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Czelatdko points finger at city attorney over McMillion

July 26th, 2012, 9:56 am by

An editorial that resurrected the $1.15 million separation agreement with former Memorial Health System CEO Larry McEvoy led City Councilwoman Lisa Czelatdko to divulge new details about what happened behind closed doors.

On a Facebook post of Gazette editorial page editor Wayne Laugesen, Czelatdko revealed discussions in closed executive session.

Here is what Czelatdko wrote, with edits:

I was actually in the closed executive session Wayne Laugesen and so know exactly what was said and not said. What was not said was a 1.2 million dollar severance package was being given to (former Memorial Health System CEO Larry) McEvoy.

What was said was:

1) Why is McEvoy here in chambers announcing a resignation with no announcement of it on the agenda or notification to Council from the City Attorney’s Office?

2) What was said from the Memorial Hospital Board Chair Jim Moore, was that they (board and Chris) were working on a severance package for McEvoy up to 18 months and that they had been working on possible packages for two weeks under the direction of Chris Melcher

3) What was said was that no Memorial contract would be valid without the signature of Jim Moore and Chris Melcher

4) And lastly, what was said was the reminder that Council, the City Attorney’s Office and Memorial board could not enter into any contracts over 1 million dollars without all three parties acknowledging it. This understanding was put in place a month prior to protect the lease negotiations and keep the current admin entering into big money contracts that UCHealth might not want.

When I left that room I know myself and many of my colleagues who did not support retention packages thought, ‘Good luck getting us to agree to anything more than his agreed contract package,’ and we went home after a 7-hour meeting day.

Wayne, please, please stop perpetuating incorrect information and writing articles based on non factual assumptions. Did (council President Scott Hente) and (council President Pro Tem Jan Martin) know more specifics? I don’t know. Do you know for a fact? Did (Councilman Merv Bennett) and (Councilwoman Brandy Williams) know? I’m not sure. Do you? All I know is Council was told by Jim Moore that Chris Melcher, City Attorney was assisting in package negotiations. Chris did not refute that as he stood there listening to Jim speak. Chris confirmed to Council what I mentioned above regarding signatures needed for agreed contract limits and Council was told a package would come back for confirmation. No confusion for me when I walked out of the room that the city attorney who is suppose to serve both Council and the Mayor, who dare Council question or challenge his legal opinion, had it under control and was working on it with the board. Assumingly looking out for the best interest of council and the city.

I also know after the nightmare began, Chris Melcher, city attorney informed council that he paid for an outside legal consult who confirmed the board could do what they did, that if we challenged them through litigation which (Councilwoman) Angela Dougan, (Councilman Tim Leigh) and myself all said we’d support, the City would be responsible for paying all their attorneys, fees, etc and they probably would win costing the taxpayers millions more of wasted dollars. Chris told Council it was a weak case to challenge, a done deal, basically Council would have to take the lumps, and the lame press release was put out by my colleagues (I was flying with space command) that we would not pursue the matter further. So as I see it everyone won but Council and the health payers.

Memorial and UCHealth got rid of McEvoy who was tainting the campaign and poisoning the morale of hospital employees, the Board showed defiance and wielded their authority one last time, McEvoy lost a job but got a heck of a lot of money, and Council gets the blame for not overseeing the Board more thoroughly. A board who legally was given full authority and fiduciary responsibility years prior. I can only assume that decision was because the prior council thought it made sense to appoint a full time board of knowledgeable people who could dedicate their time to the health system and report back monthly to council. Council, who back then, was a part time, poorly compensated body in charge of the city, the health system and the utility company. Council, who now is even more limited and minionized by certain vocal, agenda driven, influential people, who so obviously serve one master. All I can say is I hope someone is keeping track of some of these personnel issues and making permanent notes in personnel files.

Posted in: City Council • Meetings • Politics • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 21 Comments »

Councilwoman mulls support for PPRTA extension

July 20th, 2012, 2:38 pm by

City Councilwoman Angela Dougan said she is still considering whether or not to support an extension of the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority sales tax.

“I have to raise my concerns,” said Dougan, one of three City Council members on the PPRTA board.

Among Dougan’s contentions is that the mayor isn’t a member of PPRTA board and that the majority of the sales tax revenue is generated in the city of Colorado Springs but the city only has three representatives on the 10-member board.

The council on Tuesday will consider an intergovernmental agreement among the participating governments that spells out the make up of the PPRTA board and what projects would be funded if voters approve the tax extension, which is poised to appear on the November ballot.

PPRTA was approved by voters in 2004; 55 percent of the one-cent sales tax goes to a voter-improved list of capital projects, 35 percent to road and bridge maintenance and 10 percent to metro transit improvements.

