“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I expect the same from them.” John Bernard Books (John Wayne in the Shootist)
The esteemed editor for the Daily Post recently provided a summary statement of his past transgressions going way back. Bill chose the time, the forum, and even wrote it himself so it was phrased just right to suit his purposes. It’s possible Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Whitington would have shed light on their private lives under those same conditions and circumstances. In my case, I was not given the opportunity to explain, refute or others defend statements made about me. Character assassination is always a good way to get the upper hand in any argument, but when this community seems to almost exalt in carrying out deed by bushwhacking the victim. I guess Bill took away the possibility of being bushwhacked by getting the story out there early on his own terms.
Our County Treasurer, Lois Baker, was the latest bushwhack victim of the character assassination machine, and its too bad. I loved the comments made by June Madrid in the Sun, and the comments made by John Ranson here in the Daily Post. There is plenty of blame to go around, and only Lois has been singled out to account for the mis-steps of so many over so many years. As I indicated in my article on home rule a few weeks ago, the statutory standards for county treasurer were established in the 19th century when a basic knowledge of arithmetic was enough to carry out the job. Today’s world is much more complicated, the standards much more demanding and the depth of knowledge for county treasurer exceptionally challenging.
The only saving grace of the statutory framework for county government is that there are a number of checks and balances. In this way, if the treasurer fails to adhere to the law, then other offices and officials have powers and duties to keep activities within expected parameters. This did not happen in the case of Archuleta County. Not one office or official picked up on the errors and omissions that were taking place – people were going along to get along. Most of the people pointing fingers, however, are pointing at the Board of County Commissioners.
Although they cannot be absolved of guilt, the Board of County Commissioners are really no more trained or knowledgeable on these issues than any other elected official – the blame has to be placed on the professional support staff working for the County, and most especially the county attorney, the finance director and the county administrator. So far, directly or indirectly and with varying degrees of appropriateness, only one of several county administrators and one of a couple of finance directors have faced any scrutiny. If Lois Baker failed to abide by statutory mandates of her office, she did so because the county attorney failed and refused to provide the appropriate level of legal representation to support her, and the same could be said of her predecessors.
The intent is to make elected officials are accountable to the voters, and professional staff accountable to policies and procedures established by elected officials to assure minimum standards. The horrible consequence of the treasurer’s resignation is that she was singled out by staff and elected officials who are themselves culpable in how she conducted her office.
Part II. “What I am going to talk about – and I am going to say this consistently – (is that) it is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years ago. What’s relevant is that I have learned from any mistakes I made.” George W. Bush (interview with WMUR-TV in NH)
Governing Magazine recently ran an article by Russ Linden entitled “When Adults Act Like Children” (July 16, 2008). The article uses the feud between the FBI and the ATF to illustrate how one-upsmanship and turf wars can tear apart organizations, create undue hostility and hamper effectiveness in carrying out the mission of the organization. The antics portrayed generally equate to childish behavior – hence the title.
What was interesting to me about the article were the recommendations to confound the childishness. Each of the recommendations was implemented by Bob Campbell early on as the financial crisis emerged. In summary, those recommendations were as follows:
- Provide Joint Training.
- Look for Ways to Form Relationships
- Use Career Incentives
- Avoid Overlapping Responsibilities
- Model Mature, Collaborative Behavior and Expect it of Others
a). It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers on it.” George W. Bush (5/5/2000)
It worked because staff had confidence in Bob Campbell, and for the most part, they had confidence in each other. The problem was Bob was “preaching to the choir” and failed to reach the Assessor, the Treasurer and Commissioner Robin Schiro. Lois Baker made an effort to contribute, and sent Kelly to core committee meetings. Lois kept her office going, but she was so over-whelmed by the responsibility that was thrust upon her after she came forward with the news of the County’s financial situation she could not muster the confidence to do much more. The Assessor and a Commissioner (Robin Schiro) refused to contribute, and hampered efforts to improve the situation. I could illustrate a number of examples of this negative behavior, but suffice it to say they did not leave a stone unturned to undermine efforts to find solutions to the County’s financial issues by acting as childish as any FBI or ATF agent ever did on their worst day.
So long as Bob was County Administrator, the impact the Assessor and Robin had on efforts to improve county operations were limited, but just as soon as he left, the glue that was holding things together disappeared as well. Now, it’s a matter of real professionals like Don Warn, June Madrid, Erlinda Gonzales, Peter Gonzalez, and Andy Fatheree operating independently and without that needed “glue” to keep things going.
This puts a great deal of undue stress on these responsible professional people to carry a far greater load then they signed on for, and for which they are not being adequately compensated. It’s a sad situation and one that will only be rectified through elections and fundamental re-organization efforts.
b). “One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.” George W. Bush (9/27/2000)
The two articles which appeared this last week in the Opinion section of the Daily Post dealing with the Tree Tops project (Mike Neder 7/15/2008 and Bruce Wilke 7/18/2008) illustrate issues paralyzing good land use management for the County.
The County’s Comprehensive Plan had good public input, was a process conducted with a great deal of transparency, but was watered down through efforts to please everyone to the point it really has no policy impact because it incorporates conflicting policies, goals, and objectives. The County’s Land Use Code was much more “top down” in how it was drafted, presented and ultimately passed. Unfortunately, the two both need significant changes to become more “user-friendly”. This is why there were two articles expressing polar-opposite conclusions on the process that led to the decision on Tree Tops.
Generally, a community develops its comprehensive plan to establish parameters for how that community wishes to proceed in developing rules and regulations. Colorado recently adopted a statute allowing local communities the option to make policies contained in the comprehensive plan more akin to legal standards than guidelines, but that statute was passed after Archuleta County adopted its comprehensive plan. The plan itself was a good first step, but because Archuleta County went through a brief surge in development after it was adopted, it really did not contemplate or address the issues that Archuleta County faced in recent years. There are two major problems with the Comprehensive Plan, which victimized Tree Tops.
First, the Comprehensive Plan does not address urbanizing issues within three miles of the Town of Pagosa Springs. The failure to adopt a three-mile plan (or from the Town’s perspective; urban growth boundaries) is a major flaw in that plan. Second, the Comprehensive Plan contains a flawed Future Land Use map that the County’s planning commission has struggled with from day one after it was adopted. Generally, zoning reflects current land uses and a future land use map reflects the expectations of the community for coming years. This is not the case with Archuleta County’s zoning and future land use maps.
There are three layers of review of a project 1) staff; 2) planning commission; 3) board of county commissioners (who may sit as a board of adjustment. If the legal framework for these reviews is flawed, if the community has not provided appropriate guidance to its professionals and leadership, then “discretion” becomes a real issue for those impacted by the process. This is what happened with Tree Tops, and the commentators on what happened are cautioned to avoid blaming the messengers, casting aspirations on those trying to make sense of flawed documents, and making assumptions on what expectations are expected.
“If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.” Professor Irwin Corey
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