The Larimer County GOP is facing what is being called the biggest campaign finance disclosure fine in history topping $100,000 (read our story).
Unfortunately, Republican party regulars who attended the February 12, Central Committee meeting were unaware of the party’s growing financial crisis and re-elected Larry Carillo as Chairman of the Larimer County Republican Party. Gary Marison, Devon Lentz, Arlene Shiffman, Debbie Healy and Rudy Zitti (all members of the Executive Committee) failed to disclose to the hundreds of Central Committee members assembled at the meeting the growing financial and regulatory crises in their party organization apparently to allow for a smooth re-election of Carillo and to avoid any bad press.
Devon Lentz, who ascended to Carillo’s position during a February 28, Executive Committee meeting and has continued to downplay the significance of what Carillo and now past party Treasurer Terri Fassi did.
Lentz’s attempts to downplay the significance of events and hide them from party regulars will certainly hurt her chances of becoming the permanent GOP Chair of Larimer County. According to party rules, the Central Committee (consisting of Precinct Captains and other party officials) must convene a meeting within 30 days to elect a new Chairman if the elected Chairman (Larry Carillo) resigns.
Carillo’s financial mismanagement extended beyond the campaign finance debacle. Rent went unpaid for months on their offices in Ft. Collins last year and other bills allowed to go unpaid since 2008. Now questions of impropriety have been raised necessitating a full audit of just what happened to all the funds raised by the Larimer GOP since 2008. The previous practice of providing funds directly to candidate campaigns also stopped around the same time begging the question — What happened to the money especially since none of the required disclosures were being provided to the state?
We recommend a clean sweep of new Executive Committee members so the party will be able to raise the funds necessary to pay its debts and restore its credibility.
The Executive Committee will find raising the funds necessary to fix the problem difficult until a full accounting is made of what happened to previous donations and a plan is in place to ensure this never happens again. Retaining an independent accounting firm to make the filings and manage the future cash flow would be a good first step. Otherwise, rumors of mishandled petty cash and trips to the ATM by the Chairman or others will continue to undermine the ability of the party to raise money.
Gross incompetence isn’t remedied by a single replacement at the top. We believe the Executive Committee owes Larimer County Republicans a complete investigation, disclosure of what is found and a credible plan to raise the money in the next 6 months to fix the problem. Maybe also an explanation as to why they failed to disclose the problems of Carillo’s financial mismanagement.
If they cannot accomplish this they should all resign and allow more competent people an opportunity to serve their party.
When the darling of the Larimer County Republican Party, Andrew Boucher, was brought before a judge for his questionable antics I asked Mr. Larry Carillo about this and how it would impact the Larimer County Republican Party. Mr. Carillo said he wasn’t aware of any wrong-doing by Boucher, bagman for the McWhinneys and other special interests
Now this happens, and I, for one, am not surprised. But I will maintain my position: I want nothing to do with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. They are one and the same.
Aside, I thought Andrew Boucher moved to South Carolina. So why does his web site say his corporate headquarters are in Fort Collins? Is he still a bag man for McWhinney?
When Larry Carillo ran for Ft. Collins City Council against Marty Tharp (and lost), one of the big stories hanging out there on him was misuse of College Republican and misuse of ASCSU money.
I think Aislinn Kottwitz was mixed up in it too, at the the time, when they were both at CSU. This is what you get when you put someone in charge with ethical problems. But it looks like a culture of cronyism allowed Larry to get away with this for way too long.
Who is going to audit the money trail and will our Republican District Attorney have what it takes to prosecute someone who headed his own party? i don’t think so anyway…………………………..
Lots of blame to go around.
All these people were elected to fulfill certain responsibilities, required by law. What in the world were they doing instead? Ultimately, it falls on the Chair, but didn’t they have a treasurer? A vice-chair and secretary? A full executive committee?
Where did the money go? You guys are right because who would give money to any of these people until the problem gets fixed. So if the Chair goes to the ATM who is he accountable to for the money he is spending?
Silent Majority -
Sounds like once again you and this website just want to stir sh@#t and not contribute to any solution. Devon puts in more thankless hours than anyone I know so why is she being smeared?
We need to come together as conservatives and forgive the past. Too many evil people on the left will use this information to further their wacko agendas of taking away our rights and making us all work for their socialist paradise.
Only people who gave money to the Larimer Republican party have any business critisizing them and so far I haven’t heard too many complaints from those folks. You are making a tempest from a tea pot. It isn’t really a big deal just some sloppy paperword and red tape BS on campaign finance brought to us by the Dems.
We received several emails telling us Larry Carillo’s home was in foreclosure as well and will be auctioned April 6. One asked why we are not reporting this information.
While it isn’t clear this is relevant to the story, we are posting it anyway as the information can be publicly obtained on the county website link below:
http://www.co.larimer.co.us/publictrustee/search/SearchDetails.aspx?id=370008921&fn=2010-1289
Of course it is relevant!!!!!!!!
He financed his home with an ADJUSTABLE rate mortgage from Wells Fargo Bank. Ironic isn’t it? I guess it isn’t just Democrats who don’t understand money but at least Obama was trying to help poor Larry keep his house along with all the Democrats.
I can’t believe this character was close to running and being elected head of the Republican Party for all of Colorado. I also can’t believe he didn’t file a single campaign finance report all of last year. Who was asleep at the wheel and why didn’t the fact he never gave out any funds to candidates not alert people?
Hey “NoSpamMe” what the hell man??????????
You really think only Democrats got adjustable rate mortgages on there homes or something.
That is the stupidist thing I read in a longtime. You know we got slammed by the hole mortgage mess because of diregulation from Bush that allowed the hole system to fall over and almost collaps.
