The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch hotel in Beaver Creek, Colo., site of a $113,753 Xcel board of directors retreat

DENVER — With St. Paul–based Xcel Energy on pace to disconnect power to some 70,000 Coloradans this year for nonpayment, energy activists there are openly questioning why ratepayers should pick up the tab for lavish executive board-member dinners, hotel and spa retreats and luxury box tickets to professional sports games. But those who want the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to establish a firm policy cracking down on such excesses likely won’t get their wish anytime soon, according to a commission spokesman.

The PUC is set to begin final deliberations on Xcel’s latest rate-increase request — its second in the last year — on Dec. 3, but PUC spokesman Terry Bote said the commissioners will probably only consider the merits the of the $136 million rate hike and not delve into rule changes for travel and entertainment expenses.

“The commission can’t set a rule by deliberation in a rate case, so if they were going to make a rule, they would have to go into a rule-making proceeding to do that,” Bote told the Colorado Independent. “If they choose to, they can put language in the order that says, ‘We don’t expect these types of expenses to be included in future rate cases,’ but that’s not binding, obviously.”

The issue first came up during testimony in the nearly $180 million rate case in Denver earlier this month (Xcel has since reduced that amount in a settlement with consumer groups by nearly $44 million). Clean energy and consumer advocates pointed out Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson had a serious problem with excessive Xcel travel and entertainment charges last summer.

Some of those charges included a $113,753 Xcel board of directors retreat at the ultra-luxury Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch hotel near Beaver Creek in Colorado’s Eagle County — of which Xcel tried to pass $36,149 on to Minnesota ratepayers, according to testimony by the state AG’s office. Other items included first-class airline tickets and luxury hotel stays for top Xcel executives during conferences in Europe.

That testimony prompted Xcel, which provides power to 5 million customers in eight states, including Colorado, to trim $3.9 million in travel and entertainment expenses from its $132 million rate case in Minnesota last summer. Regulators ultimately allowed for an overall $91 million increase in that state.

The Minnesota rate case caught the attention of Colorado energy activists who tried earlier this month to introduce the Minnesota AG’s testimony into the Colorado rate-case docket. The Colorado PUC rejected that move but did request more information from Xcel on whether similar charges were being included the Colorado rate case. Xcel introduced an exhibit on the final day of testimony detailing more than $120,000 in expenses.

The tab included dinner bills in excess of $10,000 and board retreats at luxury spas in Boulder for more than $40,000. Xcel immediately offered to remove those expenses from its rate-increase request.

“The commission has never disallowed these sorts of expenditures in the past and the company finds that these occasional expenses are a reasonable cost of business, but offered to remove the costs from its historic test year during the hearings,” a company spokesman said. “The company will offer to remove the same amount from its forecasted test year, meaning that customers in Colorado will not be paying for these types of expenses.”

However, attorney Dennis Kelly, an “intervener” in the rate case on behalf of a grassroots Arapahoe County group called the ArapaHOPE Community Team, said his organization and others fought hard to get the Minnesota case into the record because they want the Colorado PUC to establish a firm policy on exorbitant travel and entertainment expenses.

“One of the reasons we really wanted to get this into the docket is because I don’t think that these costs had ever really been reviewed by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, and I don’t think they really have set guidelines on any of this,” Kelly said.

Now activists in Minnesota are calling out Xcel for its annual $5.8 million corporate aviation budget, according the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The company maintains two eight-passenger Learjets — which cost about $1,200 an hour to fly – mostly for company executives to travel between Minneapolis and Denver, its two largest markets.

David O. Williams writes for the Colorado Independent, sister site to the Minnesota Independent.

The dispute stems from mailings produced by the St. Paul Better Ballot Campaign claiming support for instant-runoff voting by President Obama, the DFL party and the League of Women Voters of Minnesota, among others. St. Paul voters passed a ballot measure on Tuesday adopting the voting system for municipal elections by a 52-47 percent margin.

