Denver mayor pushed out sheriff then created $160,000 job for him
Late on the evening of Oct. 14, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced in a news release that Patrick Firman, the man he had appointed sheriff in 2015, would step down.
What Hancock failed to mention was that the very next morning, Firman would start a new and lucrative job as a mayoral appointee.
Firman’s new position, which was created just for him, pays $160,000. He is developing a strategy for technology-related initiatives across city departments, according to Hancock spokeswoman Theresa Marchetta.
“One of Patrick Firman’s accomplishments as sheriff was his work around innovation and utilization of complex data to measure reforms,” she said. “We have a number of initiatives, like Denver’s Opportunity Index and other cross-agency needs that rely on successful measurement, smart deployment of technology and creation of a central data hub.”
The program seeks to use hyperlocal data to better inform first responders and pinpoint specific neighborhood needs and concerns on the public safety front.
When Firman was sheriff, Marchetta said, he was making $194,476 annually. He served in that role for almost exactly four years. City employees become vested in their retirement plans after five years with the city.
As sheriff, Firman was unpopular with many in the department’s rank and file. Although the mayor called him a “change agent” when he appointed him, city leaders felt Firman failed in his four years to rehabilitate the image of a department dogged by scandal.
While the mayor’s office said Firman stepped down in
October, in reality, he had lost the confidence of Hancock and Director of Safety Troy Riggs, and would have been fired had he not resigned, according to several sources familiar with the situation.
Hancock replaced Firman with interim Sheriff Fran Gomez, the first woman to hold the position in Denver. The city has not named a permanent replacement for Firman.
Neither Hancock nor Riggs was immediately available for comment.
Sources told The Denver Post that Hancock might have pushed Firman out sooner but didn’t want to do so during the city’s summertime municipal election season. Firman, previously a career corrections official, was rumored at that time to be mulling a return to his home state of Illinois.
In Denver’s recent election, the makeup of the City Council changed dramatically, as five new members were elected after promising to hold Hancock
more accountable.
Denver has a “strong mayor” form of government, which means, among other things, that Hancock can make mayoral appointments without the consent or knowledge of the council. In this instance, council members were unaware that Hancock had appointed Firman to a new job.
New District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer hopes to place a measure on Denver’s 2020 ballot to require that people appointed by the mayor for top positions go through a council confirmation process first.
“We’re a strong mayor system, but we’re not a monarchy. The mayor’s got a lot of power and should have a lot of power,” Sawyer said. “But that doesn’t mean that he gets to make every decision he wants without being accountable to everyone.
“These last elections made it clear that the people of the city and county of Denver want more transparency, want more accountability.”
Meanwhile, new District 9 Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca is pushing for a ballot measure to make Denver’s sheriff position elected, not appointed. All but two counties in Colorado elect sheriffs.
CdeBaca’s chief of staff, former mayoral candidate Lisa Calderón, said Hancock’s creation of a new job for Firman is “ridiculous” and “shady.”
“What a nice parachute deal,” she said, “that you could do poorly in one job but they keep you around in a six-figure salary so you can vest with the city, and not be transparent about that.”