchman and a thief. He likes wearing cowboy hats, a prop meant to convince people he's in touch with his rural roots. But I hope he didn't wear one of his white hats to Shanksville. Black would have been more fitting on this occasion.

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"The order (to sell) came hours after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) met with people who own 500 acres in and around the Shanksville area, where Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, and with victims' relatives eager to see the memorial built in time for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

"After meeting with the landowners and the Park Service today, I have high hopes that the parties are close to agreement and will be able to reach consensus over the land in the next week so we can keep the memorial on track without using eminent domain," Salazar said. "Only if the parties are not able to reach agreement will we have to use the last resort of eminent domain to acquire land."

Kendra Barkoff, Salazar's spokeswoman, said the deadline was essential to keep the construction on track. He directed National Park Service officials to meet with landowners early next week and report to him by Friday.

The decision by the National Park Service last month to pursue eminent domain touched off fierce criticism in an area where local residents have been deeply involved in efforts to plan the park and establish and staff the temporary memorial at the crash site. Two local members of the Flight 93 Federal Advisory Commission were so angry about the government's seizure plans that they resigned."

Trampling the rights of some Americans in order to "honor" other Americans is ironic, incongruous, and outrageous. And it will forever leave a stain on any memorial built there. However welcoming they are to sightseers, locals will long and bitterly recall the strong-arm tactics used by the federal government to get the property.

Perhaps a small plaque can be placed somewhere near the Flight 93 memorial, noting that this is also the place where America's belief in the sanctity of private property was laid to rest. We could call it the American Property Rights Memorial.

There's much food for thought in Daniel Cole's column in today's Gazette -- even if it causes a little indigestion inside City Hall.

It's now obvious that at least two members of the city's "independent" ethics commission appear to have their own conflicts of interest, as Cole points out. Jan Doran has been a high profile political booster for Mayor Rivera, as The Gazette reported Thursday, while commission member Stephen Hook is a former deputy city attorney, who once worked under the mayor and current city attorney Patricia Kelly, which might raise questions about his impartiality. "Doran and Hook might be the most honest people in the world, but no amount of good faith can make them look like impartial judges" of Rivera's guilt or innocence, as Cole points out.

The perception of bias this creates now threatens to taint and undermine the first real test of the city's new ethics regime, which was put in place in 2007. What began as something of a sideshow -- a case of political intrigue involving one man -- is drifting toward potential crisis, threatening to undermine public confidence not just in a few elected officials but in the city itself.

Cole says the onus is on the mayor to resolve it. That would be the quickest and easiest way to go. But the case raises deeper questions about what appears, from the outside, to be dysfunction at the highest levels of city government. You have a mayor who won't talk, council colleagues who won't push for resolution (and, in one case, have launched personal attacks on the person bringing the allegation), an ethics commission that appears reluctant to act, growing doubts about the impartiality of its members and a city manager who's powerless or reluctant to get involved.

Then you have a city attorney who reportedly told Doran that her past political work for the mayor did not constitute a conflict of interest, requiring her recusal. "I disclosed to the city attorney what my position was with the mayor's campaign, both his congressional and his last mayoral campaign, and I asked her opinion, and she said it did not compromise my position," Doran told The Gazette.

That's amazing.

Whether Kelly is correct on the technical legal question, she's wrong as a matter of widely-accepted principle, that people in such positions should avoid even the perception of a conflict. That misjudgment on her part has now tainted the city's ethics process (and raised serious questions about her own judgment). It's unknown whether Hook, the former deputy city attorney, sought or received similar advice from Kelly. But he, too, would appear to have a potential conflict. Both should step off the commission, and away from this case. But Doran, at least, seems defiant.

Doran insists to both Cole and The Gazette that she has the impartiality required to do the job, despite her political connections to Rivera. The city attorney puts her stamp of approval on the arrangement -- on something that wouldn't pass the smell test for the average citizen, relying on common sense. No one on City Council (most of whom are well aware of Doran's relationship with Rivera) raises objections, as far as the public knows. And no one, as of today, is willing to step out, show leadership, and restore public confidence in the process. It's a dysfunctional situation, all the way around. Then we wonder why a recent study identified the public's distrust of local government as one factor that seems to be holding back the city.

Whether this is a case of the blind leading the blind, or the biased leading the biased -- or simply a reflection of a broken city government that needs a radical overhaul in order to restore more accountability and transparency -- something must be done, and done soon, to lance the boil and resolve the crisis.

Bill Ritter flunked the "governorship test" Tuesday, when he signed a bill that bars the state of Colorado from leasing or selling state land for the future expansion of Fort Carson. It shows that he'll never evolve beyond the pupal stage of political development, because he's incapable of making a decision that's politically risky, in a partisan sense, but the right thing to do for the state as a whole. Choosing what's right for the whole over what's smart politically is the ultimate test of governorship, of "statesmanship." It's what separates the bona fide "leader" from the political climber. And Ritter just can't make the transition, as this signature shows.

This won't necessarily cost Ritter the governor's job. Plenty of garden variety politicos can rise through the ranks, if individuals with more integrity, more courage and a bigger vision don't step up to challenge them. But it does open another avenue of attack, and point of contrast, for Republicans in the state, if they can pull it together and take advantage of such missteps.

It's clearly a betrayal of Ritter's Inauguration Day pledge to represent the interests of all Coloradans, not just those who voted for him. And it lends a hollow ring to words he spoke only a few weeks ago, when he was asked about the hand-stenciled signs that have been popping up along I-25, asking "Why does Ritter Hate El Paso County?" "I'll put my attention that I've paid to El Paso County against any governor in my lifetime," Ritter bragged to The Gazette. "Every part of the state matters and counts. And it doesn't matter to me what the vote is."

This signature indicates otherwise, Governor.

