Taken one at a time the scandals that have struck Adams County may not seem so bad. However, when you see just how many have occurred in recent years a disturbing trend is seen and the case for a change of leadership is made.

In a county encompassing nearly 1,200 square miles and with more than 600,000 residents there is bound to be plenty of drama.  Trends over the past couple of years however show that Adams County government is on the wrong track as scandals and management issues keep the county in the news resulting in it being cast in an unfavorable light.

There have been numerous problems accounting for federal government funds, questionable land deals and evidence of cronyism in awarding contracts.  Elected officials have used county equipment for their political campaigns and others have turned a blind eye to major issues within their departments and ridiculed those who dared to question them.

I very briefly touched on some of these issues in my endorsements for next week’s election.  Since then I have been thinking about all of the problems in recent years and when looked at closer the trend is troubling.  Voters need to understand there are problems – major ones – and leadership at the county level needs to be held accountable at the ballot box.

One little known fact is that the Adams County Commissioners, the Treasurer, the Clerk and the Coroner are full-time employment positions – unlike city councils.  Each one of these men and women are compensated handsomely to the tune of $87,300 per year plus expenses and benefits.

Their charge is to run an efficient and honest county government that provides services to its citizens while being good stewards of taxpayer money.  As you look through the list of problems below, ask yourself this simple question – have our current county elected officials succeeded and are they worthy of another term?

One or two problems over the course of a few years might be seen as understandable.  Having more than a dozen significant scandals and episodes of mismanagement is a trend that needs to be noted and corrected.

The current leadership from the Adams County Commissioners on down has been in place long enough to have corrected these issues and yet they have not.  Rather than confront the issues and be up front with the taxpayers, the powers-that-be choose to circle the wagons and deny, deny, deny.  It is always someone else’s fault.  Enough is enough.

• This list was updated 1/29/11

May 2007 to current – Adams County government continues to sit by and watch taxpayer money go to the FasTracks boondoggle. The writing was on the wall in May 2007 when the Regional Transportation District announced the FasTracks rail program would cost $1.4 billion more than promised.  In the intervening years costs have risen and mismanagement of FasTracks runs rampant.  The situation has gotten bad enough that north metro area residents will never see the rail system they are paying for without further tax increases.  Adams County government has remained silent rather than stand up and defend its citizens.  County commissioners continue to blindly support the project while doing nothing to ensure taxpayers get what they voted for.  (Source)

February 2008 – Adams County parks and rec director goes shopping on taxpayers’ time. An investigation by Channel 7 finds that the supervisor of the county’s parks system, Crystal Gray, is pretty much working whenever she wants.  Gray comes and goes at will and spends work hours shopping in Boulder.  In the end Gray resigns in disgrace.  (Source)

November 2008 – Continuing the trend in recent years, Adams County is the slowest county in the Denver metro area to report election results. Final results are not posted until 25 hours after polls close.  Editors of the Northglenn-Thornton Sentinel note that, “Once again, Adams County seems to lag the rest of the state in its ability to give timely, accurate election information.”  County Clerk Karen Long however insists voters and taxpayers simply expect too much from her office and that it is “ludicrous” to expect timely results.  (Source)

February 2009 – Adams County HOME and Community Development Block Grant programs fail to account for millions of federal dollars. In an audit of the county’s program that administers low-income housing funds, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found major problems with the county’s administration.  Among the issues noted were using funds without appropriate contracts, giving out money before actual costs were incurred and spending $2 million in funds without the required documentation.  HUD noted that, “Adams County lacked the internal controls needed to effectively manage the use of its HOME funds” and that the mismanagement, “could be depriving its low- and very low-income families of needed benefits.” (Source 1) (Source 2)

May 2009 – County loses administration of chunk of grant money. The City of Thornton votes to take away the administration of Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) from Adams County and handle them in house.  Adams County’s failures to properly administer their program concerned city officials as the county’s ongoing problems with money management could result in the loss of federal funding that helps Thornton’s low income residents.  With bi-partisan agreement, Thornton City Council votes to make the city its own Entitlement Community thus allowing it to receive funds directly from HUD rather than through the county. (Source)

September 2009 – Adams County’s HUD problems are so bad they make it into the agency’s Inspector General report to Congress. It noted that the county “spent more than $1.2 million on ineligible CDBG activities” and “did not ensure that more than $1.6 million in CDBG activities met a national objective.”   (Source)

September 2009 – HUD’s office of the Inspector General sends a memo to the agency’s Denver office warning of Adams County problems. The agency says that the county’s prior mismanagement has caused concerns that the county is incapable of properly administering stimulus funds.  They concluded that, “We found weaknesses that could significantly affect the County’s capacity to administer its Recovery Act funding.”  Most troubling is that they specifically noted that the county program was not administered by knowledgeable and capable management staff and they did not have a process in place to eliminate known conflicts of interest.  (Source1) (Source 2)

November 2009 – Still waiting for election results. Election Day once again brings problems in Adams County as the county is the only one in the metro area unable to complete its vote counting on election night.  In the end it takes Clerk and Recorder Karen Long’s office 23 hours to post final results, a showing that is so dismal the Colorado Secretary of State’s office calls the county on election night to find out what the problem is. (Source)

April 2009 – Adams County Coroner’s office embroiled in scandal. The office, run by Democrat James Hibbard, faces a bevy of problems ranging from charges of sexual harassment, failure to properly conduct autopsies, hiring of inexperienced investigators (including one from a strip club), and the misplacement of bodies.  Local media seizes on it but Adams County officials refuse to release the results of their investigation despite the public’s right to know. (Source 1) (Source 2)

