November 11, 2011 08:11 PM UTC

Paging Ted Stevens: Jeffco's Bridge to Nowhere

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• by: Colorado Pols

We highly recommend you check out 9News’ Kyle Clark’s two pieces on Jeffco’s “Bridge to Nowhere” for examples of truly great investigative reporting.

Clark centers his story on the pedestrian bridge located at Wadsworth Boulevard and Bowles Avenue in South Jeffco, which links Southwest Plaza and Bowles Crossing shopping centers. We’ve seen that bridge before, but we’ve never seen anybody actually use it. Neither mall is really vibrant, and we have a creeping suspicion that the bridge will remain standing much longer than the shipping centers it links.

The most bizarre aspect of this story, though, is that Jefferson County can’t even justify the $3 million they spent on the bridge. At least, they can’t justify it privately.

From 9News:

As Jefferson County publicly defended a $3 million pedestrian bridge at Wadsworth Boulevard and Bowles Avenue as a “lasting asset,” the county’s engineer on the project privately acknowledged it was expensive and unnecessary, 9Wants to Know has learned.

Internal emails obtained by 9Wants to Know using Colorado Open Records Act show county officials struggling to justify the pedestrian bridge, completed in the spring of 2011 using a combination of federal and local tax dollars.

The bridge spanning Wadsworth just north of Bowles, connects two aging shopping malls, Southwest Plaza and Bowles Crossing. Some citizens, including resident Gary Michelson, have dubbed it: “The Bridge To, And From, Nowhere.”

When Michelson wrote to county leaders calling the bridge a “terrible waste of funds,” he received a stock answer from project engineer Brad Bauer that was similar to the two-page defense of the project sent to other concerned citizens. In one such response, Bauer writes the bridge will be a “lasting asset” that will “significantly improve the pedestrian safety at the intersection.”

That is not what the county’s point-man on the project was saying behind the scenes.

After an email exchange with Michelson, Bauer emailed his supervisor on June 22 saying he was “having a hard time coming up with any good response,” adding that he could agree with Michelson’s points about “the bridge being an expensive unnecessary expense.”

Just to make it clear: the liaison for the project is unable to respond to constituent complaints about the bridge, because he agrees with them.

Clark interviews Kevin French, with Jeffco’s Transportation and Engineering Department, and French is about as eloquent as Rick Perry in his most recent debate performance. You really have to watch the interview to get the full effect, but French doesn’t really answer any of Clark’s questions. When asked how French’s department can justify, well, their justification of the bridge to concerned taxpayers, French responds “it’s the best we have.” That’s the answer he finally comes to, at least, after first responding that he “wasn’t sure he had a good answer to that.” If you’re a big fan of deer caught in headlights, it’s a must watch.

This is one of the most asinine government decisions we’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something for Jefferson County. $3 million for a bridge? The August 2009 resolution which Clark discusses is even worse: then Commissioners Kevin McCasky and Kathy Hartman voted for it, as did current Commissioner Faye Griffin.  They approved an “expenditure of an amount not to exceed $376,600.00 to Muller Engineering Company, Inc. for final design, and additional services as needed.”

Nearly $400,000 for the “final design,” huh? 400 grand for a couple of drawings of a bridge? We assume the “additional services as needed” are in case Muller Engineering ran out of graph paper or erasers.

This is an important story for champions of good, transparent government, of course. But it also carries with it political implications. The folks in south Jeffco – those who see this bridge during their daily commutes – historically support the election of Republicans to the Board of Commissioners. But this same bridge, this “monument of government waste,” was approved with the votes of Republicans Kevin McCasky and Faye Griffin. If the vote on this bridge was before 2008’s election, we’re not sure if McCasky could’ve recovered.

McCasky’s long gone now, of course, but Griffin is still serving, and she’ll have to answer for her vote. Provide the Democrats can field a strong candidate in 2012, this story is going to look incredibly bad on mail pieces. Especially down near Wadsworth and Bowles, where Republican constituents may end up voting for the Democrat just because Faye Griffin wasted $3 million dollars in the middle of a recession.

Commissioners Don Rosier and John Odom weren’t on the board when the bridge was voted on, and they may luck out because of it. Yet in a county famous for its corrupt and misguided political officials, we think Rosier and Odom might have to answer why the county still hasn’t gotten its act together even after their election and appointment, respectively.

The only real winner out of this whole ordeal? Muller Engineering. Given McCasky’s previous ethical missteps, we wouldn’t be surprised if the real story here is who – and how – Muller lobbied to get this bridge built.