I want to bring my friend and crack reporter from Complete Colorado dot Com, Sherrypife, on the show today about her story that I just realized I did not put the link on. When I will fix that momentarily about some really interesting, well let's just say, placements at CEU that have to do with washed up politicos.
Sherry, Welcome to the show. How you doing.
I'm doing great, Thanks, Mandy, how are you?
I'm doing excellent.
So.
I saw this story when it came out Friday, and honestly, I wish I could say I were surprised. I'm not, but the way this has gone down is a little bit surprising in that it seems rather uh gosh, what's the word.
I'm looking for?
It seems too blatant, I guess is the word that I'm looking for.
That maybe they would have tried.
To hide the fact that politicos are getting plush jaws at you, but they didn't, so tells the listening audience what we're talking about here.
Well, and I think that's exactly it. I mean, I don't think anybody would be surprised to know that when CU does it's hiring, that they hire liberal, progressive folks for those positions. I mean, that's just historically, that's what
universities do, especially CEU. But what Connor I was when the most recent vice chancellor was hired, and he was a former sustainability officer in multiple different positions under the Joe Biden administration, and then the timing of his job at CU, which he was hired to do sustainability stuff
as well. The timing of his job at CU started almost immediately following the ending of the Biden administration, you know, the good yeah, right exactly, And it was a position that was created, So it was a newly created position that started immediately after his position ended under the Biden administration, of which he also worked for Obama and Clinton as well. But not only that was some there was some reports
when he was initially hired. There was some reports in some other newspapers about some of the CU regents being extremely frustrated because he was the only applicant that they brought forward. So when they brought forward here's who we're going to choose from, he was the only one brought forward. So you add to okay, there was a newly adopted
position or newly created position. The guy came from an administration that just ended, and he's making over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, I think is what is in the story. It was that was surprising in and of itself. But then the thing you know about Complete Colorado is were owned by the Independence Institute and people there have been there for a very long time,
so there's a lot of institutional knowledge going on. And somebody at I was like, you know, I think this is what happened when Ed Pearl Mutters stepped down.
Yep.
So sure enough we went back and we looked. Sure enough, when Ed Pearl Mutter decided not to run for reelection, his chief of staff landed at CU for almost over or actually for over four hundred thousand dollars a year when you factor in benefits and everything. And that was a newly created position that she started right after pro Mutter was done. And you know, Britney Peterson was sworn into that office. So now we've got two jobs in a matter of two or three years, four years however
long it's been. The Pear Mutter's been out where CU has created positions four people who are losing their job in the in DC and these are healthy positions. I mean, the two jobs together are over seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. There's some of the highest for jobs.
What I'm looking at, is there some of the highest paid for someone who's not an admin, right, I mean these are jobs that don't necessarily oversee any students or departments or anything like that. These are these are I mean they're administrative physicians, but they're not directly in the line of educational.
Purpose.
Do you know what I'm You know what I'm saying. They're they're working in the in a different part of CU.
So let me ask you this.
They're an administration, Yeah, we're in administration. They're not they're not contacting with the students. Yes, And I think the gal that was hired from the promenor administration. At the time she was hired, she was the fourth highest paid employee at CU Boulder, and she was like three hundred
and twenty five thousand dollars a year. Well, I know, from having considered being going into positions with US congressional folks, when I've looked at and talked to people about starting salaries, guaranteed she was not making three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars as at Pearlmetter's chief of staff. She was probably making around half that, maybe a little bit more,
but not that. And so these people are coming out of these positions and they're doubling for income in some in some cases for positions that See You is creating, and it thinks of creating for them, you know, because it just I'm not saying they are because I don't know that, but when you add it all up, that's
what it looks like. And then at the end of the day, when I'm calling people that I know that are close to this situation, going what is going on, I learned that they have created another position that they have just opened up for yet another guy who worked under Michael Bennett before he went and worked under Michael Hancock, and now he's going to be at the issue don't
or at see You. Excuse me, I don't know what his salary and stuff was, because that position is so new that when I called See You, even the folks in the communications department had not heard his name. Oh my god, guarantee he's been hired. I guarantee he's been hired. Here's Gore to start I think sometime middle of March, and I'm waiting to find out because there's also a position in the media in the communications department that is
yet to be filled. All the curious to see who feels that one, because it's so clear that that is that's at least the pattern.
So here's my question, Sherry. My question is this.
You said only one candidate was presented to the committee. Who decides which candidates get to that point where they are then submitted to the committee, And does the committee have the right to say, we're not hiring this person, go find more candidates.
You know, usually, and I can't speak for CEU, but I can speak for experience in dealing with higher education, Generally, when there's a position that is open, you'll have hiring committees. So you'll have a committee of people that consists of various department heads, faculty heads, even even just hourly staffers.
They won't put together this hiring committee so that when you go in, you do your interview with them, and then that hiring committee gets back together and they talk about all of our candidates, and they take a look at who they've got, and then they'll generally narrow that down to the top two or three candidates who they will then send on to the next phase of the hiring procedure, which in many cases is the board of trustees, the board of governors, whatever it is that oversees that
particular college. So in this case, if that's the way so you handled it's hiring, then they would have narrowed it down to just that one candidate and taken that one candidate to the Board of Trustees and said this
is who we have to choose from. So you're telling me that only one person to me, if you're going to only take one application to the board of trustees, or excuse me, to the CU regents, if you're only going to take one application to the CU regents and say this is what we have, you're telling me you only have one application, because I would hope that you would have more than one person for the regents to choose from. Exactly an application.