But opponents of instant-runoff voting, most notably the No Bad Ballots Committee, filed a pair of complaints with the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings crying foul. Specifically they believe that IRV supporters flouted a state statute requiring that written consent be obtained from an individual or organization prior to claiming their support for a candidate or cause. The No Bad Ballots Committee wants the election results tossed out.

David Schultz, a political science and law professor at Hamline University, believes the odds of that happening are remote — even if IRV supporters ran afoul of election laws. “Judges never want to overturn elections,” he notes. “I think they’re barking at the moon on this one.”

Sheehy previously held a telephone hearing on the matter. The complaints will now be heard by a three-judge panel on November 18. If the judges find merit to the allegations, they can levy a fine of up to $5,000 or refer the matter to a county attorney for consideration of criminal charges.

The board announced the rulings today, but reached its decisions at a meeting on Thursday — the same day Rybak registered a gubernatorial campaign committee. He won re-election to a third term as mayor on Tuesday. The rulings were prompted by complaints filed by the Republican Party of Minnesota.

The board also heard evidence about Rybak driving to events around the state meant to showcase candidates for governor — with mileage costs that Rybak bore personally but that the Minnesota GOP said constituted an in-kind gift.

But it was the survey costs that the board focused on, and they didn’t buy Rybak’s defense that the polling work was on behalf of his mayoral campaign against much lesser-known challengers:

The response on behalf of Mayor Rybak contends that the survey was to support a re-election bid for Mayor of Minneapolis. But this response does not persuasively explain why a survey to support the Mayor’s re-election would have a geographic calling area that included metro area residents that are not eligible to vote in Minneapolis.

The board found the survey questions revealing:

As an example, the survey asks if the respondent voted in 2006, (the last time the office of Governor was on the ballot), and if the respondent intends to vote in 2010. The office of Governor is on the ballot in 2010, the office of Mayor of Minneapolis is on the ballot in odd numbered years (2005 and 2009).

The board ordered Rybak to form a gubernatorial campaign committee (which he did), which must transfer to his RT for Minneapolis mayoral campaign the cost of the conducting the survey last May.

The board also ruled (pdf) on whether St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman violated state statute by failing to register a fundraising committee while exploring a bid for governor. The complaint from the Minnesota GOP noted that Coleman had participated in gubernatorial forums with other candidates and openly discussed his plans for the state if elected to the office. The board determined that Coleman was indeed a candidate for governor earlier this year and spent personal funds in excess of $100 to support his campaign.

The Board considered possible reasons why Mayor Coleman would travel to locations throughout the state to participate in gubernatorial candidate forums and present information on what actions he would do if elected Governor. In the Board’s view the only reasonable explanation for those actions is that Mayor Coleman was seeking nomination or election to the office of Governor.

But the board also ruled that Coleman did not improperly use funds from his mayoral campaign to support a gubernatorial bid. Coleman has since announced that he will not be running for governor, but the board stated that that decision did not alter its findings in the matter. The administrative body ordered Coleman to submit a detailed accounting of his expenditures on behalf of his gubernatorial campaign by February 1, 2010.

In the waning days of the campaign, the No Bad Ballots Committee filed a pair of grievances with the Office of Administrative Hearings charging that IRV supporters were using false claims to bolster their electoral prospects. Specifically, the group took issue with claims that the DFL party, the St. Paul League of Women Voters and President Obama, among others, supported the adoption of instant-runoff voting.

“They knew they were going to lose if they didn’t deceive the voters of St. Paul,” says Chuck Repke, co-chair of the No Bad Ballots Committee.

The St. Paul Better Ballots Campaign, which spearheaded the IRV campaign, has denied any wrongdoing. The ballot measure, which asked voters if they wanted to adopt instant-runoff voting for municipal elections, passed by a 52-48 percent margin. Minneapolis utilized the new voting system, whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference, for the first time on Tuesday and experienced few difficulties.

A phone hearing on the grievances is set for 4 p.m. today. An administrative law judge will determine if there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to proceed to a formal hearing. Repke wants the result of the ballot measure tossed out.

“I think we win this in court quite easily,” he says.

“Our work is not done here,” Coleman told supporters gathered in a ballroom at the St. Paul Hotel shortly after the polls closed. “We’re on the verge of something great here in old St. Paul.”

