Lakewood City Manager Mike Rock still thinks he’s doing the taxpayers a favor by agreeing to give up his city-owned truck.
Ask him if he abused his use of a taxpayer-financed and taxpayer-fueled vehicle for the past 13 years, and he answers firmly:
“Absolutely not.”
Ask if he can get by on the newly proposed $750-per-month vehicle allowance that the Lakewood City Council will consider May 31, and he says $750 a month won’t cover the costs of gas, insurance and a vehicle in which he feels “safe.”
God help me. By Rock’s standards, I risk my life each time I get behind the wheel. So do most of the folks who pay his salary. Unlike the city manager, not many of them make $196,102 a year.
That’s a lot more than the governor, who makes $90,000, or the mayor of Denver, who makes $102,690 and rides around in a Ford Escape hybrid.
Rock’s tax bracket obviously comes with certain expectations. Those expectations date to 1992 when Lakewood hired Rock and made him a profligate deal that gave him unrestricted use of a city- owned vehicle.
The city manager took full advantage. He used the city’s gas on personal business. His wife drove his city vehicle from time to time. When she had an accident in the city vehicle, the city paid for it. The taxpayers also picked up the cost of a souped-up sound system on Rock’s latest ride.
“I don’t see an abuse in doing something that was contemplated 13 years ago,” Rock told me Thursday.
Rock broke no law. What he violated was the public’s trust.
Rock says he chose to give up his city-owned truck for a measly $750 a month because the truck had become a bone of contention in a budget crisis.
If Rock had shown anything resembling restraint, he wouldn’t find himself in the middle of a scandal right now.
Lakewood Mayor Steve Burkholder says the cost to the city of owning and operating Rock’s current vehicle is $1,875 per month, or $22,500 a year.
The taxpayers, Burkholder suggested, are getting a deal when Rock tries to get by on his new vehicle allowance of only nine grand per annum.
“To some people, personal use means anything,” Burkholder explained. “Some people feel a fiduciary responsibility not to use (a city vehicle) as much as Mike did. His interpretation was that he could do these things. I told Mike I felt he stepped out of line a little. I don’t think he did anything wrong.”
Hold that thought for campaign season.
Meanwhile, don’t look for remorse or understanding from the privileged.
Rock estimates it will cost him $10,000 a year to give up his city-owned vehicle, a move he apparently considers philanthropic. He agreed to repay Lakewood for the cost of his wife’s accident as part of the $750-a-month deal. He’s already ponied up for the speakers the taxpayers put in his city-owned truck.
Rock said he hasn’t made any decision about whether he will pay for the accident if the $750 deal falls through.
Burkholder said he was miffed when others on the Lakewood Council chose to delay a vote on Rock’s new vehicle allowance last Monday. The alternative of reverting to business as usual would be far worse, he said.
Burkholder’s insistence that Rock is being noble, coupled with Rock’s insistence that he can’t drive a car for $750 a month, provide strange leverage for a tax increase to fill a budget gap.
Councilwoman Barbara Green Martin, who asked to delay the vote on the new vehicle allowance, said she was responding to “constituents.” “People,” she said, “were highly critical.”
Martin doesn’t necessarily oppose the $750-a-month figure, which Burkholder says came from a comparison of benefits in the public and private sectors.
Maybe it is the best deal available. But what the folks in charge in Lakewood have yet to realize is this:
It’s not about the money.
It’s not about the law.
It’s about the attitude.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.