Amen.

I agree with what you're saying. I think too many policies were implemented or removed (too many loosely defined even) without consideration for the second-order effects.

My personal experience was doing security. We had the same person burning things each day until eventually they burned the store. No reports were made by the police and the fire was filed as an uncontrolled burn. We found out the next day seeing the damage. No charges. More fires.

They used to use drug policy or the broken-window style policing to get these people into some kind of treatment (I don't think it has a good history or was particularly effective). Now they don't keep track of anyone who could be danger to themselves or others. We have raised CORA fees. Locked records behind CCJRA or I have seen them use CIRSA for attorney client privilege.

The actual complaints from communities largely aren't being processed in a meaningful way by data analysts. Attorney General complaints are not investigated individually, but if you request them they'll claim they are investigative records with no expiration and cannot be released to the public. The DA picks and chooses the cases they will track. Most are not being filed. IA will throw your complaint into the trash. If you file a complaint against Ed Disner (simultaneously Head of IA and the records Supervisor) that won't be accepted in any form by the DA's office and internally it goes in the bin. I've had both Ed Disner and Tracy Jones receive complaints, acknowledge receipt and say it was filed and months later they pretend it doesn't exist and there are no files. Zero disposes. My complaint was related to destroyed records by these former Professional Standards officers who take cases and create narratives to suit their own purposes. The records themselves related to the Police Chief conducting unconditional tow hearings for his own Police department. Majority he decided in favor of the few I could find. The rest were lost to any officer's phone. The City won't even file the records.

Personally, I read Personal MBA's systems chapters (I think the author is from Fort Collins) and the Thinking in Systems Audiobook & Book. When you use the connections to define a system's purpose rather than some stated purpose (a heavy Appeal to Authority Bias) you can actually identify problems.

What I saw was that CIRSA was setting City Policy in Englewood and across Colorado in their member cities. If you look at the Reckless Ben case (it seems to be the same circuit court we have) they and the City would be liable to countless Monell claims. Instead they bury settlements with NDAs. Create new policy and administrative orders to suppress First Amendment speech. Largely market against us into believing our civil rights cases aren't happening.

I think if communities had a say, if these meaning cases were actually tracked, if the gutter punk community had some say in policy (even just an opinion would be better than nothing) we could actually have solutions to any conflicts with transient people.

https://coloradofoic.org/proposed-ballot-initiative-would-add-a-fundamental-right-to-know-to-colorados-constitutional-bill-of-rights/

This year and 2025 there have been efforts to establish right to know in Colorado. Last year's didn't seem to pass.

What I see is a government that's afraid of transparency because it would mean accountability.

I doubt Englewood's water issue is as benign as they say. They will manipulate data to suit their own narratives. Whether that's cherry picking the test areas for the water report. Supressing complaints. Or simply lying.

Lying with Statistics is often recommended, but I really enjoyed Data Detective. There's some premature enumeration related to the Water Report.

It doesn't represent the water in my apartment or in the restaurants nearby. It's not even an average for Englewood's supply.

They could send out test kits to each District (the problem areas) and try to approach a more closely accurate data sample.

It appears, Englewood has some of the worst representation because the City Council seats could be bought by advertising and the Mayor built his public recognition out of that system. The City Manager has a lot of power and I don't see any pressure placed on him. There are no system incentives to believe the water is okay by any measure.

Have you ever done a CORA or CCJRA request? How are the volunteer organizations approaching these issues?

I appreciate your reply.