I've already explained the political calculus behind Ritter's decision, here and here. No point in repeating myself. But some parts of the state clearly matter more to the governor than others do. El Paso County is expendable, because our voter rolls are heavily Republican and he has little to lose by giving us the shaft. The governor was warned that endorsing this gratuitous slap at the Pentagon could put Fort Carson at risk, by sending anti-military signals back to Washington. The possible repercussions were made clear to him -- here, here and here -- in time to have drawn a veto. But he signed the bill anyway, even as the potential fallout was beginning to be felt.

There's no way to describe it but "stupid" and "reckless." It's something the governor should be reminded of each time he comes to town. And if Republicans can't use this to their advantage, when the next election season rolls around, they really are beyond recovery.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, who fought valiantly to keep Fort Carson's options open, has a typically-forceful piece on the subject in today's Denver Post. I would recommend reading it -- and filing it away, against the day that Bill Ritter comes calling, asking for your vote.

I've been blogging less about the corporate welfare racket lately, thinking readers could use a break since 1A went down. But it's not for lack of material.

The Associated Press ran a good piece yesterday on the subject of handouts to Hollywood, for instance, which focuses a wide-angle lens on how the game is played nationally. There was also an interesting story a few weeks back about the Texas film commission being accused of censorship and "politics" for refusing to subsidize a film about the Branch Davidian tragedy at Waco, which the commission deemed unflattering to Texas -- illustrating the dangers that can arise when state bureaucrats begin tying taxpayer handouts to script approval and creative control.

Every state seems convinced that it has the potential to become a bustling Hollywood backlot, by greasing the palms of producers with taxpayer money. They doled-out at least $1 billion last year alone, according to the AP. Film industry insiders have become masters of shopping for more generous venues, and of pitting one star-struck state against another in corporate welfare bidding wars. Reports the AP:

"Little illustrates the competition between states better than Miley Cyrus' new movie project, "The Last Song." In April, North Carolina's governor scheduled — then canceled the same day — a news conference to announce the movie would be filmed in Wilmington. The reason for the cancellation: the Walt Disney Co. was considering Georgia, which offers incentives of up to 30 percent versus North Carolina's 15 percent.

Shooting is to begin in Georgia this month.

Determined not to miss out next time, legislators have introduced a bill in North Carolina — a state facing a $3 billion budget gap this year — to increase incentives to 25 percent of production costs.

But it's finally dawning on some of these cash-strapped states that the economic benefits aren't all they're cracked up to be (assuming they bother tracking such things), and taxpayers are asking why they're subsidizing the Steven Spielbergs of the world at a time when governments are being cut to the bone. Louisiana gave $27 million to the makers of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," for instance, even while schools are suffering $150 million in budget cuts.

"Some states have started rethinking their show business giveaways. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle wants to eliminate the incentives he signed into law a year ago. A legislative committee has instead proposed capping the annual payout — but only for two years — to help solve Wisconsin's budget shortfall.

Michigan, which offers one of the most generous tax credits in the nation, equal to 42 percent of production costs, gave away $48 million in incentives last year and is expected to pay out $198 million in the 2010 fiscal year, which starts in the fall. And that's in a state that faces an estimated budget shortfall of $700 million for 2010.

State Sen. Tom George said he supports Michigan's incentive program because of the production activity it has drawn to his job-starved state. But he has no illusions about whether Michigan brings in more tax revenue than it gives away.

"We don't get back what we pay out," said George, a Republican who wants to cap the annual payout, either on a per-film or per-year basis. "We don't even get back half of what we pay out. I don't even know if we get back a quarter of what we pay out."

Until more of them wise up, maybe The Academy should start giving out a "Best Supporting Suckers" award at its annual gala to the state that did the most to keep filmmakers in their fancy cars and Cuban cigars.

P.S: By coincidence, today's Pueblo Chieftain carries a related story, about long-time film industry workers who are uprooting themselves from costly and crazy California and relocating to states that will help subsidize their livelihoods (and where they can actually afford to buy a home). How significant the Hollywood exodus is, whether it would stop if the subsidies dry up, and how these Hollywood refugees impact state economies, the story doesn't say. Some of those profiled seem simply to have discovered that there's a good life to be had out here in "fly-over country." But it's a part of the equation I hadn't read about before, or thought much about before, so I thought I would tack it on to this post.

The Gazette's Barry Noreen chides Mayor Lionel Rivera for all-but-ignoring the elephant in the room (actually, Barry calls it a foul-smelling mastodon) during the state of the city address, by "glossing over" the USOC debacle. But there were actually two elephants in the room Tuesday, since some in attendance might have harbored hopes that the mayor would help clear the air on a related controversy; as-yet-unresolved allegations that Rivera had an undisclosed business relationship with Ray Marshall or LandCo.

Noreen correctly argues that the "bungled" USOC has hurt City Hall's credibility. But the failure of city officials to investigate and resolve the ethics allegations -- and to ask that Rivera remove himself from continuing negotiations on a second USOC "deal" until this question is resolved -- only widens the credibility gap. I know one risks unleashing the wrath of Heimlicher for daring to push the issue toward resolution. But it will be doubly hard to generate public support for a second USOC deal as long as a cloud of suspicion hangs over the first. The two issues are now entangled, like it our not. Hopes for a happy resolution of the first, without also bringing closure on the second, are probably vain.

And all the mayor would have had to say Tuesday, in order to remove the second mastodon from the room, is that these allegations are false: that he never had financial dealings with Marshall or LandCo. It's no betrayal of client confidentiality, after all, to say that you or your firm never had someone for a client. LandCo's lawsuit against the city has nothing to do with whatever relationship the parties may or may not have had pre-dating the deal. But Rivera remained mum -- a silence that could be heard above the small talk and chewing of rubber chicken.