Aaron Greco is running for one of the most hotly-contested city council seats in Denver. He’s also an employee for the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). And aiding him in his efforts to win a city council seat is a unique deal whereby CDOT has agreed to let Mr. Greco work on a part-time basis starting this past February.
The part-time workaround might be a direct conflict if Greco were running for a state position. However, in an interview by phone on Tuesday, Greco said he believed there were no conflicts with his move to part-time work while running for the city position.
On Monday, CDOT’s Director of Government Relations Herman Stockinger (also Greco’s boss) said the agency plans to bring back Mr. Greco as a full-time employee in the event Greco doesn’t win his race, thereby removing any “risk” for Mr. Greco. “Should he get elected, he’ll resign his position, and we’ll fill it,” Stockinger said by phone. “Should he not be elected, then he is invited back to continue his good work at CDOT.”
The question then becomes, would CDOT show such flexibility for an employee who wished to strike out on his/her own on a capitalist enterprise? Or an enterprise that wasn’t government? CDOT’s Communications Director Amy Ford said, “Each arrangement an employee makes with the supervisor in regards to pursuit of other opportunities such as work outside of CDOT or arrangements such as this are ones that are handled on an individual basis and processed accordingly through the state employment rules.”
Has Greco’s absence caused any difficulty for CDOT? “None that we can’t manage from the framework of our government relations office,” Greco said.
According to Greco, he’s served as a “local government liaison” for CDOT since September of 2012.
Complete Colorado requested all timecards for Greco between March 1 and April 10. The documents returned show Greco had clocked in a total of 3 days in that stretch of time.
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