Coleman’s margin of victory was almost identical to four years ago, when he ousted incumbent Randy Kelly. Ng was endorsed by the Republican party — a mark of dubious distinction in a town dominated by Democrats.

Coleman openly flirted with a run for governor next year. But he surprised supporters and political observers last month when he announced that he would not seek the state’s top post.

In St. Paul’s school board contests, incumbent Elona Street-Stewart was the top vote-getter, with support from 22 percent of voters. She’ll be joined by fellow Democrat John Brodrick and newcomer Jean O’Connell. Incumbent Tom Goldstein fell fewer than 400 votes short of retaining his post. O’Connell was the only candidate in the field to be endorsed by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, a distinction that likely helped put her over the top.

In the contest to fill a two-year post on the school board created by the departure of Tom Conlon midway through his term, Democrat Vallay Moua Varro defeated Republican Pat Igo by a 59-40 percent margin.

St. Paul residents narrowly voted to adopt instant-runoff voting for municipal elections. The ballot measure drew support from 52 percent of voters. Given how contentious the contest was between the pro- and anti-IRV advocates, it seems likely that the result will be challenged. Minneapolis utilized the instant-runoff system, whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference, for the first time on Tuesday.

At issue is a mailing that the Saint Paul Better Ballot Campaign, which is running the pro-IRV campaign, has sent out to potential voters. It claims a wide array of supporters for the ballot measure, from President Obama to the Star Tribune to the Minnesota DFL party.

But Chuck Repke, co-chair of the No Bad Ballots Committee, charges that the claims are patently false. Under state election law, a campaign cannot claim the support of an individual unless that person has provided written permission. Clearly President Obama, Repke notes, hasn’t taken time out from his schedule to provide written support for the local ballot initiative.

“I was surprised that Santa Claus and Jesus Christ weren’t on the list,” Repke says. “You can’t be more deceptive than to claim the endorsement of the President of the United States when you don’t have it. I’m just flabbergasted.”

Repke is particularly peeved that the pro-IRV group is claiming DFL support. He notes that at the St. Paul DFL convention in March, a resolution to support the ballot measure was explicitly voted down by party activists. And in a town dominated by Democrats, the party’s purported backing could carry weight with voters.

“They cannot claim DFL endorsement,” Repke says. “These people know that. They were at the convention. I saw them there. They were standing next to me.”

Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota, which is helping run the pro-IRV campaign, insists that any violations of campaign laws are simply innocent technicalities. She points out that the state DFL party added support for IRV to the party platform last year and that President Obama is a well known supporter of the voting system — even if he hasn’t explicitly endorsed the St. Paul referendum.

“If they are complaining about the word ‘endorse,’ then let them complain,” she says. “Our intent is to convey to the public that they support the concept of instant-runoff voting.”

Minneapolis will utilize instant-runoff voting, whereby voters rank their candidates in order of preference, for the first time on Tuesday. At the same time, St. Paul voters will determine whether to adopt a similar system.

Last week, Repke filed an initial complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings claiming that supporters of the ballot measure were falsely advertising support from the League of Women Voters. But the Better Ballot Committee insists there’s no merit to his charge.

“The facts alleged by Repke are patently false based on previous actions taken by the League of Women Voters,” writes attorney Jay Benanav, who is representing the pro-IRV group, in responding to the complaint.

But Repke is unimpressed by suggestions that any campaign violations were committed out of innocence rather than malice. He believes the alleged infractions should be vigorously prosecuted.

“Karl Rove wouldn’t pull crap like this,” he says. “I’ve never seen a more evil campaign than this and I’ve done politics for 30-some odd years in this town.”

Specifically at issue is a postcard mailed out by the St. Paul Better Ballot Campaign urging support for the change in voting systems. Among the individuals and organizations listed as backing the measure is the League of Women Voters of Minnesota and St. Paul.

But according to Chuck Repke, co-chair of the No Bad Ballots Committee, the statement is not true. He says that the League of Minnesota Voters explicitly stated that it was remaining neutral on the issue at a campaign forum earlier this month.

