Denver Post 9/17/10: Elbert County mired in crises
Let’s break this turkey down:
- No county officials will go on the record to comment on the article.
- John Dunn is aggrieved over the situation, which is his normal mental state when it comes to Elbert County.
- Norm Happel is aggrieved over the situation, which is his normal mental state when it comes to Elbert County.
- Jim Whistler is aggrieved over the situation, and he is the underdog in the Treasurers race and has a political ax to grind.
- P.J. Trostel’s indictment has many counts, but prosecutors always over-charge, and all the counts seem to be not very material in value.
- Megan Taunton’s alleged breach also appears to lack much materiality.
- And the sitting commissioners decided to refinance county debt, a decision that they were clearly empowered to make.
This article reeks of election year politics. It’s main value appears to be as an indicator of a linkage between John Dunn and Jim Whistler. Mr. Whistler circulated an email a couple weeks ago that grew out of a freedom of information request he had made for the 2009 county audit report. He then cherry-picked a couple pages out of the 50 page document and forwarded those pages with his own suggestions of county financial impropriety. A friend routed the email to me. I asked Mr. Whistler to release the entire audit report so that I could make an informed analysis of his charges. He refused to release the entire report.
Those are the facts as I see them. Draw your own conclusions.