Dougan also questions whether the “right projects” to be funded with the proposed sales tax extension have been selected.

“I just feel we need to slow down,” she said. “We need to do this right. We need to look at the IGA. We need to look at the funding. We need to look at the projects.”

The sales tax expires Dec. 31, 2014, but supporters of the sales tax extension want to put it on the ballot in November and ask voters to extend it to 2024.

“Are we doing this when we should? Two years out is too early,” Dougan said.

While a list of projects has been identified, Dougan is concerned that a future board could decide to shelve all the projects in the city.

“The contract has to have teeth to make sure we are protected,” she said.

“Technically, the board could vote to fund all the county projects, all the Calhan projects, all the Ramah projects, and never touch a city project,” Dougan added.

“We have to look at this IGA, and now is the time. Just going with, ‘Well, we never had this problem before.’ That’s not how we build contracts. We all know at some point in time someone may not play nice.”

Posted in: City Council • Elections • Politics • Transit • Transportation • • | 12 Comments »

Bach administration ‘leaning’ toward ending FREX

June 18th, 2012, 11:37 am by

Photo/KozeeLady

Is Mayor Steve Bach going to end FREX?

Probably, though a final decision hasn’t been made.

Chief of Staff Laura Neumann said Monday she hopes to have the mayor’s final decision about whether or not to continue the FrontRange Express, better known as FREX, in time for his monthly press conference on Tuesday.

But Neumann hinted that she will recommend ending the commuter bus service between Colorado Springs and Denver.

Neumann provided demographic data showing that about 4,000 Colorado Springs residents use local bus service daily while FREX has only about 200 daily riders during the work week. She noted that FREX includes riders from Monument and Denver. The city of Colorado Springs, through funding from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority, picks up the lion’s share of the costs.

“The average annual household income (of FREX riders in 2010) was $72,000,” Neumann said in an email.

“By contrast, two-thirds of our fixed-route bus riders have annual household incomes less than $20,000/year and 51 percent have annual household incomes less than $15,000,” she wrote.

“This should tell you which way we might be leaning with our recommendation as of this writing; although the recommendation is not yet definitive,” Neumann added.

Even though the Bach administration recommended ending FREX, the City Council voted 6-3 last week to continue an intergovernmental agreement that would keep FREX is operation at least through the end 0f the year. Council members Merv Bennett, Angela Dougan and Tim Leigh voted in opposition.

Council President Scott Hente said the decision was hard but that he had made a lot of hard decisions during his nine years on council.

“It seems like they’ve always been the wrong (decisions) because we’ve always been cutting,” Hente said before the June 12 vote.

(Watch video of Hente’s remarks at the bottom of this blog post.)

“On a per capita basis, we’ve actually cut police and fire. We’ve cut maintenance for streets. We’ve cut maintenance for stormwater facilities. We’ve gotten rid of hundreds of city employees, which means less services that we can offer to our community. We’ve decimated, to a large extent, our parks budget,” Hente said. “I guess at some point, I just to say from a personal standpoint, enough is enough. I guess I’m tired of cutting stuff. I’m tired of reducing services to the community.”

Watch the City Council vote here:

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After the meeting, Neumann said funding options would be discussed, and the chances of ending FREX this year were “very minimal.”

On Friday, Neumann said there were two outstanding issues involving the future of FREX.

“The first relates to the costs associated with extending the service on a month to month basis by four months (through December 2012).  We hope to have that information nailed down by early next week,” she said in an email.

“The second, is final confirmation that it within the Mayor’s purview to opt not to extend the contact if we believe the costs may be prohibitive.  That issue is in our City Attorney’s office for final review,” she added.

During the June 12 council meeting, a representative from the City Attorney’s Office said Bach had the authority to end the service from a contractual standpoint.

 

Posted in: Budget • City Administration • City Council • Meetings • Transit • • • • • • | 6 Comments »

McMillion culprits couldn’t even be trusted with cheerleader car wash, councilwoman says

May 23rd, 2012, 3:20 pm by

Councilwoman Angela Dougan is still fuming over the $1.15 million separation package given to the former CEO of Memorial Health System by the former Memorial board.

“I thought the Council and public had spoken very loudly they did not want “golden parachutes” when we told the board no severance/retention packages.  I never dreamed just little more than a month’s time the MH board would supersize and rename it and give it but they did and they learned not to let their intentions known,” she wrote in an open letter to the citizens of Colorado Springs.

“I promise to you the tax payer that I will not give the people most responsible for this atrocity my vote to ever have as much authority as to run a cheerleader car wash for this city,” she added.