“They made this decision to do this because they’re losing credibility with their arguments,” Repke said of the pro-IRV group. “They’re afraid this thing is going to fail.”

But Ellen Brown, coordinator of the St. Paul Better Ballot Campaign, says Repke’s charges are unfounded. “It definitely doesn’t have merit,” she says of the complaint. “Nobody has called us on that until now, the 11th hour, when there’s really no opportunity to get our story out. I think it’s a last-minute attempt to discredit the St. Paul Better Ballot campaign.”

UPDATE: Supporters of IRV point to two pieces of evidence to support their claim. The first is a resolution passed by the League of Women Voters of Minnesota in 2005 stating that the organization “supports the option to use instant-runoff voting to elect state or local officials in single seat elections.” The other is a 2007 email from the St. Paul chapter of the League of Women Voters expressing support for the voting system. Both of those documents, however, easily precede the current ballot resolution campaign.

Of course the League of Women Voters could settle who is right in this dispute. But Keesha Gaskins, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Minnesota, isn’t in the office today and could not be reached for comment. And a message left at the St. Paul chapter of the League of Women Voters was not immediately returned.

Minneapolis is utilizing instant-runoff voting, whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference, for the first time this election. St. Paul voters will decide on Tuesday whether to adopt the same voting system through a ballot measure.

Repke believes the League of Women Voters’ purported endorsement of instant-runoff voting could be influential with St. Paul residents. “These are the Mother Theresas of good government,” he says, “and they’re intentionally abusing their credibility.”

Photo: wikipedia

Twenty years ago, a dream of being inside a movie-studio limousine when revolution breaks out made filmmaker Michael Moore swear off limo rides. It was a similar wrong-place, wrong-time nightmare that led St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to swear off gubernatorial pursuits. ”I had a vision of me at a bean feed somewhere while the Central Corridor was collapsing,” Coleman told KSTP-AM today.

A sense of mayoral obligation to see the Central Corridor light-rail transit project through is one of the main specifics Coleman has been offering for his surprise decision yesterday: to leave outstate bean feeds to the remaining gubernatorial contenders and stick to current his job in St. Paul, for now.

But on KSTP, Coleman had another, newly minted explanation: “I thought that I’d be winning the Nobel Peace Prize.”

It was supposed to be a “done deal,” Coleman joked, that would leave him too busy running around the world on Peace Prize business to attend to affairs back home — a possible jab at Republicans who griped that Coleman listed statewide travel as mayoral rather than gubernatorial campaign expenses.

GOP complaints had no role in his decision not to run for governor, Coleman repeated on the radio. He also denied that his dropping out of the race was meant as any kind of shot at Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who remains a candidate (unannounced) in the field for governor in 2010.

Coleman said he probably wouldn’t back another candidate for governor in advance of the DFL Party endorsement.

As for whether he would agree to another debate with his Republican opponent Eva Ng (besides an election-eve public radio date), Coleman said, “We’ll see.”

Then in commenting on Ng, he mistakenly slipped back into statewide-campaign mode for a moment: “She needs to present her vision for the state — er, the city.”

Both big-city mayors put themselves in the awkward position of simultaneously running for re-election this year and (apparently) for governor next year. But Coleman’s rhetoric on departing the crowded field of DFL gubernatorial contenders didn’t seem couched for Rybak’s comfort.

At a hurriedly called press conference in his office yesterday, Coleman said:

As I explored a potential candidacy, I returned to two questions over and over: Is my work in St. Paul finished? And can I honestly ask the voters of St. Paul to re-elect me to another term, when the demands of running for (higher) office would keep me from fulfilling the duties of mayor? The answer to both those questions is no.

And in an interview with The UpTake, Coleman elaborated on that point:

I had as good of a shot as I was ever going to have to do that [run for governor], but I just made a commitment four years ago to the voters of St. Paul and I’m asking them to make a commitment to me again and felt that was more important at this point. … At the end of the day [candidates for governor] just got to run hard and they got to give it their all.  They got to give 110 percent to this thing because you can’t– It doesn’t do any good to do it 90 percent of the way. You got to do it 100 percent of the way.