September 2009 – County Commissioners Larry Pace and Alice Nichol execute act of political self preservation. Adams County voters have said time and time again they like their elected officials to be limited to two terms.  How do you get around it?  You place an issue on the ballot and word it so deceptively that voters might be tricked into voting for it which is exactly what Pace and Nichol did.  Further, the pair ignored the advice of their own district attorney about the issue resulting in a lawsuit that required a federal judge to resolve.  In the end voters approved Adams County Issue 1A giving these two a chance to seek a third term and continue the great work highlighted on this page. (Source 1) (Source 2)

January 2010 – Adams County fined for improper use of funds for lawsuit. In an attempt to stop the dumping of hazardous waste near Deer Trail, the city sues the state of Colorado.  County administrators spend $1 million from a hazardous waste fund to fund the lawsuit.  The county is found to have spent this money improperly and is fined.  Taxpayers foot the bill for their folly. (Source)

July 2010 – Contract for Adams County Community Needs Assessment embroiled in dispute. A county selection committee chooses Corona Insights to perform a “community needs assessment” – a study to determine what services are needed for residents.  Assistant Director Elizabeth Groginsky yanks the contract from Corona and forms a new committee (hand selected by her) that in turn chooses another firm to conduct the study – the same firm that has a lock on most county work through her office.  (Source)

August 2010 – County Commissioners Larry Pace and Alice Nichol ignore staff recommendations on company to provide furniture to new government center. Taxpayers have generously given the county hundreds of millions of dollars for their new offices.  A “Furniture Selection Committee” chooses Citron/Paoli/Teknion to provide the furniture for the new digs based on the company’s quality and the cost.  Without explanation County Commissioners Larry Pace and Alice Nichol overrule the county employees and give the contract to Officescapes/Steelcase – at a higher cost to the taxpayer.  Commissioner Skip Fischer, the lone voice of reason on the Board of Commissioners, objects strenuously to the improper award but is outvoted. (Source)

August 2010 – Clerk and Recorder starts issuing excuses for slow election results before the election. With apparently nothing having been done about the county’s historically slow vote counting, Karen Long warns ahead of time that results will be slow – again.  (Source)

August 2010 – County pays out $1.8 million for road work that was never done. Once again asleep at the wheel, it is found that Adams County paid out taxpayer money to Quality Paving for roadwork over a period of years that was never completed.  Adams County Construction Manager Sam Gomez and Road Inspector Stacey Par were charged with theft, conspiracy to commit theft, forgery, attempt to influence a public servant and embezzlement of public property.  All of this occurs right under the noses of the county government. Adams County Commissioners have yet to formally make a statement on the issue and explain why there was insufficient oversight that allowed taxpayers to be fleeced. (Source)

September 2010 – County land deal costs taxpayers $727,000 more than what it should have. As reported by the Denver Post, a bizarre land swap deal for a proposed juvenile detention center goes through a series of twists that result in the taxpayers footing a hefty bill.  Rather than try to buy the land directly, the county has a developer buy the land and the developer then turns around and sells the land to the county for a tidy profit of $727,000.  Did no one in management raise a red flag over this? Adams County Commissioners have yet to formally make a statement on the issue and explain this waste of taxpayer money.  (Source)

October 2010 – Adams County Treasurer uses county equipment for election campaign. Treasurer Diane Christner is found to have used county equipment and personnel to make copies of flyers for her campaign.  Perhaps just as troubling is evidence that Christner used her position to pressure department employees to attend her campaign fundraisers (at a cost of $10 per person).   (Source)

December 2010 – Adams County Assessor rewards political donors with lower property taxes. It is revealed soon after his reelection that Gil Reyes was giving some sweet deals on property taxes to his biggest donors.  The end result is the loss of tens of millions of dollars in revenue for Adams County. (Story)

January 2011 – New Adams County Coroner fires staff after being sworn in. Well it sure didn’t take long for yet another controversy to hit the County Coroner’s office.  Less than 48 hours after being sworn in new coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan fired nine staffers apparently without cause.  Whatever the reason, the action is odd and very questionable.  Broncucia-Jordan herself told 7News, “I don’t have any specific issues with any specific individuals.”  (Story)

January 2011 – Former head of Quality Paving surrenders to authorities. Jerry Rhea will face 23 felony counts for his involvement in the scandal that saw his company rake in $1.8 million from Adams County for work that was never performed. (Source)

January 2011 – Coroner once again in the news. Newly minted County Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan once again is in the news, this time for her office shuffling around the body of Wayne Kelly.  Sondra Kelly, Wayne’s ex-wife, told 7News, “I don’t appreciate it being shipped around like a lost bag at DIA.”  Broncucia-Jordan made no apologies and felt she was being unfairly targeted by the media.  She went on to say that her office had a backlog of “anywhere from 100 to 2,500 cases long.”  That’s a pretty wide range and it is scary to think the head of the coroner’s office doesn’t have a better handle on it.  (Source)

January 2011 – County Commissioner Alice Nichol’s family ties and the good old boy network in Adams County exposed. In a lengthy story in the Denver Post the actions of some county officials continues to come to light.  From underhanded business dealings to charges of nepotism, the evidence, while largely circumstantial, is more than enough to raise serious questions.  Like other county officials, Nichol is neck deep in controversy and once again shows how these old Adams County families have taken advantage of taxpayers for decades.  (Source)

Update, 12/13/11 – Catching up on headlines in recent months.  Summaries and sources to be posted soon but this gets you up to speed:

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