Was the job publicized and if so, this is how they do this, sary.
And I was told this by someone who worked for a.
Different university system. Not see you, but when I asked a specific question about a certain job that had been filled by someone that I thought was ill suited for the role, and they told me that they coded the job posting incorrectly. So say it was a job posting in accounting, right, so instead of posting in an accounting they posted it in engineering, so no accountants would look for it in the engineering section, but guests who did their preferred candidate.
So that's how they got around it.
They quote posted it, but they posted it in the wrong place where no one looking in that place would apply.
And if you remember correctly, because I remember being on your show talking about another story a couple of years ago when Ian SILVERI landed that with Jefferson County, So that is exactly how Ian Silvery landed that contract was because the Jefferson County Department, the woman who's in charge of posting those bids because those jobs have to go out for bid, and the woman who was in charge of posting that coded it incorrectly and posted it in a position that in a spot on the thing that
nobody else would look for it. So at the end of the day there was only two applicants, and one applicant, Ian Silvery's price came in way below the other applicant, so that of course we're going to hire him.
Yeah, this is the.
Motus operandi of the Democrats. This is how they do things. They they post positions in places they're not supposed to be posted. They can say they were posted, and then there's a phone call made to somebody that said, hey, you know, I don't want to go check out this job.
Did you talk to anybody at see you about this or did you do any CORRA requests?
To dig a little.
Deeper, yeah, I did do a quorper request. Well, I did a coorper request on the chancellor's salary, the vice chancellor salary, because that was not reported anywhere, and initially it took me forever in a day to get a response back, and then I finally got a response back with his salary and a request that future CORRA requests
go to this particular position. And then when I then inquired about the newly created position with the Denver Metro Regional officer, I sent it directly to where she had told me, and I'm sorry I cannot remember her name, but I sent it to where she had told me to send these previous requests. She immediately responded back and said, I don't know who this person is I've never heard
of them. You're gonna have to file a coorra request. Well, okay, so the old switcheroo sherry right, And actually I never filed initially, I never filed a query request because the information that I was looking for is not something that you're gonna find in a quorra. I would have had to quorra like a contract or something. All I wanted to know was how much he was making, because at the end of the day, what his contract says is irrelevant. Here's the job, here's what he's making. That's what the
story was about. So I just asked the question, can you tell me how much? So they responded to that one, you know, after literally over a week, and then told me to go here next time. So I'd go where they told me to go the next time. And I get a response back that says, you're gonna have to file a querer request or it's not a quorra. There's a wait a.
Minute, the shary why can't we Why can't we quorra where this was posted? I want to know where this job you're telling me, For a job that makes that kind of money in a university system, you're telling me, one applicant applied, one one qualified applicant applied for these jobs.
You know that's crazy.
And that core Yeah, that core A request would be would would look very would So if you filed that QURE request, which no, I did not, but if you filed that CORA request, that CORE request could read something to the effect of, I want copies of all of the applications that were submitted to see you Boulder for this job. Yes, and that's what they would have. Then they could then they would have to send you the applications.
That's going to be another fight on your hands because then you're going to fight with CU over what is legal and what's not legal to send you personal courts. Yeah, courts have have ruled consistently that those are open to the public. But in my past experience with CU, getting information out of SeeU is like pulling teeth. It just it just doesn't They find every Like I said, you know, they sent me on a wild goose chase just for this this small five hundred story, just to let people
know what's going on at CU. Now a follow up story. They would probably take a month of Sundays to get that explanation out of them if you got it.
Yeah, I need that is so you know, this is so disheartening on so many levels, Sherry, because you know, I want our universities to be sort of these these islands of academic freedom and bastions of deep and robust discussions about difficult topics. But the more that the administration is politicized, and when you bring in nakedly partisan people who have made their entire careers supporting candidates of one party, it gets harder and harder to believe that that's even
possible on these campuses. And this is the kind of stuff that makes me crazy because there seems to be some kind of straight line between democratic politics and CU Boulder, and I just want to know where who started the straight line on the other side.
Right exactly? And I actually had that conversation with somebody when I said, you need to know. Please know that we would be doing a story at Complete Colorado if all three of these candidates that were hired were all three Republicans that I had worked for as strategists for Republicans as well, because nobody reads this story, can read this story, and I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. You can't read this story and go, oh,
these are just coincidences. No, they didn't hire just Democrat supporters. They didn't hire just liberals. They literally hired people who had just left their job as a Democrat strategist for an elected official in Washington, d C. Even this guy that, this Nigel, that has been hired for this other job worked for Michael Bennett. Then he went and worked for Michael Hancock. They are purposely hiring democratic strategists for these physicians.
Yeah, and that does not scream.
You know, everybody has the same academic freedom at CU Boulder. Sherry Price a great story idea. Did fix the link, so now it is linked on my blog. You can always find her work at complete Colorado dot com. Uh, this is Sherry. There's got to be a dartboard with your face on it at many educational institutions at this point, between you and Jimmy Segenberger, we're gonna we're gonna yank this thing right before too long, I hope. So man, Yeah,
all right, thanks Sherry. I appreciate the time today and the work on this story.