The official in charge of the state’s homeland-security grant program resigned Tuesday after influential law-enforcement officials raised questions about her management.
Barbara Kirkmeyer, acting director of the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, asked Gov. Bill Owens to demote her to her previous position as director of the department’s division of local government.
Kirkmeyer was replaced by Brian Vogt, who also will continue to serve as executive director of the state office of economic development. His salary will remain $133,891.
Kirkmeyer’s tenure in charge of the department ended about a week after Arapahoe County Sheriff J. Grayson Robinson sent a critical letter to her and to Bob Lee, the governor’s chief of staff.
Writing on behalf of a group that represents emergency responders in Denver and nine other metro counties, Robinson raised a series of questions about recent “policy statements” made by Kirkmeyer.
According to the letter, Kirk meyer said the state would no longer support radio purchases by local governments. Robinson wrote that the group considered that a “short-sighted approach to the state’s No. 1 priority, inter operable communications.”
Robinson criticized a state decision to cap how much money would be available for “regional coordinators,” especially after the state required his group to hire a coordinator. Robinson called the cap “arbitrary.”
Kirkmeyer did not return phone calls seeking comment. Owens spokesman Dan Hopkins said Kirkmeyer resigned for personal reasons.
During her eight-month tenure, the state caved in to a demand from the Department of Homeland Security to repay $1.5 million in misspent grant money to create an emergency-response center in Centennial.
Soon after that June announcement, state auditors found state officials have agreed to pay $1.1 million – about $28,600 per month – to rent space in that building. Throughout the process, Kirkmeyer said federal and state auditors were wrong.
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-820-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
