“Warren Buffett and our Regional Building Dept.,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, March 16 - 22, 2012, 17.

BUFFETT WEIGHS IN ON POLITICS

Warren Buffett is super-rich, one of our American billionaires who is ready to leave the stage. As he’s planning to depart, he has given the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation the responsibility of disposing of his billions for good causes. Delegating is an art, not a science, and Buffett seems to be masterful at finding expertise where he needs it.

So why weigh in on political issues? Why make headlines about paying a tax rate lower than his secretary? Why go public with what seems to be his private business? Why expose himself in a way that the millionaire Mitt Romney has shunned for months?

Perhaps the master investor has figured out that presidential election are more of a side-show at best, and at worst a way to expose the ugliest of what our country stands for, with mud-slinging and unfounded accusations, appeals to religion rather than the Constitution, and overblown concerns with abortion rather than health care reforms.

Perhaps he’s figured out that presidents come and go, maintaining a status-quo set up by a huge D.C. bureaucracy that runs its own course. Presidents—Republicans and Democrats alike—end up powerless against Congress. There is a reason why Congress’ approval rating is so low that in some polls it’s in single digits: it has become a dysfunctional institution.

So, Buffett sent out a letter offering his “Congressional Reform Act of 2011.” It’s fairly simple, and if implemented could change the course of American politics, bringing it back to the vision of the Founders who believed that representatives should meet for short periods of time annually to legislate. Here’s Buffett’s agenda:

“1. No Tenure/No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term’s, then go home and back to work.”

Straightforward as this seems, no ground-swell support is seen anywhere. We grumble and complain, despise our professional politicians for the special conditions of their employment, health care, and their retirement benefits, but they snub us all, remaining detached from the constituents they are supposed to represent.

Moving from the national level to the local, one wonders why our local millionaires—and there are quite a few of them here—aren’t as outraged as Buffett or as forthcoming with suggestions to reform our local political bastions of power—bureaucracies without supervision. Some do get involved, but not enough.

RBD’s leadership, Sharon Brown, chairwoman of the commissioners and Fountain City Councilwoman, vice chairman Dennis Hisey who is El Paso County Commissioner, and Bernie Herpin who is CS Councilman, has refused to respond to the questions posed in writing on 1/12/12 and published in the CSBJ on 2/17/12.

Obviously RBD is not accountable to anyone. Its organizational chart is still a secret only these commissioners know but refuse to divulge to the public. And here we are, trying to lure businesses to our town, but they won’t be able to refurbish spaces or pull permits because the commissioners won’t let them know who they should approach. Maybe a contractor will whisper the secret to their ears (for a fee), maybe not.

Unlike the RBD, and for that matter MHS and CSU, the Fire Chief decided to put together a task force to find “Business/Broker Solutions for 2012.” Chief Brown and Fire Marshal Lacey are trying to be business-friendly, forward-looking. Two RBD representatives were at the first meeting—nice and conscientious individuals who care about the city but remain politically powerless.

It’s not that RBD employees are not wonderful professionals who want to do the right thing; it’s that their bosses are unresponsive to the public, careless at best and negligent at worst, snubbing the same public these employees are trying to serve.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who is still waiting to hear back from RBD’s three commissioners. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“Shouldn’t public servants face questioning?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 3 - 9, 2012, 21.

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

“Eliminate the fire dept.?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, December 16 - 22, 2011, 21.

RED UNIFORMS?

It’s easy to conjure images of firefighters from movies, heroic efforts to put out a fire, save lives and property. The horrific memories of 9/11 include those of courageous firefighters that lost lives while saving others, selflessly doing what they do best. And those cute Dalmatians: who can resist them around the fire station?

What about our very own men in uniform? Is their efforts worth close to $60 million annually? Can’t we do without them altogether? Why not lose a few houses a year, let them burn to the ground? How much are firefighters worth? At least one politician made her career based on her support for these men in uniform. No politician dares cross their voting power, and therefore begs for their endorsement. The amicable Richard Brown was finally installed as the Fire Chief after Mayor Bach finally decided to keep Steve Cox in his administration (still a chief)—both good choices.

A new fire truck costs about $400,000 and a “ladder” close to $800,000 (we have six of those). Our CSFD buys refurbished trucks that cost less than half of new ones. It also plans to open two new stations without staff increases. Doing more with less is what they are thinking, especially with a business-minded mayor that expects them to be efficient, while remaining “business friendly.”

Full disclosure: when I had historic-preservation issues with Il Postino’s ceiling (now Springs Orleans), it was the fire chief who came to my “rescue” as Regional Building inspectors gave me a hard time. It was his letter of support that preserved the historical ceiling of a building with sprinklers two blocks away from a fire station. Mayor Bach: they are business friendly!

So, have I come to praise the CSFD rather than bury it? Perhaps praise isn’t the right term. It’s about realizing what they do. In fact, out of around 35,000 annual 911 calls to which they respond, only around 700 relate to fires. So, it should be renamed the Colorado Springs Emergency Department. Just as with my recommendation to change Thanksgiving to Thanks-eating, I doubt this one will happen. So, what kinds of calls are these?

As “first responders,” firefighters deal with more medical issues than anything else. This is not surprising when over a third of the local population lacks health insurance and is frightened to go to emergency rooms or call an ambulance. If that’s the case, why send a huge fire truck rather than a CSFD ambulance? Isn’t this wasteful? Why not just call the private ambulance service?

Unlike a fully–equipped ambulance, which arrives as well and which for a fee transports patients to hospitals, fire trucks have additional equipment that may be needed. The reason for this perceived waste is twofold: first to ensure extreme needs—emergency responses plan for the worst scenario and hope for the best (a cat stuck in a tree), and second to provide redundancies, which are required for safety (think of your gas needle and the odometer which can be zeroed when fueling). Those enormous trucks contain all that can be used if and when something goes really wrong: heart-attack of an obese patient stuck under a bed in a room whose door is too small to walk through.

If the CSFD dealt only with emergencies that are fire-related, the question would be: isn’t preventive work more important than actual firefighting? If yes, why are there only 15 inspectors out of a workforce of 465? One answer has been to certify another 97 captains and lieutenants to do inspections as well. In fact, in residential calls, the team also checks for fire/smoke-alarms and when they are missing, installs them free of charge. 

If all buildings were sprinkled, wouldn’t the need for CSFD be diminished? On one level, the answer is yes. On another, there is a difference between commercial buildings (required to have sprinklers) and residential (which are not), as well as between new construction (which are required) and old ones (which are grand-fathered without). With this in mind, we may have to wait for old building to be replaced over time before fires would claim no lives. Incidentally, the 700 fires in 2010 claimed 3 lives and $12 million in damage, while $270 million were saved.

Last year 23 new fire-fighters were hired from a pool of 1,757 applicants. What’s the attraction? Starting salary is around $41,000 (teachers start at $32,000). Average work-week is 56 hours (with day on, day off schedule). Union membership is optional (more than half are members), even in this conservative, anti-union city. So, is it the movies, accolades, adrenaline rush?

The best answer I heard is the sense of camaraderie, team-work, and collaboration that makes it all worth it. Sounds socialist, especially with red as the color of choice? Whatever their ideology, they do save lives!

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who thankfully only dealt with fire inspectors over the years. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com