Andrea Merida happy her DPS board colleague Jeannie Kaplan "vindicated" by e-mails

• Hi SJT, I was not trying to cast dispersions on the Legislature's efforts to look into DPS's pension financing deal. I, too, look forward to the outcome of the audit. Nor did I suggest that the New York Times got it wrong. I thought the chain of e-mails posted by SquareState.net was interesting and worth encouraging our readers to check out. I also thought Andrea Merida's comments were interesting, and that it was worth pointing out that she was supporting her colleague, while at the same time addressing her position as a Romanoff staffer. If you'd like to chat about this further, please drop me an e-mail at melanie.asmar@westword.com. Thanks!

• What happened to PUBLIC, TRANSPARENT, and ACCURATE reporting? Let the truth come out. Either Bennet and the majority are brilliant giants who deserve public high praise or they structured a stinky deal that has to be addressed and fixed. What part of that do you not understand Melanie? The DPS Board refuses to publicly discuss this in any meaningful way. Are you really the education reporter? Seriously?

• Melanie, you start by reporting this straight, but end it by basically trying to cast dispersions on the Legislature's leadership's decision to hold OPEN, PUBLIC hearings into these transactions. How do you justify this kind of reporting? Are you serious? Why would a reporter NOT want the Legislature to hold PUBLIC and OPEN hearings on this transaction? Either the Board majority/Bennet et al. are serious brain trusts who need to be emulated at the national level for having dodged a bullet by magically structuring a deal that makes money with no down side (like in 2015) or there is a serious problem with the deal struck by the Board/Bennet that not only has significant financial consequences for children, teachers, and taxpayers. This is ridiculous.

• What kind of water are the reporters drinking in Denver. Are you not supposed to report the facts? Accurately? Or is this the best you have? Every other public entity involved in these toxic financial instruments, they lose their shirts and miraculously DPS makes money? Seriously? And now you want us to believe a Pulitzer prize winning, financial reporter from NYT got it wrong? And the Denver Post got it right? The people raising questions and asking for TRANSPARENCY are bring beat up by you. Aren't reporters suposed to shine s light on efforts to suppress a public discussion of these issues.

• Melanie, I was not criticizing my colleague, Theresa Pena, for her connection to the Bennet campaign. I was asking her to clarify her clumsy remarks, which seemed disparaging, about our neighborhoods. She said, "There are neighborhoods I would feel uncomfortable in after dark, and I grew up here . . . where justifiably angry minorities were ready to scream at" Mr. Bennet. This is really the core of the "critique," as you will see with a closer reading. The commentary that kicked the hornet's nest is here: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_15562022

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