Denver’s Department of Human Services is among the first agencies in Colorado to consider using Global Positioning System tracking devices to protect social workers on the job.
The need to extend greater protections became more evident last year in Kentucky, when a social worker was beaten and stabbed to death while taking a baby for a final visit to the child’s mother, who had been found guilty of neglect.
Alabama and Mississippi are already using GPS to keep a protective eye on social workers. Mississippi started after Hurricane Katrina. The tracking devices are embedded in cellphones equipped with panic buttons. The social worker can press the button to summon help and the GPS device alerts authorities to their location.
Social workers in some Colorado counties already carry remote laptops so they can check on potential dangers ahead of time and avoid walking into a threatening situation.
Denver’s DHS spokeswoman, Sue Cobb, says social workers have the authority to request a police escort when they feel they might be in danger. But there might be times when it is hard to know what’s looming, so the city is reviewing its procedures with GPS in mind.
Odd couple blossom
They’re officially a duo. Former Republican Speaker of the House Doug Dean and Democratic Rep. Buffie McFadyen are being compared by statehouse regulars to the political odd couple of Mary Matalin and James Carville.
Dean and McFadyen started dating midway through the legislative session and have lately been out in public together. Dean, director of the Public Utilities Commission, was divorced last year. McFadyen’s divorce is in the works.
McFadyen said the couple can discuss almost any political topic without sparks flying, except for Iraq and abortion. They even have laughs about her first run for the statehouse when Dean and his mother “walked the precincts against me.” She lost that race but won the next one. His parents now live in her district. Did they vote for her? “I don’t know,” she says.
The question some might want answered is whether her chairmanship of the Transportation and Energy Committee, which makes policy pertaining to the PUC, poses a conflict. McFadyen says it doesn’t. “He can’t lobby,” she said. “The PUC has to do what we decide.”
What women want
An interesting new book by journalist Melinda Henneberger gives Gov. Bill Ritter more than one mention. The book, “If They Only Listened to Us – What Women Voters Want Politicians to Hear,” was published May 1. The author talked with women in 20 states, about such divisive issues as abortion, religion and gay marriage. In Colorado, the author zeroed in on Catholic women and the abortion issue.
Henneberger discusses what she learned about why women vote the way they do. It’s in the context of abortion that she mentions Ritter and the support he got in the 2006 election from devout, anti-abortion Catholic women who are normally conflicted about being Democrats but had no problem supporting Ritter’s pro-life position. As it turned out, pro-choice women also came to support Ritter, who seemed to convince everyone that he was not a zealot.
Udall nominee wins
Broomfield High School junior Jessica Wilkerson has been selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as a page in the U.S. House of Representatives this summer. Congressman Mark Udall nominated the student, who happens to be the niece of White House Deputy Secretary Dana Perino.
“The ability to nominate pages is given to well-respected and senior members of Congress,” Udall’s spokesman said.
Wilkerson will be among 72 pages serving members of the House and Senate in various tasks at the U.S. Capitol.
Julia C. Martinez (jmartinez@denverpost.com) is a member of the Denver Post editorial board.
