NOREEN: Calling for investigations always sounds good
Sometimes when events aren’t playing out the way officials desire, they turn to a time-worn strategy.
Alert the media on a slow news day.
Appoint a blue-ribbon panel.
Assemble a gold-medal commission.
Anoint a committee.
Call for an investigation.
When calling doesn’t work, try shrieking.
Colorado Springs City Councilman Tim Leigh, a serial shrieker, employed the strategy nicely Monday, claiming that unnamed physicians have made allegations concerning mismanagement at city-owned Memorial Health System. Leigh used blatantly McCarthyesque tactics designed to force Memorial’s leadership to shadow-box with unknown critics.
“I did not mean to be incendiary,” Leigh managed to intone with a straight face.
Of course being incendiary is precisely what Leigh intended.
Yet Leigh took part in a unanimous council vote to allow Memorial to proceed with negotiations that will result in a merger with University of Colorado Health. Many details must be worked out before a proposal will be presented to voters; Leigh seems frustrated he can’t be in charge of it all.
But this isn’t just about Tim Leigh’s latest rant. City Hall has become replete with investigations in recent months and though it can sound good when an investigation is launched, a panel appointed, a commission assembled — most of these “probes” amount to little or nothing.
Did you notice? We’re on our second investigation of the ill-fated deal the city pushed to get the United States Olympic Committee to stay here. A couple of years back an ethics investigation cleared former Mayor Lionel Rivera, whose investment client, developer Ray Marshall, botched the USOC development project downtown.
As felony counts have showered down around Marshall, Mayor Steve Bach announced a new investigation, although some of us wonder if the city shouldn’t just get out of the district attorney’s way on this one. Similarly, the city has launched investigations into the Urban Renewal Authority and former budget officer Terri Velasquez, who was fired after trying to blow the whistle on the USOC deal.
Gazette coverage of the clownish liquor enforcement investigation at Hooters showed that police clearly misbehaved, but City Hall’s investigation turned up nothing of the kind.
Beyond failing to result in anything concrete, these investigations actually can have the opposite effect of bringing anything new to light. Media requests for information about investigations can be rebuffed, using the old dodge about releasing “work product” data.
In the end we’re left to ask, ‘how come there are so many investigations?”
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Listen to Barry Noreen on KRDO 105.5 FM and 1240 AM at 6:35 a.m. on Fridays and read his blog updates at gazette.com
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