Liberal and Loving It

Bruce Benson - a fair evaluation

Lets try and look at the Bruce Benson nomination fairly rather than through the prism of partisan bickering, faculty conceit, and Cindy Carlisle's political positioning. (Fat chance we have of overcoming three such powerful forces.)

First off, the true job description of a University president has changed radically over the last 30 years. Faculty especially seem reticent to acknowledge this change - but the change has occurred. The primary job of the president is fund-raising, both from the legislature and from donors. And on this criteria Bruce Benson is well qualified.

The second job priority is the football team. Now I am in full agreement that the football team should be a small adjunct of the university. But in practice to many the university is a football team that also has something going on on the side having to do with education. The point remains, the athletic football department takes a lot of the president's time. How will Bruce do on this? Totally unknown.

The third (and final) main priority for a university president is student drinking. This is a gigantic problem and there is, at present, no know solution. (I think we would see an improvement is we brought back 3.2 beer as it funneled most college drinkers into very weak alcohol.) How will Bruce do on this? Again unknown although his answer to his early drinking leads me to be hopeful that he understands not only the problem, but how difficult it is to get college age kids to make intelligent decisions on this issue.

That's the job. A university president does not lead the school's research effort. He does not lead it's teaching effort. There aren't enough hours in the day to do the above plus lead the school itself. And it would be a very rare person who's skills span that gamut.

I think a lot of the faculty bitching is not that they want someone with the research skills that a PhD connotes, but that they want someone who pays due deference to the doctoral elite because they too are a member of it. As long as the president respects and understands the effort that goes in to both research and teaching, the PhD itself is unnecessary. Bruce Benson in his efforts over the years clearly does respect and understand this activity. He meets this qualification.

Now lets look at a couple of hot button items that have nothing to do with Bruce Benson, but instead are 100% the responsibility of the Regents.

There was 1 finalist. Bruce had nothing to do with that decision, that was the Board of Regents deciding that Bruce Benson was the only candidate they wished to move forward. It's reasonable and legit to get upset with the regents over this - but it is not a reflection on Bruce Benson as a candidate or his fitness for the job.

He's a Republican. First off, the university faculty and administration is so heavily Democratic that if Bruce Benson becomes the University president - it will still be heavily Democratic. Second, a political litmus test is anathema to the concept of academia being open to all ideas. Anyone saying Bruce Benson is not acceptable for being a Republican should be ashamed of themselves.

Cindy Carlisle "recently discovered" that there were two other qualified candidates. Maybe so although I am suspicious of anything Cindy says right now. But again, Bruce Benson had noting to do with how incompetently the Board of Regents handled the search process.

Evaluating Bruce Benson

So lets evaluate him on the issues that matter. The issues that are relevant to the job.

• Have him discuss how he will approach fund-raising. Yes he should be superb at it - but lets ask.
• Have him discuss his view of the importance of the football team. We need a president that will put the safety of the female students and the academic efforts of the school ahead of the success of the football team.
• Ask him for his ideas on minimizing student drinking. Don't expect a solution as there does not appear to be one, but look for thoughtful intelligent responses.
• Dig in on the specifics of his views on academic freedom and his approach to making the school a supportive academic environment. While this is not in his primary job description, it is an important issue that deserves attention.
• Sure talk to him about where he thinks energy research should be focused. It's a major issue and he is an oil & gas man. But the only part of this discussion that bears on this job is would he exert significant effort to steer the research in any specific direction. And even if that direction is renewable energy - that's a bad sign to have the president of the university attempting to influence the direction of specific research.

I don't know if Bruce Benson should be the next president of C.U. Almost all of the focus has been on issues that have nothing to do with his qualifications for the job and therefore we don't have answers to the above issues.

I would like to see the pertinent questions asked and answered.

Crystal Gray - the issues I see

Wow, this story appears to be resonating. Going by my Saturday morning shopping survey where I just track what friends I run in to bring up. Five out of six brought it up (and they all loved the hairdresser line). It definitely appears to be topic #1 now when people think about the city government.

Friendship

First off, lets discuss the difficulty of addressing this for council members and others involved in City government. Crystal is a nice and very likable person. I met her a couple of times and exchanged a lot of emails with her in the last election and I both respected and liked her. It's rough in a case like that to face a problem like this and to consider that you may have to significantly change how you think of someone and how you are going to interact with them.

This is much rougher for most of the city council members. The present council is by and large a very close-knit group that has been working together for 10, 20, or more years. They are long term colleagues with very close relationships. Just as we see the faults in other's kids much more easily than we see the faults in our own, it is very difficult in a case like this for the other council-members to step back and look at the situation clearly.

