Littleton – Arapahoe County Commissioner Rod Bockenfeld said he told an ethics panel last week that at least one of his colleagues may have gone too far in directing snowplows after recent storms, and asked for an investigation.
“There is evidence that that has occurred,” Bockenfeld said in an interview.
He refused to name any names or to elaborate publicly on what he told the ethics panel privately. He did not cite specific examples of commissioners improperly influencing where plows were sent.
He said he raised the issue not to get anyone punished, but for the ethics panel to recommend a policy on how much is too much when it comes to politicians and public works.
“I don’t know if a policy was broken, because there is no policy now,” Bockenfeld said. “My motive is to get some guidance going forward and establish a policy, if one is necessary.”
The five-member ethics board took testimony privately from each of the five commissioners and other county officials last week. A report is expected early this week.
County attorney Kathryn Schroeder said the ethics panel’s deliberations are private, and their findings would be advisory.
Besides Bockenfeld, only two other commissioners, Frank Weddig and Susan Beckman, were in office during December’s two largest snowstorms. Pat Noonan and Jim Dyer, elected last fall, took office in early January.
Beckman said she had contacted the public works department about plowing.
“I asked him (Bockenfeld) if it was me (he was referring to),” Beckman said. “He said, ‘No comment.”‘
Beckman said she was contacted by a homeowners association with a plowing request and forwarded it to the public works department. “That doesn’t seem that unusual to me,” she said.
In most Colorado counties it is not, said Chip Taylor of Colorado Counties Inc., an association of local governments. In smaller counties, commissioners direct the work on roads in their districts, Taylor said.
“They used to be called road commissioners, after all,” he said. “This is one of their jobs.
On Friday, Denver City Councilman Doug Linkhart said he called the mayor’s office the day before, asking for plowing in some business districts.
“My perception is that all the council members are putting in requests,” Linkhart said.
Most larger counties have a county administrator who filters such requests for public works. Arapahoe does not, giving commissioners a more hands-on role over departments.
“They don’t do that here,” Larry Benshoof, road and bridge director for Jefferson County, said of his commissioners. “They allow the professionals to (decide) … what the priorities are.”
In Douglas County, snowplowing and other public works are the domain of the county administrator and department heads, who are charged with serving the best interests of the whole county, spokeswoman Wendy Holmes said.
“The whole question really goes to organizational culture,” she said. “Our board trusts our operations division and the foremen and supervisors to perform in the best interest of the most people possible or the county as a whole.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it misspelled the name of Arapahoe County Commissioner Frank Wedding.
