Audio By Carbonatix
“Inside Job,” Joel Warner, July 7
Career Suicide
Joel Warner’s article about the city’s Career Service Authority allowed the public to see a once-nationally emulated public employment system reduced to mediocrity by bad management. Auditor Dennis Gallagher’s performance audit should be required reading by anyone curious about why city employees are not the “best and the brightest.”
The single-worst change that the CSA board has sanctioned is to enlarge the list of choices for final interviews. At its inception, the CSA sent the top three to five applicants to senior managers. Now the list has grown to twenty. This change alone has populated the city’s workforce with sub-standard employees. The city’s pay scale and benefits rival private industry; there is no need to reduce our standards.
The purpose of Mayor Quigg Newton’s establishment of the CSA was to stop the practices of old-school politicians who handed out city jobs to campaign workers, friends and relatives. By changing the rules of the game during the past two administrations, the CSA has begun to turn the system back. Denverites accept the fact that our “strong mayor” form of government gives the mayor complete freedom in choosing his fifty senior management appointees, as well as members of all boards and commissions. The Career Service Authority has the responsibility to choose the best support staff for the mayor’s managers. The unprecedented enlargement of the list of candidates from five to twenty opens the door to favoritism and gives us less-than-stellar workers.
The only remedy for bringing Denver the best workers lies in the hands of our new mayor. He can fill the board with new members who have fully studied the functions of the original Career Service Authority. If the CSA is no longer useful and needs to be changed, it should be openly discussed and approved by Denver City Council and the citizens.
Cathy Donohue, retired city employee
Denver
I’m a retired human resources employee of the Career Service Authority and the Denver Department of Public Works, and this type of behavior would never have been tolerated under most of the personnel directors I worked for during my career. It is the personnel director of CSA’s responsibility to address this behavior quickly, directly and with discipline that fits the behavior. No employee, public or private sector, should have to put up with behavior such as this.
Kendell Hogue
Posted at westword.com
“Real Men Get Their Facts Straight,” Martin Cizmar, Ellis Conklin and Kristen Hinman, June 30
Trafficking Jam
I am absolutely appalled by this article about underage trafficking. Arrests are not a good way to look at whether a crime exists. We could say that very few people do drugs because the arrests for drug use is very low in comparison to usage, and crimes like regular prostitution are also low in comparison to the arrests. Crimes like child prostitution and underage trafficking are even harder to catch, and articles like this take public pressure away from trying to detect them. A great resource to find out more is www.notforsalecampaign.org.
Amy Marschak
Boulder
Re: Rachel Livingston’s July 14 letter, is there really a “cause of child prostitution”?
Brian Cassell
Denver
“Class Act,” Laura Shunk, July 7
Bed Rest
Laura Shunk is far too talented a writer to rely on hackneyed, overused cliches like “food coma.” By my count, the Row 14 review marks the third time (at least) I’ve seen it in her work. I got my fill of it living in L.A. last year — let’s put it to bed in Denver.
Keith Johnsen
Denver