Is the state ethics commission trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube? Get involved, even if you're a teen. Pay attention to your local DA race if you care about crime.
Can you put the toothpaste back in the tube? Is the state ethics commission trying to do just that?
The article below details (at great length) an ethics complaint against a county public health official. You are welcome to read up the details on the complaint if you'd like. The thing I want to highlight here, because I find it more important than the details of a single complaint, is the fact that the State Ethics Commission ruled one way and then tried to quietly put the toothpaste back in the tube, changing its ruling without much in the way of explanation.
Let's talk some quick background. When the Ethics Commission receives a complaint, it has the choice of marking it as frivolous and not investigating further, or marking it as non-frivolous and then proceeding to investigate.
The way any particular case is marked determines more than just whether or not an investigation will happen. It also determines what gets shared publicly: things marked frivolous stay confidential (as it should be), while those marked non-frivolous are shared as public record.
Returning to the complaint against the public health official, we have a flip-flop in how the complaint was marked. The commission marked this complaint as non-frivolous in February. They released the documentation to the public.
Then in March, a legal technicality based on who is and isn't a government employee caused the commission to revisit the case. The commission found that the public health official didn't meet the definition of a government employee. As such, none of the ethics complaint process applied.
Following on the heels of that was a May ruling that the complaint was now frivolous. This marking would yank back the public sharing of the complaint files.
To give you a sense of timing for this whole drama, all this happened approximately a year after the initial complaint was filed. Government snapping into action and all that.
It's easy to get lost in detail here, but let me bring us all back to my point. What I find troubling isn't the details of the case. It's not whether or not it's indeed frivolous or non-frivolous. What sticks out to me is the fact that the commission was discussing at their May meeting in a closed session.
Let me rephrase in case it didn't hit the first time: they are deciding on whether to make something not-public in a not-public way.
This is not okay. Besides the optics of taking a complaint which someone thought serious enough to spend time on and tossing it in a behind-closed-doors meeting, you have a board taking something out of the public eye and not stepping forward to directly explain this to the public.
That carries the savor of hiding things, papering them over. Not what we should want from our government.
I hope that at some point the board addresses this issue in public. If they want to continue to have some credibility about their decisions and processes they should.
Get involved.
Big or small, grand gesture or humble.
Get involved because they are getting involved. They're constantly building and strengthening their political machine.
If you are at a loss as to how or want ideas, let me know. I can connect you to resources.
Related:
Not all opportunities to get involved are for adults.
Per the Sun article below, a 2008 law created an advisory council (COYAC -- Colorado Youth Advisory Council see the second link below) of young people who present legislative ideas to Colorado State Reps and Senators.
The group is required to take youngsters from all over Colorado and is thus a chance for the kinds of kids who are normally not heard much (rural and conservative) to be part of the policy conversation in this state. It's also a great chance for a youngster interested in law or policy as a career to get some good experience.
If you know a young one who might be interested, share the COYAC link below.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/06/04/colorado-students-legislative-proposals-coyac/
https://coyac.org/
The choices a prosecutor makes--charging decisions, bail requests--play a big role in minimizing crime.
Fortunately, the office of District Attorney for each of Colorado's judicial districts is an elected one. This means that you get a chance to choose what kind of prosecutor you have.
Make your choice an informed one, however. That is, take the time to research who it is you're voting on. This was brought home to me when I recently saw the Colorado Politics article below about the two candidates for Denver's DA.
The attorney exiting that office, well, let's just say I'm glad to see her go. I have found several of her (and her office's) decisions to be questionable at best.
If you live in Denver, give the article a read. If you're interested, do some more looking by checking on each of your candidates.
If you don't live in Denver, go to the second link below and use the DA's Association website to look up which district you're in and see your current DA. Then do some looking at whether or not (and how) you have a decision to make this November.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/district-attorney-primary-candidates-colorado/article_460255f4-21ec-11ef-a5c1-e32c6704d4a0.html
https://coloradoprosecutors.org/your-das/