WHO DO PUBLIC SERVANTS SERVE?
The former chief of police didn’t want to talk to me some months ago, asking that Steve Cox, at the time the mayor’s chief of staff, would be present. I thought this would waste taxpayers’ money, and wrote about the police department’s budget without his input. His e-mails were friendly.
I asked to meet with the chief financial officer of the Fire Department, and when I met Leslie Hickey, Richard Brown (then interim and now Chief) was present, answering any and all questions. Even though the union president, Jeremy Kroto, wasn’t happy with my piece, suggesting that the numbers I got from Hickey and Brown were wrong, he was pleased that there was focus on the CSFD.The CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities is “not available for an interview” according to David Grossman (1/10/12), one of the corporate communication staff. I asked why he was “unavailable” and about his compensation package and qualification, and received these numbers:
“Mr. Forte's annual salary of $276,750.03 has not changed since 2007. His 2010 short-term incentive was $31,411.13 and his long-term retirement incentive was $39,852.00. His 2011 short-term incentive was $34,455.38 and his long-term retirement incentive was $41,927.63. $50,000 has been budgeted for CEO incentive for 2012.”I guess someone with a pre-assigned “incentive” doesn’t need to talk to the press or provide a resume. Given his latest shameless stand-off with the mayor about CSU’s line of credit, he is probably ready to retire (and he can definitely afford it).
By the time I contacted the Regional Building Department, the friendly but suspicious chairwoman of the Board of Commissioners, Sharon Brown (Fountain councilwoman) asked for written questions. When I sent her ten questions on 1/12/12, she called back a couple of days later worried about the “purpose” of my inquiry. As we go to print, I’m still waiting for answers to simple questions such as the organizational chart of RBD and its budget. Councilman Herpin who serves on the board has yet to respond to my e-mail of 1/10/12.Maybe I’m completely off-base for asking public servants to explain how they are fulfilling their mandate. If this line of questioning warrants an apology, please accept mine right here from these pages.
On the other hand, if the CSBJ is to serve the business community, if its charge is to inform the public of anything that relates to business matters, and if the questioning focuses on monopolies (we can’t get electricity elsewhere), then how public officials operate is of paramount interest: who is in charge of licensing and permits; who is enforcing codes and fining businesses; who can we appeal to when bureaucrats play power games?The fallacy of the digital age is that “it’s all there in the website”, as Councilwoman Jan Martin admonished me when I asked about her maneuvering the Memorial process (which didn’t work out once the public was more involved). If it is, it’s not easily found; if it’s not, as in the case of the RBD, then simply directing an inquirer to the website is Kafkaesque (senseless, disorienting, with menacing complexity).
The danger of the digital age is that in the name of accessibility, the promise of liberalizing or democratizing the community is actually being undermined. It may even serve to control information more tightly, since there are no other modes of communication.Besides, as every businessperson knows from experience, numbers alone don’t tell much. They need to be contextualized and interpreted. If I have been guilty over the past few months of presenting numbers out of context it’s because their context was not readily explained on websites and power-point presentations, and when officers refuse to explain (either because it’s beneath them or because they don’t know, rather than because they have something to hide), then one must resort to printing numbers and waiting for a response.
We all deserve to know because this is what our Social Contract dictates: agencies levy taxes and fees on us so as to fund regulatory activities (RBD, City administration) or services (fire, police, and utilities). As citizens we implicitly agree to enter a Social Contract with other citizens and use agencies to execute our individual wills (majority rule) in a legitimate way: we self-legislate. This way of thinking goes back to ancient Athens and has been analyzed for two thousand years by political philosophers. When our agents—civil servants—forget their complicity in the Social Contract perhaps journalists or gadflies, as Socrates liked to describe himself, need to remind them of their role. If they don’t like this, they can resign; it’s that simple.
I realize that writing this column will prevent me from ever doing another project here. It’s a fair price to pay.Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who completed a few downtown renovation projects. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com
