Adams County Assessor Gil Reyes has come to the office about one-third of the weekdays in the past seven months, county records show.
Records provided to The Denver Post also show that on the days Reyes did appear at the new county administration building, his office hours were short. On all but two of 50 days he arrived after 10 a.m., and on 16 days, after 11 a.m.
In May, the busy month when assessors’ offices statewide hear property owners appeal their assessments, Reyes came to the office an average of two days a week.
Reyes, who is 58, attributed his reduced hours to a Feb. 22 stroke from which he is still recovering, followed by the death of his father a month later.
“I was hospitalized for 10 days,” he said, and took his doctor’s advice to lower his office hours when he returned.
“My doctor just wanted me to work light, three days a week,” he said. “What I’ve been trying to do is go in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”
Those workdays have been shorter for the same reason, he said. “It’s probably more like a five- or six-hour day, with lunch. I have to eat, get out of the office, keep my stress level down.”
Reyes has been under investigation this year, since The Denver Post reported that large contributors to his campaigns had won hundreds of thousands of dollars in property-tax relief. He also accepted Colorado Rockies and Avalanche tickets and lunch dates from his largest contributor, a California-based warehouse company, and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for failing to report those gifts.
A state investigation concluded that all Adams County warehouses should be reassessed, and Adams County district attorney Don Quick has said he is investigating whether criminal charges are warranted.
Out of office, but still in touch
As an elected official, Reyes draws a salary of $87,300 regardless of his office hours.
The Post requested records showing Reyes’ office hours from March 1 through Sept. 23, a period when county offices were open 146 weekdays.
In response, the county provided records of Reyes’ “card-reader swipes” — an access card needed to enter the new administration building from the employee parking lot entrances as well as secured areas of the building.
Those records indicated Reyes was absent from March 1 until April 25, then came to the office 50 of the next 107 work days.
Reyes said he continued to act as the county assessor on days when he was not physically in his office. “Even when I’m not here, my staff has the ability to contact me. I’m aware of everything that goes on,” he said.
He recalled feeling the left side of his body go numb on a February night, taking “the smile test” before a mirror — and noticing the sides of his mouth didn’t turn up equally. Today “I kind of laugh at this,” he said, “but the first thing I thought was, oh crap, I’m having a stroke.”
After Reyes spent 10 days in the hospital and three weeks recovering at home, his father died March 25, “the day I was going to come back to the office to let everyone know I was OK,” Reyes said.
Seven months later, “I still have some problems with motor skills. At times I have memory lapses. My speech is not where I need it to be,” he said.
Reyes said his doctor recently agreed he could go to work five days a week again but advised him not to push to a full 40 office hours yet. Meanwhile, “I’m doing everything I can to get back to 100 percent,” he said.
Former Brighton Mayor Jan Pawlowski, a leader of a citizens’ group threatening to recall Reyes from office, said the stroke was “a very unfortunate thing for Gil.”
But “to me, he’s stolen already from the taxpayers,” she said, and should not compound that by failing to show up for work. If a health condition has prevented him from working regular hours for seven months, “why doesn’t he resign?” she asked. “Do the right thing.”
Last November, Reyes was elected without opposition to a third, four-year term as assessor. Three weeks later The Post reported that contributors to his previous campaigns had won large reductions in their property assessments, many on appeals Reyes personally handled.
A newly elected county commissioner, Erik Hansen, promptly called for an investigation, and in February, a citizens group and Reyes himself both requested a state investigation of Adams County assessments.
Schedule before stroke disputed
That investigation, performed by the state Division of Property Taxation, concluded that contributor properties in warehouse districts, as well as the homes of a prominent contributor and his daughter, were undervalued in comparison with properties owned by noncontributors to Reyes’ campaigns.
The division reported that “49.5 percent of the appeals handled personally by Mr. Reyes were for properties of contributors and only one of those appeals was denied.” Twenty petitions associated with campaign contributors had yielded tax abatements totaling $848,694.
Records since released by the same agency suggest Reyes stopped coming to work regularly after the calls for investigations arose, a month before he suffered a stroke.
“Gil not to work since late Jan.,” lead investigator Cherice Kjosness wrote during an April conference call with a deputy county attorney.
Reyes disputed that.
In the first months of 2011, when the assessor’s office was moving to the new administration building, “I’d spent quite a few hours in the office. She must have misunderstood,” he said.
Kjosness said her notes accurately reflect what she was told.
David Olinger: 303-954-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com
