March 14, 2011 06:59 PM UTC

Otero & Larimer County Republicans having a bad day

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• by: Ah Choo

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Coloradoan’s Bob Moore has another field day with Republican County party shenanigans. First, the Otero County Republicans are now facing an SOS fine of over $50,000 (and growing). Second, the disgraced former Larimer County GOP chair is  facing a local police investigation now that some adult supervision has started reviewing the party’s finances.

In Otero, it was like shooting fish in a barrel once Bob got the crazy chair of the Otero County GOP on the phone:

The Otero GOP has accumulated $50,800 in potential fines for not filing the required 2010 reports, and the fine is growing by $300 a day. No estimate was available on the accumulated fines from earlier years.

That’s larger than the $48,700 fine the Larimer GOP is facing. The Larimer party is seeking to have the fine waived or reduced, but the Otero GOP can’t make such a request until after it files its delinquent disclosure reports.

“Good luck with catching it since we have a treasury of 218 bucks,” [Judy Reyher, GOP chair in Otero County,] said of the potential fines.

But it gets better:

She blamed her county party’s problems on Democrats.

“Between Bernie Buescher being the secretary of state and the fact that Gov. (Bill) Ritter unionized all state workers, you can forget about getting anything of any use done with a state office,” she said, noting that she hopes things will get better with Republican Scott Gessler as secretary of state.

Indeed. Read the whole story. It’s worth it.

Meanwhile, back in Larimer County:

Police probe Larimer GOP finances

Fort Collins police have begun a criminal investigation into the finances of the Larimer County Republican Party, which ousted its chairman and faces a record fine over delinquent campaign finance reports.

Police spokeswoman Rita Davis would say only that the investigation concerned finances of the county GOP. She said it was too soon to talk about a focus of the investigation by Fort Collins police detectives, or potential suspects.

The blog, LovelandPolitics.com, also has a piece up about the rank-and-file rage at the Larimer Republican Executive Committee for allowing this financial and ethical disaster to unfold under their noses.

Good for the Larimer Republicans–who brought on the County Assessor to try and make sense of their books–to at least not try and sweep any criminal activity under the rug. That’s the first step on their long, long road back to credibility.