As a Democrat I resent you saying we aren’t smart or something because of what of what are politics are. I bet you more republicans lost homes then democrats in the hole mess.
We have significantly updated our story with additional names, dates and events leading up to Carillo’s resignation so take a second look if you have a moment.
Shane, in fact the areas of highest Democrat voting on the East and West coasts were those hardest hit by the mortgage crises. If you look closer at the demographics you will find 11% of African Americans and large percentages of other poor and/or minority communities that traditionally vote exclusively for Democrats lost their homes in the mortgage crises.
Trying to push everyone into homeownership regardless of financial status, debt load or other factors allowed home ownership in this country to top 67% at the peak. The reality is many people’s financial circumstances change with time so at any one time some percentage of the population really shouldn’t be locked into a longtime home mortgage.
The old conservative saying, “there is no such thing as a free lunch” is especially true here. Unfortunately, some Republicans also believed their home equity would increase faster than their spending habits as they pulled more and more money out of their homes’ equity.
Now everyone needs to pay for their “free” lunches.
Are these the same people who brought us Dan Maes?
I agree with Commissioner Steve Johnson that volunteers can only do so much so maybe you are being a little hard on them. One easy way to show their regret is to reach deep into their own pockets and help pay-off all these darn fines.
If you look at what was reported to the state in 2010 you will find Larry Carillo didn’t touch any money (at least what was reported).
The Treasurer Terri Fassi, on the other hand, received $2,413.41 for various “expenses” in 2010.
I wonder if Fassi was really a volunteer or getting paid for the work being done. If the latter the party should look to Fassi’s errors and omissions insurance as a professional CPA to cover their fines caused by incompetence.
Why is my last comment not posted?
Quite a bit of your story is incorrect. For example, this part is highly inaccurate.
Off-the-record that same former Executive Committee member told LovelandPolitics,
“For God’s sake she has known since last year that Larry ran our finances into the ground and was saying
in private she still wants to preserve his reputation and somehow contain the news.”
I know Devon Lentz personally and she did not know about this situation until very recently. Devon has been working hard ever since to correct this situation. She should be given our thanks.
If you want to help to solve this issue, then you should contact the Republican party and volunteer. Start giving your time and energy and then maybe your comments will carry some weight.
hmmmm…..the bank records show they raised and spent $86,000 in 2009 but failed to account for $29,000 that is still missing! Holy $&#@!
Maybe someone should be talking to the DA and Carillo’s ex-wife to find-out what happened to all that money instead of worrying about who knew what when! I don’t know anything about this and am not a Republican or Democrat but what i read here and in the Coloradoan article below sure smells rotten. Who cares if Lentz knew or not somebody should be looking for the missing receipts and checking the on truthfullness of the ones they do have now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LP.com who cares if Lentz is the next Chariman or not? I would be laser focused on finding out what happened to all that money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I copied the coloradoan story pieces below where i got this from……
“The documents filed Friday show the Larimer GOP ended the year with a deficit of $138.75 after raising and spending about $86,000 during the year. But the party only detailed about $16,000 of the contributions and $57,000 of the expenditures in the reports.
Interim Larimer GOP Chairwoman Devon Lentz said the party wanted to get the filings to the secretary of state as quickly as possible to stop fines from building, while planning to amend the reports once party volunteers reconstruct boxfuls of financial records turned over by Carillo.
The county GOP on Friday also filed an amendment to their 2009 annual report to the secretary of state, reporting that the party ended that year with a deficit of $136.75. The previous 2009 report had said Larimer Republicans ended 2009 with about $5,400 in the bank.
Between 2006 and 2008, the Larimer GOP ended the year with between $4,300 and $13,600 in the bank before running deficits in 2009 and 2010, according to records filed with the secretary of state”
Disconcerting news, but it’s maybe even more sad to see how some kneejerk and automatically want to turn this into a partisan issue.
It’s about either personal ineptitude, bad decisions or perhaps even some malfeasance, but I wouldn’t take this as a proof that our County GOP is corrupt or on the other hand leap to unrelated conclusions that Dems were somehow more culpable in the mortgage crisis. I know it affects a political party, but why do we have to automatically jump to partisan shots? There are crooks, bums and the inept on both sides of the aisle; but I don’t believe most of us are in any of those categories.
Hopefully the Party will indeed look carefully at what happened to the money & the books in this case, clean house as much as needed and move on. If it turns out that fraud or theft was involved, the Party ought to itself call for criminal investigation … so it rises above any taint.
And the bigger issue for me is whether this happened in any individual’s attempt to hide campaign contributions or expenditures.
I heard Larry hit the ATM frequently and never provided an accounting to anyone. Is that true?
NoSpamMe: You should ask the person you heard it from, that would be logical if you truly want an answer. As a former member of the Executive Board I hope they do not look only to the future, but look to how this happened in order to prevent the same type of things happening in the future. I cannot imagine this situation happening when I was on the board as we were kept abreast of of the financials every meeting. This is why it is critical that those elected to the board are selected for their economic understanding and integrity as the executive board performs a managerial function, not a political one.
Outstanding article. Thanks for shining a light on this.
[...] From LovelandPolitics.com: [...]
Knowing how Terri Fassi runs her own business I am not surprised that this has her name on it. Where is her accountability in filing the wrong paperwork? Where is her accountability in “ignoring” the bookkeeping but somehow writing herself checks for over $2,000.00. Somehow I think she is a major part of this situation. Convienent that she quits when the heat turns up on that fire!
[...] LovelandPolitics.com blog did too – three months ago: [...]
[...] GOP Chairman Resigns For Financial Mismanagement [...]
Thanks for the links with updates.