Adams County DA to probe Quality Paving’s work at county commissioner’s home

 January 31st, 2011

 

The Adams County DA will now probe Adams County Commissioner Alice Nichol and her dealings with a company that scammed Adams County taxpayers out of $1.8 million.

The developments in the story about the shenanigans of County Commissioner Alice Nichol continue to come.  Adams County District Attorney Don Quick has announced an investigation of Nichol’s connection to Quality Paving.

Complete Colorado had Nichol’s picture plastered on their site yesterday with the headline “The Adams Family” and that seems wholly appropriate given all of the revelations.  Yesterday we wrote extensively about Nichol’s questionable actions in recent years.  Her ties to the deeply engrained Democratic machine in Adams County run through blood lines and connections to friends.  Charges of nepotism and shady dealings have now been revealed. Continue reading →

An ongoing criminal investigation of a paving scandal that so far has led to six arrests will be expanded to look into work done at the home of Adams County Commissioner Alice Nichol.

District Attorney Don Quick made the decision after Sunday’s disclosure by The Denver Post that the company had done work at Nichol’s home a few months after its then-president helped her son- in-law secure a county job that now pays him $92,988 a year.

Nichol did not respond to a message left at her home Sunday afternoon.

Nichol and her husband, Ron, acknowledged to The Post that Quality Paving resurfaced the asphalt driveway outside their home in late summer 2005.

Quick said the Quality Paving investigation has been a frequent topic of discussion among Adams County officials for more than a year. Two county officials — public-works director Lee Asay and construction manager Sam Gomez — lost their jobs over disclosures that they had Quality Paving do work at their homes.

In addition, Gomez is one of six people who have been charged with multiple felonies in the scandal, in which the county paid for $1.8 million in work that allegedly was never done.

Quick said Alice Nichol asked him on more than one occasion why the investigation was taking so long but never told him or Sheriff Doug Darr that the company had done work at her home.

"I don’t know why the commissioner did not disclose that Quality Paving had done work at her home as well," Quick said. "It was well known that work had been done for Asay and Gomez." Continue reading →

9WANTS TO KNOW
ADAMS COUNTY – The new Adams County coroner admits there is a backlog of cases at her office, but insists it has nothing to do with the fact she fired 11 of her employees earlier this month.

9Wants to Know looked into how the issue is affecting grieving families. Some families do not have signed death certificates from the coroner’s office. That can delay the ability to bury or cremate a loved one. It also inhibits a family’s access to finances or insurance benefits.

Newly elected Adams County Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan confirms there as many as 100 delayed cases, but she says she is not to blame. She has only been in office for a few weeks and says the backlog dates to October of last year.

She maintains the delay is not related to her termination of nine death investigators and two clerks.

"Why they’re backed up, that’s a good question. It’s the prior administration and how they handled things," she said. "Things will be different from here on out. I obviously can’t go back and erase what’s been done, but I’m doing everything within my power to resolve that situation for them."

The owner of a funeral home, who asked not to be identified because of the work the mortuary does with Adams County, says the delays are "very disturbing" to families. The owner suggests it is Broncucia-Jordan and not the former coroner that is the problem.

That person told 9Wants to Know the mortuary is not getting return phone calls from the coroner’s office and when the office does call, employees do not have all the information.

"There’s a sense that they’re not as organized and don’t have all the knowledge they need," the mortuary owner said.

9Wants to Know contacted the former coroner, Jim Hibbard, and he says there was no backup when he left office. He says he also checked with the doctor doing autopsies for his administration and says they were on schedule.

Broncucia-Jordan was fired by Hibbard in 2009. She still has a wrongful termination lawsuit pending against Adams County while she currently serves as coroner.