Our council-members are human. If it takes them a couple of more days to make this transition, give them some understanding. But the council-members do need to step back, and evaluate the situation dispassionately.

Telecommuting

Ok, lets postulate that Crystal did put in a 40 hour work week, but that lots of it was telecommuting. I have a lot of experience here having both telecommuted myself and managed many telecommuters (mostly programmers). And it is true that on average a telecommuter is more productive than the average office employee.

But, there is also a much wider variation in the productivity of telecommuters than of office workers. This is because some do not have the self-discipline to sit down and work. And telecommuting does not include shopping time, lunch time, or getting your hair done. Yes you can get a great idea while doing any of those things and you then make a note - but that's not part of you work time - that's extra you put in as a knowledge worker. Because 99% of your time doing that you are not focused on work.

And while telecommuting can be great for people who sit down and work, it is a lot more difficult for a manager. At one company where I managed a development staff where we purchased 2 computers for each person, one for home, and they all worked most days at home - I had to be at the office all day long every day. A large part of managing is talking to your employees so I had to be there when the others did work at the office so I could track what they were doing and what problems they were hitting.

Crystal stood the standard approach on its head, where all her employees were in the office all day long but she was only there for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Her main job was managing an entire department and in a job like that most of her time should be interacting with others - yet she was rarely there. I don't see how she could perform her primary responsibility in this manner.

Yes, telecommuting is very successful and can be used in a lot of scenarios. But Crystal's approach, for her specific job and management responsibilities, with all of her direct reports in the office - makes no sense.

The Story

We go to Channel 7 to get the original story (kudos to the news team there for a great job). And we have a follow-on story from the Daily Camera. From these we get generalities from Crystal, but no specifics to show when she was putting in the time. On the flip side, we do have the 7 News team documenting day after day work shifts of, in some cases under, 2 hours.

According to Occam's razor, the facts presented by 7 News, Crystal's immediate resignation, and Crystal's decision to not provide any substantive counter-proof, leads to the conclusion that she was working 2 - 4 hours/day max. It is also interesting that no employee of hers has stepped forward to back up Crystal's claim of putting in a full day - this is the dog that didn't bark.

In addition, Susan's time cards, according to the news story, were marked as working from 9 - 5. Yet clearly during that time she was at times shopping, getting her hair done, etc. If she was making up that time in the early morning or late evening, the time cards did not reflect that. So by her own admission, the time cards she turned in were incorrect.

If Crystal has a legitimate defense, she can and should present it. And I, as well as many others, would be very willing to evaluate that defense. (Note to Crystal - if you have information that exonerates you, or even makes this less bad, I am happy to post anything you send me here on my blog, complete and in full.) But with no defense and her decision to resign immediately, then it forces us with that limited information to draw conclusions that are not favorable to Crystal.

With our elected representatives we always have to evaluate them based on incomplete information. We don't have time to learn everything and they are never going to tell us everything. Yet we must make judgments on that limited information because these are the people we entrust with our government. Crystal can decide if we will get more information - but we cannot refuse to decide because of limited information - her role in our government requires that we evaluate and decide with the information available to us.

Why This Matters

We don't elect a collection of position statements. We elect people that we entrust to take a dispassionate, evenhanded approach to running our government. We don't expect them to always agree with us. And for the vast majority of their work we trust them to make a good decision without our even looking at the choices they evaluate.

This means we invest our elected representatives with a lot of our trust. Without that trust the system does not work because the rest of us don't have the time to look at every decision that comes in front of the council and determine if the decisions they make are reasonable.

With what everyone knows of Crystal's situation, she does not have that trust. And if further investigation shows that she truly did only work 2 - 4 hours/day, then she clearly does not deserve our trust. And in this case, she should not be on the council. Because if she will lie to Adams County to get paid for work she did not do, will she lie to us to vote on legislation to provide her personally with an advantage?

And what the rest of the council does matters a lot too. Because if they do not decide to investigate this, then they are telling the populace of Boulder that this is not a serious issue. And in that case the entire council itself takes on the same opprobrium of accepting this behavior.

They also in this case make it very difficult for Frank Bruno to require a full day's work of City employees as they can all point to a council-member as an example of why 2 hours work for 8 hours pay is acceptable. Just as children follow their parent's example, city employees will follow the example of the council.

Finally, as one person told me, "maybe the council does not want to investigate this because they could not survive similar scrutiny." Just as one bad cop makes all cops look worse and one bad doctor hurts the medical profession, a refusal to investigate impacts all of you negatively.