Here is the full, unedited text of the letter:

Dear Citizens,

I want to talk to you directly about the mismanagement of the 1.15 Million “exit package” that recently went to Dr. Larry McEvoy.  This is one of the most upsetting issues I have had to deal with since serving on council.  My outrage,  at the fact that Memorial Hospital Board under Dr. Jim Moore and Vic Andrews direction would ink such a deal especially after just more than a month before I had lead the charge of no additional severance or incentive packages for any Memorial Hospital Executive Team  and in particular Dr. McEvoy, is true and honest.

Tim Leigh and I lead the fight months before communicating that contracts needed to stay the same and not have any last minute surprises. The Mayor, thankfully joined our voices and helped us to get a legal review of the actions that lead up to the million dollar giveaway, but please understand the Mayor has no authority over Memorial  Hospital.

Sadly, that review revealed exactly what I believed had happened, the deal was legal and binding.  Dr. McEvoy had had a lawyer with him every step of the way and Jim Moore had the backing and support of the MH Board to sign the contract.  Trust me when I say, I tried everything to either unravel this deal or at least hold the Memorial Hospital Board accountable, which the council did by their only legal means, which was firing the MH Board from their positions.

Now for the facts, the citizens of Colorado Springs in 1949 voted to have an independent board run Memorial Hospital with some oversight from council.  The board was responsible for all decisions including salary and removal of the CEO.  From 1949 to 2001 this system was in place.  Mayor Mary Lou Makepeace and that seated Council again reiterated that system of governance for the hospital that the citizens had voted on so long ago but they also added that no council member would any longer be on the board and the only power the Council would retain is the appointment of board members and their removal as well as yearly approval of MH budget.   The council would only receive monthly reports.  Those reports were to be as detailed as the current Hospital Board chose to make them.

As I have sat on the Council, I have heard the same financial report only with updated numbers.   When I did ask questions that in my opinion could be answered with yes or no I was inundated with 10-20 page answers.  I voted against the Memorial Hospital Board budget because by my understanding the only way they could increase revenue over 2011 budget by 4 %(which at the time they were not even hitting 2011 benchmarks) was to increase prices.  I asked about raises and I asked about sustainability but their answers did not pass my smell test so I voted against the budget, again my only way of making the public statement, I was not happy.  Every month I asked questions and even during one meeting when again Tim, Lisa and I were working to open up the RFP process to include more bids than just Memorial’s bid, I was booed by some of Dr. McElvoy’s  most loyal team mates.

So, now we are here today looking back.    I thought the Council and public had spoken very loudly they did not want “golden parachutes” when we told the board no severance/retention packages.  I never dreamed just little more than a month’s time the MH board would supersize and rename it and give it but they did and they learned not to let their intentions known.   The MH Board met with Dr. McEvoy with his lawyer in the eleventh hour and inked a deal that could not be reversed through court proceedings.  I cannot change the past but I certainly can learn from it.  I will not do anything that puts one more penny of our citizens’ dollars into Dr. McEvoy’s pocket.  I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that no other board is ever given this much power again when it deals with taxpayer dollars.  And I promise to you the tax payer that I will not give the people most responsible for this atrocity my vote to ever have as much authority as to run a cheerleader car wash for this city.

Thank You,

Angela Dougan

District 2 Council person

adougan@springsgov.com

Posted in: Boards and Commissions • City Council • People • Politics • • • • • | 13 Comments »

McMillion, FREX and Live it Up! on council agenda

May 21st, 2012, 9:53 am by

After canceling the last two regularly scheduled meetings, the City Council is back in full swing this week.

Among the items on Monday’s agenda:

Doug Price, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, will present an update on the city’s branding strategy. That’s right, Colorado Springs, we’re still Living it Up!

The new human resources director, Mike Sullivan, will go over proposed changes to the Civilian and Sworn Personnel Policies and Procedures Manuals.

They include reducing workers’ compensation benefits for police and firefighters from 2,080 hours of injury leave at 100 percent to 1,220 hours at 85 percent. For civilian employees, the proposed change would reduce workers’ compensation benefits from 2,080 hours of injury leave at 100 percent to 960 hours at 85 percent.

The Transit Services Division will sum up the public comments that it received on a proposal to discontinue local funding for the FrontRange Express, or FREX, and raise the Metro Mobility ADA Paratransit fare from $3.00 to $3.50.

The Oil and Gas Committee, which included Councilman Val Snider, the chairman, and Councilwomen Angela Dougan and Brandy Williams, will bring the rest of council up to speed on its work. The committee was formed to provide recommendations to council for oil and gas exploration and operations.

Finally, the council plans to meet behind closed doors to discuss the $1.15 million separation agreement for former Memorial Health System CEO Dr. Larry McEvoy. According to the agenda, the council will receive “advice and negotiation consultation with the City Attorney regarding Memorial Health System” and “advice and consultation with the City Attorney regarding potential litigation matters that are subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations and instructing negotiators.

