Former Boulder congressman David Skaggs, now Gov. Ritter’s higher education chief, replied to my June 18 open records request, seeking documents explaining the extent to which state employees were doing policy development work for the governor’s proposed ballot initiative campaign.
Mr. Skaggs noted that providing correspondence between his staff and the Governor’s staff on Initiative 113 — the Governor’s proposed $300 million oil and gas tax increase — could require as much as seven additional working days and might not be completed until July 1.
“[T]he staff of the department cannot reasonably gather or prepare such documents within a three-day period without substantially interfering with the staff’s obligation to perform other public service responsibilities,” he wrote.
Isn’t it curious that Department of Higher Education staff apparently can develop from scratch a $130 million scholarship program “without substantially interfering with (its) obligation to perform other public service responsibilities” but can’t simply provide copies of correspondence in which they have discussed the program?