Kim Day, manager of Denver International Airport, pleaded her case Thursday before the Denver Board of Ethics that is examining whether Day violated the city’s code of ethics when she accepted a paid trip to Greece from a company involved in contract negotiations with the city.
The board met in executive session to determine what action to take, and a written opinion will be issued in a few days.
Day told the board that the city has since paid back $5,700 to Insight Media Limited, the London company that paid for her flight and lodging to attend the Airport Cities Conference in Athens, Greece, in 2009.
At the time, Insight Media was negotiating with DIA for a $370,000 contract to bring the Airport Cities Conference to Denver in 2012.
The contract was finalized the day before the 2009 conference began.
Day told the ethics board she didn’t have anything to do with the negotiations that at the time were over terms of the deal, not the amount of the contract that already had been agreed upon in 2008.
Day; Patrick Heck, DIA’s chief financial officer; and John Ackerman, DIA’s deputy manager of aviation-commercial, were speakers at the conference.
“We were invited because Denver is such a great story,” Day said.
Day had received approval from the mayor’s office to spend city money for the trip, but she pulled out because of the city’s budget problems. That’s when Insight Media offered to pay.
Day has said she called Michael Henry, director of the Denver Board of Ethics, to ask whether it was ethical to accept the trip from the company.
Henry has said he has notes from a conversation with another DIA employee and that his notes reflect there was no discussion of a contractor paying to fly Day overseas.
“I got the impression that this was an OK thing to do,” said Day, who wants the board to offer advice on what to do about these types of cases in the future.
She said it is not uncommon to accept trips from companies with which the city is doing business, such as letting a company that sells snow-removal equipment to fly out DIA workers to train them.
“I think we need to establish a clearer direction for the airport,” Day said.
“I firmly believe everything we did was ethical,” she said. “Certainly, there was no personal gain. My hope is there is a policy going forward.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
