Nearly half of the planned expenditures for the $50 million federal grant for security at the Democratic National Convention haven’t been revealed publicly because they don’t meet the threshold for City Council approval, officials said today.
Councilman Doug Linkhart asked Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s administration for more concrete details during a committee meeting on the subject today.
Administration officials said the undisclosed expenditures don’t reach the $50,000 threshold for equipment purchases that would require council approval nor the $500,000 threshold for contracts.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has sued in Denver District Court for more detail about safety spending for the convention. The lawsuit is on hold until after the convention.
Katherine Archuleta, the mayoral liaison for the convention, and Mel Thompson, deputy safety manager, provided the briefing today to the council.
Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said that earlier, she had been rebuffed by the administration when she asked for further detail but that her concerns have since been allayed.
“I got ‘I won’t tell you,’ and I sort of went ballistic,” Faatz said.
Since then, she said Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman has called her and provided further details.
Thompson said that many of the contracts don’t meet the $500,000 threshold and involve the hiring of officers from smaller police departments.
He and Archuleta provided the council with an accounting of purchases and contracts requiring council approval, amounting to a total of $24,223,355. The list included $947,364 for surveillance cameras, $677,560 for a mobile-command unit, items that already have been discussed publicly. Also on the list was a contract for $2.4 million with a vendor to lease to the city signage, barricades and concrete barriers for the convention.
Councilman Charlie Brown said the city might have put the money to better use buying the barricades instead of renting them so they could be used for future events.
All of the expenditures have received approval for reimbursement out of the federal funds.
Linkhart said another $6 million in expenses, also reimbursable by the federal government, involved nonsafety related expenditures and that the council had received no details.
Thompson stressed that many expenditures involve purchases for individual officers, such as meals they will be provided during the convention. He said the individual purchases don’t meet the $50,000 threshold for an equipment purchase individually, although they might exceed that threshold if they were aggregated.
Linkhart said he might want to consider changing the council-approval process so such aggregated amounts also require council approval.
The council then went into a closed-door meeting known as executive session to discuss in more detail the expenditures outside the public view.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