In Conclusion

I take no joy in saying the council needs to address this. I take no joy in calling on Crystal to resign. I feel sorry for her in that this has ended her political career as she was clearly impassioned in her council work. But I do think it's necessary to do both.

And Crystal, for your own sake I suggest you resign quickly. This looks like you made a big mistake, but staying in office will keep the entire issue front and center on you. If you resign you can get on with your life.

The City Council can't boot Crystal off

I remember this great WKRP episode where the station signed a contract for an ad campaign and then found what was being sold were caffeine stimulants for kids that were putting them in the hospital. Legally they had to keep running the ad, but they started having an announcement before each ad calling the person selling the stuff a scumbag, sleezeball, etc. Great show and great way to handle the problem.

Ok, the council cannot kick Crystal off the council. Due to the "Protect Richard Polk Stoned Councilmember's Jobs" amendment the only grounds for removing a council-member are "...is convicted of a felony while in office, or is judicially declared a lunatic..." No removing for moral turpitude. So the council cannot remove her.

But, here is some interesting tidbits. In section 2-7-9(c) says:

A city council member, employee, or appointee to a city board, commission, task force or similar body who determines that his or her actions may cause an appearance of impropriety should consider, but is not required to, disclose and recuse as prescribed by section 2-7-10.

Crystal's actions cause an appearance of impropriety in anything that comes before the Council.

There is also section 2-7-5(a) where council members are not allowed to take gifts from donors that may require official action or have a relationship with the city. Clearly Adams County will have interactions with Boulder in some of the inter-governmental bodies they are both on. And since Crystal did not work for ¾ of her salary from Adams County, that payment could be considered a gift to her.

In both cases the only action the council can take is to censure her. But clearly the Council does have grounds to determine if they should censure her. The council can probably also look into what matters before the council they can require Crystal to recuse herself from.

The bottom line is that the Council cannot remove Crystal. But they definitely can make it clear that they find her continued presence odious and morally offensive.

And while the Council can't remove her - she can be recalled. And as she was re-elected and has been on council for over 6 months, she can be recalled today (or tomorrow...)

Is Cindy Carlisle trying to lose?

I ran in to one of Rollie Heath's main supporters at the caucus Tuesday night and I asked her if Rollie's plan was just to keep quiet and let Cindy insure his win? She said it was absolutely amazing how Cindy was destroying her own candidacy.

Let's revisit Cindy's high low points in her campaign so far.

1. First she voted to retain Ward Churchill as a professor at C.U. explaining that doing so was a vote in favor of scholarship and integrity, by retaining someone who exhibits neither.
2. Then she was sitting on the Board of Regents (she at least had the brains to recuse herself) when it voted to pay 2.5 million to her husband. Clearly her being a regent had an impact on the University's decision to settle, and for how much.
3. Finally the other day she decided to channel her inner John Kerry and said she is against Bruce Benson as the new president after she voted for him. And then it turns out, she was the regent who proposed Bruce as a candidate.

Cindy, in Hollywood the rule is say whatever you want in the papers, just spell my name right. But that rule doesn't hold in politics. You've been getting a lot of press lately - but it's all bad. Until you figure out how to do something that will reflect positively - don't do anything.

Oh, and Rollie, just stay quiet and if contacted by the press, suggest they talk to Cindy instead. She can do a lot more for you than you can.

The Superdelegate issue

We have lots of posts about how the superdelegates should be forced to vote one way, or not be seated, or ... This is all wrong.

First off, any delegate selection is flawed. So is our present system perfect? No. But it is reasonable. And as it is reasonable, it is the rules we started with and therefore these are the rules we should carry through on to the end of this primary. Changing the superdelegate system now is every bit as unfair as seating MI and FL would be.

Second, the super-delegates were created for a reason - to give a strong voice to those that have run as, won as, and governed as Democrats. And there is a lot of value in this. These are the people that have successfully gotten elected. Their jobs depend on getting the best candidate nominated. And they know better than us what is required both to win and to govern.

Keep in mind, all of these super-delegates are either running for election now or in 2 or 4 years for some Senators. Or they are in charge of getting Dems elected. The absolute last thing any of them are going to do is piss off half the electorate. And I think the reason people like the chair in Maine are saying they will follow their state is that they are scared to death of exactly that - pissing off half the base.

What we are facing is Obama & Clinton going to the convention essentially tied in pledged delegates. And if they are basically tied, then it is up to the super delegates. And as someone has to break that tie, I think they are as good a group as any.

With that said, I'm pledged as an Obama delegate for the County Convention and I will vote Obama, both there, and if sent to the national convention, there also.

