Amid a cloud of controversy, newly appointed Colorado Division of Gaming director Ron Kam merzell said Thursday he hopes to make the agency more efficient in its oversight of the state’s mountain casinos.
“We’re looking at every way to increase our efficiencies,” Kam merzell told the Gaming Commission during its first meeting since Gov. Bill Owens overhauled the staff last month.
A public battle erupted in late December after the Gaming Commission’s then-chairwoman, Natalie Meyer, raised concerns about the handling of the gaming budget and a shortage of gaming auditors.
After a pair of meetings with the commission in January, Owens fired Meyer and commission vice chairman Robert Millman. A third commissioner, Barbara Jenkins, later resigned.
The former commissioners alleged that Department of Revenue executive director M. Mi chael Cooke overstepped her boundaries by meddling with the gaming budget and preventing the gaming division from hiring new auditors.
Owens sided with Cooke and replaced the commissioners with:
Patricia Imhoff, president of real-estate firm Katherine Grace Investments.
William Hybl, chairman and chief executive of El Pomar Foundation.
And Meyer Saltzman, senior partner in accounting firm Saltzman Hamma Nelson Massaro.
Owens also reassigned former gaming-division director Mark Wilson and replaced him with Kammerzell.
Since the changes, the division has hired two new gaming auditors. It still has three auditor vacancies.
For their part, Meyer and Millman believe they were wrongly fired.
“I just don’t think the governor knows the whole story,” Meyer said in a recent interview.
A former Colorado secretary of state, Meyer served on the five-member Gaming Commission for 7 1/2 years, earning $200 a month. She claims Cooke is violating the Colorado Gaming Act by taking authority over the gaming budget away from the Gaming Commission, an allegation Cooke has denied.
Owens has asked the attorney general for an official opinion on the matter.
Millman, who has practiced law for 34 years, said his day job “took a big hit because of this fight.”
The casinos have closely watched the controversy and are concerned about the issues raised by the former commissioners, said Lois Rice, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Gaming Association, which represents about two dozen of the state’s 46 mountain casinos.
“We want the public to know that this is a heavily regulated industry, and when it does appear that the regulation is slacking off, that’s troublesome to us,” Rice said.
Newly appointed commissioner Hybl missed Thursday’s meeting because he was out of the country, a division spokesman said.
As a result, the selection of a new chairman and vice chairman was postponed until next month’s meeting.
Staff writer Andy Vuong can be reached at 303-820-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com.