Rybak hasn’t said for sure that he’ll run for governor. The closest he’s come was this: “I’m very likely to enter this race.”

Both mayors had RSVP’d for a gubernatorial debate in Duluth today, the first such event to be televised this election cycle. Now it appears only Rybak will make the trip north.

Here’s The UpTake’s interview with Coleman, in which the St. Paul mayor offers other advice to remaining DFL gubernatorial candidates:

St. Paul school board candidates at the Rice Street Parade. Via brodrick4kids.blogspot.com

John Brodrick spent 34 years teaching social studies and coaching hockey in St. Paul public schools. Throughout that time he was a dues-paying member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

So it was little surprise that Brodrick was endorsed by the teachers’ union when he first ran for the school board eight years ago. The Democrat went on to win a seat with more votes than any other school board candidate. In 2005, again with the backing of the teachers’ union, he easily won a second term.

Brodrick is currently seeking a third term, but he’ll have to do so without support from the union that he belonged to for more than three decades. Brodrick’s not alone either. The other two incumbent school board members, Tom Goldstein and Elona Street-Stewart, both of whom have been endorsed by the teachers’ federation in the past, are also running without support from the union.

“Obviously as a former teacher and as a lifetime member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers I was personally disappointed,” Brodrick says of the snub. “I am very proud of the work I’ve done over the last eight years. I think in many instances I have been a true voice for teachers.”

The political split stems from a rift that’s played out between the teachers’ union, which has roughly 3,600 members, and the school board over the last two years. Budget shortfalls, labor contract negotiations and proposed school restructurings have all contributed to the tension. Further exacerbating matters has been what the union perceived as heavy-handed tactics by former superintendent Meria Carstarphen.

“To borrow a phrase from a popular children’s book, it was a series of unfortunate events,” says Mary Cathryn Ricker, president of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers. “It wasn’t any one big thing.”

Late last year, for instance, the school board was presented with a plan to restructure staffing at three schools — Arlington High School, Humboldt Senior High School and Humboldt Junior High School — that had failed to meet student performance standards. Essentially employees at the three schools, many of whom were veteran teachers, would be required to re-apply for positions within the district. The teachers’ union, according to Ricker, was not asked for any input in the matter.

“The school board was absolutely thrilled with the restructuring plan and our teachers found it be an absolute disaster,” she recalls.

Then in February, the school board publicly supported freezing teacher salaries and benefits for next year in order to deal with looming deficits. The teachers’ union felt like this was a violation of the traditional negotiating process, whereby the two sides hash out contract details jointly.

“Completely ignoring the collective bargaining process was extremely offensive to our members,” says Ricker.

Goldstein counters that they didn’t have much choice given that the school district faced a severe budget deficit for the upcoming year. “This is a difficult time,” he notes. “If this is how the teachers think they need to handle it, I respect that. They’re a union. They have to look out for their members.”

Shortly after the blow-up over the proposed salary freeze, the teachers’ federation held its first screening for school board candidates. The outcome: It opted not to endorse any candidates. Then in June, after Tom Conlon announced that he was stepping down from the board, creating an opening for a partial term, the union screened candidates again. The federation settled on two challengers: Jean O’Connell for a full term and Vallay Varro to serve the remainder of Conlon’s term. None of the incumbents were endorsed.

With the election looming next month, the teacher’s union remains at loggerheads with the school board over a new labor agreement. The current two-year contract expired in June, but Ricker says it’s not unprecedented for negotiations to drag on beyond that point.

“Historically St. Paul has not settled before the contract runs out,” she says. “It’s not unusual for us to begin a new school year without a contract.”

Despite the rebuff from the teachers’ federation, Brodrick continues to view himself as a strong ally of unions. Indeed, he’s endorsed by numerous labor organizations: the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters and the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, among others. He expresses bewilderment at the teachers’ federation’s political tactics.

“I’m very personally disappointed, but am I angry?” he asks. “No, at my age I try not to get angry.”