Crystal Gray hasn't resigned yet???

Ok City Council, apparently Crystal figures she can, a-la Richard Polk, just remain on the Council even though she retains no credibility or moral authority. So you need to step up and determine if Crystal should remain on council or if you should vote to have her removed. Refusing to act on this will be a mess, for the council, and for the city government.

1. How can the City Manager require, with any credibility, that City employees work the hours they are paid for when a council member worked a fraction of her paid hours - and remains on the council. This is an insult and counter-example to every city employee who does a diligent job. On the flip side, Crystal is an encouragement to every slacker on the city payroll.
2. How can the council speak with any moral authority with Crystal seated on the council. Every speech, every proposal, every law will be tainted with "do as I say, not as I do." You may retain the legal authority to pass laws but you will have lost the respect of the citizens. The 9 of you will become the lame-duck, disrespected, morally compromised Colorado equivalent of George Bush.
3. This will become strike 3 against the political elite of Boulder. Strike 1 was Richard Polk kept on Council when he clearly should have been bounced. Strike 2 was McLean/Stevens grabbing a neighbors land. This is strike 3. Every news story about the council will lead to numerous reminders of the lack of integrity on the council.

This is not a little thing. Leaving Crystal on the council, without determining if she should be removed, sends a loud signal that the council accepts fraud & theft - as long as it's someone they know and like. Rot like this spreads quickly.

Do it because it's the right thing to do. Or do it because your authority will be pummeled if you don't. Or do it because your odds of re-election suck if you don't. See Matthew 16:26

Caucus - oh what a night

First off, it was a total clusterfuck, but in a very good way. They had I think 6 or 7 precincts stuffed in to Bear Creek Elementary. The largest number of attendees ever in the past at the precinct had been 14. Tonight it was 144. You ever try to stuff 144 adults into a classroom?

But it was so cool. Driving up and you have to park 1/4 mile away because there are so many cars. Lines 10 minutes long to get registered. The people running it clearly totally overwhelmed at the numbers. Just counting votes in the meetings became difficult because we had to count off due to the large numbers.

So here's the big news I saw.

1. In the initial meeting of everyone there was a speaker for each candidate. Most of them sucked. As in, they were, if anything, hurting their candidate. And the 2 minute time limit each - ha.
2. Straw poll for CD-2 - Joan's going to win. It was 44 Joan, 22 Jared and 0 Will (a lot of people had left by then). Will's in deep do-do if almost no one knows who he is. And if Jared is down 2:1 in a very wealthy part of very liberal Boulder - how's he going to do in less liberal, less yuppie area.
3. Granted Rollie Heath lives in our area but it was overwhelmingly for Rollie over Cindy. And everyone wondering if Cindy was trying to lose to Rollie with all her dumb moves.
4. Our precinct voted by acclimation to not talk about or vote on the party platform as everyone ignores it anyways. A very sane decision.
5. Numerous mentions of support for Claire Levy - but no one was willing to be a delegate for her district's convention. What happens if the convention has 0 delegates, does she still get on the ballot?
6. I'm a delegate - both for the County Convention and County Assembly.

And I'm an Obama delegate to the county convention and county assembly. I will try to live blog from there.

Crystal Gray needs to resign from the City Council

For those that have not seen the story yet, it's here at 7NEWS (very good reporting job).

Crystal, you are going to have to resign from the City Council. You can do it quickly and minimize the additional pain. Or you can drag it out. But as long as you stay in office this will be the issue in city politics.

On any City Council a member found engaging in behavior like this would have to resign as the voters are not willing to trust someone like this with their money and their laws. But in Boulder it will be an even stronger push than in most cities. First off, there is a greater expectation of disinterested advocacy on the part of our council-members.

In addition, Boulder has a nanny government. You can think that is a good or bad thing. You can agree or disagree with what the council advocates. But you cannot argue that the City Council does not try to govern as the citizen's nanny. Having a City Council that gets in to our personal lives and behavior, that tells us what light bulbs to use and what trails we can hike on - it just won't work to have a council-member who does not practice what she preaches.

Also, we first had Richard Polk walking away from his arrest. Then there was McLean/Stevens grabbing someone else's land. This is the third strike against the political establishment here. As long as you are in office you will be the political issue here for many many people.

With that said, this is not the end of the world. Apologize, quit, and start on something new. This is America, the land of 2nd and 3rd and 100th chances. There's a world of new opportunities awaiting you.

ps - Just how out to lunch is Adams County management if they were unaware of this? Wow!

How about we keep it simple?