Posted in: Boards and Commissions • Budget • City Council • City employees • Meetings • People • • • • • • • • • • • • | 5 Comments »

City schedules oil and gas public meeting May 24

May 18th, 2012, 6:25 am by

The City Council issued the following press release Thursday:

The city will host a public meeting on Thursday, May 24 from 6-8 p.m. at the City Administration Building (30 S. Nevada Ave.), suite 102 to get public input on proposed options for local oil and gas regulations.

City staff, elected officials, and Oil and Gas Committee members will be available to answer questions and record feedback on proposed levels of regulation for oil and gas exploration and development within city limits. The input will be considered by the voting members of the Oil and Gas Committee, who will deliver recommendations to City Council on June 12 for formal Council direction.  The City Attorney’s Office will draft the regulations, which will then be presented to Council for approval later this summer.

The Oil and Gas Committee was appointed by City Council in January and met over the course of 14 weeks to learn about oil and gas exploration and production, as well as review state and local regulations. Three councilmembers – Val Snider, Brandy Williams and Angela Dougan – served on the committee as voting members with the responsibility to bring forward recommendations on areas and levels of local regulation. The areas identified for regulation are: adherence to the pre-application/site plan process; impact fees; water quality compliance; land use setbacks; operational conflict avoidance language; zoning districts for oil and gas; high density/low density considerations; and conditions of Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) operator approvals for city government.

Handouts will be available following the meeting on the City’s Oil and Gas Committee webpage at www.springsgov.com. Public comment can also be submitted through the webpage or via email at OilandGasCommittee@springsgov.com.

Posted in: City Council • Meetings • Oil and Gas • • • • • • | Post a Comment »

Rivera: No-tax pledge makes stormwater options hard

May 14th, 2012, 12:26 pm by

Photo by Daniel J. Chacón

Former Mayor Lionel Rivera says the city has “plenty of options” to fund stormwater, which the city has largely put off since the City Council put a bullet between the eyes of the Stormwater Enterprise.

But one of the options suggested by Rivera — a tax increase — probably won’t see the light of day.

That’s because Mayor Steve Bach signed a no-tax pledge before he was elected.

Bach has sounded the alarm on the city’s half-billion-dollar stormwater needs and wants the City Council to look for inefficiencies at Colorado Springs Utilities to help pay for them.

Stormwater is responsibility of the city government that’s placed under the authority of the mayor.

“There are plenty of options, but difficult ones if you pledged not to support a tax increase,” Rivera said in an email.

Of all the City Council members who ran for office last year, only Councilwoman Angela Dougan signed the pledge, which was issued by the Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

The previous council eliminated the Stormwater Enterprise in December 2009 following the passage of ballot Issue 300. The vote was 5-4. Rivera was among the four council members who opposed eliminating the enterprise.

Here is the full text of Rivera’s email, with a few minor edits:

The mayor, with the support of City Council, can put a stormwater department in place with a similar fee as the enterprise and accomplish it through the legislative process. It wouldn’t be an enterprise, but it would subject to TABOR.

He could ask the City Council to develop a rate structure through (Colorado Springs Utilities) to support paying  for stormwater infrastructure. Even if there are cost savings that could pay for stormwater, he would have to advocate using the cost savings verses reducing rates.

If a small mill levy is the answer, then he would have to advocate for a tax increase.

The only way to get this done without a fee or tax increase is to grow municipal revenues or create efficiencies of $16 million annually in the municipal budget. I use $16 million because that is what the SWE fee generated.

If City Council can squeeze some savings from CSU and agree to cover some of the costs, then they would need to have a rate hearing to create the tariffs to justify and use the funds. The public would probably view this as a rate increase.

There are plenty of options, but difficult ones if you pledged not to support a tax increase.

Posted in: Budget • City Administration • City Council • Utilities • • • • • • | 6 Comments »

Crank thanks Dougan, Leigh and Czelatdko

May 3rd, 2012, 10:02 am by

Video from the Americans for Prosperity rally:

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Posted in: City Council • Civic Participation • • • • • • | 3 Comments »

Memorial trustees stone-faced amid calls to resign

May 2nd, 2012, 9:50 am by

Video from yesterday’s special City Council meeting:

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Posted in: Boards and Commissions • City Council • Meetings • Politics • • • | 6 Comments »

Memorial trustees go behind closed doors

April 30th, 2012, 3:28 pm by

Memorial’s Board of Trustees vote to meet in closed executive session Monday to discuss a $1.15 million separation agreement offered to outgoing CEO Larry McEvoy.

Councilwoman Angela Dougan, who raised strong objections to the exit bonus, asked to join the board in its private discussion.

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Posted in: Boards and Commissions • City Council • City employees • Meetings • • | 2 Comments »

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