At the caucuses we always have these long platforms that include everything including the kitchen sink - and they are then ignored.

How about a single simple resolution - "do what's right, not what's expedient?"

Libertarianism - does it make any sense

Chuck Wright (Boulder's most ardent Libertarian) and I traded a number of emails on the subject of does Libertarianism make any sense. With his permission, here is the conversation. Here is the exchange once we got into the debate.

Note: this is the raw email, not text carefully written for posting here.

David Thielen: I’ll make you a deal – give me one example of a successful 1st world country that provides schools & libraries via private donations/payments other than taxes and we can debate. Not “it could happen” but a proven case where it is successful that way. Just one…

Chuck Wright: I'm not aware of any that exist today. Before the 1850s, the US education system was primarily private. I'm not sure about libraries.

Your challenge is absurd though. Just because something doesn't exist now is no proof that it can't exist in the future. Your challenge assumes that there can never be anything new under the sun.

I have a challenge for you. Cite one instance where any country moved in a libertarian direction on the economic scale but it's economy didn't improve within four years of the change. Explicitly excluded are countries that suffered from a major natural disaster or war during the time period.

David Thielen: You are right, the fact that something has never been tried does not mean it can’t work. But in that case we should try small experiments, not jump all in on a wish and a prayer and hope we don’t totally screw ourselves. Yes before 1850 a lot of the US education system was private – but productivity back then sucked compared to today. On the flip side Taiwan and South Korea are where they are today because they put every spare cent into public education after WWII.

So history shows that public funding of libraries & education pays large returns. There is no known example of the reverse holding true. So which is the better bet?

On your question, to be honest I can’t think of a single country that has moved in a libertarian direction. There are countries that have embraced capitalism and liberalism and that shares some tenets with libertarianism but countries that have moved toward policies that are explicitly libertarian, I don’t think there are any. You have countries that have become a bit less libertarian, Hong Kong and Brazil to name two and they are doing as well or better than before.

Chuck Wright: I like small experiments.  I wish a small libertarian country could be established so we could measure what happens.  Unfortunately none are on the horizon that I know of.

Speaking of small experiments, there is a chance that Massachusetts could move in a libertarian direction this November.  There is a measure on the November 2008 ballot that would repeal the Massachusetts state income tax.  A similar ballot measure received more than 45 percent of the vote in 2002.

Taiwan and South Korea became prosperous because their economies became relatively free after WW II and in spite of the fact that they spent public funds on education.

History shows that economies can prosper even when handicapped by government spending on libraries and education provided their economies are otherwise free enough.  History is full of examples of countries that spend a high proportion of their GDP on education but their economies flop because they're not free (the Soviet union and Cuba for example).

The Cato Institute publishes a book annually that documents the measured economic freedom of most countries (see http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/).  The report shows that the economically freest countries are the most prosperous (as predicted by libertarianism).  One can monitor the prosperity and economic freedom of each of these counties from year to year and see that the two move together in the same direction (as predicted by libertarianism).

David Thielen: So your core postulate is there is no example to show that libertarianism will work - but lets switch to it anyways? And how does Somalia not count as an attempt at libertarianism? Yes it's a disaster - but that may very well be what libertarianism leads to.

You say Taiwan & South Korea do well because of their economic freedom, not their spending on education. Well according to the Cato study you pointed to - Kazakhstan, Armenia, and South Korea have equal economic freedom - as does Botswana, Jamaica, and Taiwan. If you want to claim those other countries are doing equally well we need to end this conversation now as you are in cloud cuckoo-land.

South Korea and Taiwan are far ahead of Kazakhstan, Armenia, Botswana, & Jamaica because of the investment they make as a society, via their government, in their people.

You are correct that economic freedom, within constraints, is a very powerful force for improving the lot of society. But as Mauritius (tied with Japan and most of Scandinavia on the Cato list) shows - it is not of an by itself all powerful.

This is where libertarianism fails, in it's attempt to lay everything at the foot of one measure rather than understanding the incredible complexity of the human condition. France may be down at 52 (ie not even in the top third) in the Cato list - but most people looking at the big picture understand that by any reasonable measure, France is doing quite well.

It comes back to looking at existing examples. There is nothing to show libertarianism will even work, much less work better. Even your own numbers put the lie to it's possibilities. And on the flip side, governments that invest effectively in their society, and have a liberal democracy - do well.

Present standing: I have answered all of Chuck's questions. He has answered only part of one of my questions using the U.S. pre 1850 as an example (things are a bit different now). And the Cato numbers he references actually prove my counter-argument. So, back to Chuck.