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THE YIN AND YANG OF MAYOR BOB

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Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 5/9/2008

Now that the Colorado Springs Media has covered the death, and funeral of "Mayor Bob" Isaac, I thought I would fill in some little known blanks that were the Yin and the Yang of Mayor Bob and me.

As you know both Bob Isaac and I grew up in Colorado Springs and graduated from West Point. I was a year ahead of him, graduating in 1950 before he did in 1951. Our careers sharply diverged when I continued my Army career serving in two wars, and he decided to resign his commission and become a lawyer.

So Bob got his degree in California, and returned to Colorado Springs to practice law. Then his public service career started. He became a city attorney, a Judge, an assistant District Attorney, and then ran for City Council in 1975, which started his 18-year-run in local public office.

It was after I retired in 1973 from my 27 years military service, that I got to know Councilman Issac. I had decided in 1976 to roll up my sleeves in my hometown and get the city to revitalize the Westside in a very different way from the way it destroyed the Downtown I grew up with. I took note of Isaac's showing interest in my proposal to use the Block Grant funds that were previously used to tear down buildings, instead as seed money coupled with an obscure Small Business loan guarantee program I found, to finance small businesses and use Historic Preservation, rather than modernization, as the design theme for the commercial district.

To Bob Isaac's credit, for he was a very smart man - smarter than any other City Councilmen - he peered into the possibilities, and backed our plan. We then created the Old Colorado City Development Company as the leveraging link between city money, private business and the SBA. I had recruited ex-banker Wes Colbrun to direct that organization while I agreed to run the Westside business association for a couple of years to represent the westside businesses and commercial property owners, to ensure the bold venture was not screwed up by "government."

It all worked. More than 30 buildings over 10 years were financed, 50 rehab loans were made, Old Colorado City blossomed, and became a National Historic District. The city never lost a cent in its loans. All the things the city hoped for - increased jobs, tax base, preserved buildings - were accomplished. We got such good press reporters and editors started asking downtown businessmen why they couldn't get their economic act together like "the Westside was doing?"

By this time Isaac had become Mayor, first by election by fellow council members, then by direct election. The good publicity so irritated some of the downtown property owners, who had been hammered by the city's "conservatives" and the libertarian Gazette Telegraph for using the Eminent Domain power of government to destroy private property buildings, some of them started lobbying Isaac and Council to cut off the federal Block Grant funding - which was granted to the city for the exact purposes it was being used for on the Westside - to economically rehabilitate a neighborhood the private sector had given up on. They were, simply, jealous.

But again to his credit, Mayor Bob as he was then called refused to stop the successful project.

Both of us shared the West Point ethic of putting the "Public Interest" before the "Private Interest."

The height of the Yin between he and I came when the City nominated Colorado Springs for the national All American City Award. With the strong evidence Old Colorado City offered and I presented to the national judges, the city won. It was a feather in Mayor Bob's municipal cap.

Then came the downside - the Yang - between Mayor Bob and I. By 1984 I was getting a national reputation for setting up computer networks that would support grassroots "Electronic Democracy."

In fact I helped an unknown candidate for city council - Wayne Fisher - win a seat beating a well known Colorado College professor who made the mistake of pooh-poohing to me the use of computer networks in politics. I decided to teach the political science professor a lesson. And did. The day Fisher was elected by only few hundred votes out of 22,000 cast, the Gazette Telegraph, called me up and asked whether my "Rogers Bar Political Computer Bulletin Board' won the election for Fisher. I said yes.

After Fisher took office, the city staff, waking up to the value of computer communications, proposed providing all Councilpersons a city computer with dial-up access to a city-run Computer Bulletin Board. Isaac, who was not as foresighted as he should have been about the digital future that I saw coming, opposed it. But he lost on a split vote. Every councilman and woman got a computer which they used to communicate with the City Staff nights and weekends by modem. All except Mayor Bob.

A year later when the funding was to be renewed, Mayor Bob objected saying that his political opponents on Council were "caucusing" online - in violation of the state sunshine law. The City Manager realized that Mayor Bob was reading the private mail of fellow councilmen! Which I knew was illegal under the Electronic Privacy Act. I checked and found out Councilmen were not, and could not, caucus on that BBS the way it was set up. But the newspapers jumped on the story.

In a closed legal council meeting, Fisher told Isaac what he was doing was illegal, citing me as the authority. Isaac disagreed. City Attorney Colvin said "Hughes doesn't know what he is talking about." Which comment got back to me. I was irritated. So I said "Do I have to teach two City lawyers Law?"

I went online, double-checked that I was right, and John Markoff of the New York Times ran with the story. So Isaac and Fisher, found themselves on Page 7 of the New York Times, where John Podesta, who WROTE the law for Senator Patrick Leahy said that indeed, Isaac had broken the telecommunications privacy act. Big flap.

Mayor Bob was really unhappy. And that publicity stopped him being elected the President of the Council of Mayors that year. (He later got it)

But I and our city's digital future were vindicated. I then told the City that the only reason Mayor Bob got into trouble was that neither the City Attorneys nor the rest of the City Staff knew what the blazes they were doing with new computer communications. I said that the City Council needed to create a Telecommunications Policy Advisory Committee with citizens on it, from big companies, agencies and small ones who DID know technology, ethics, and applicable laws.

So it was formed, and I was appointed to its first board. I found myself being asked to write the first policy handbook for the City for the use of its first Computer Board. The staff didn't know how. That 'TPAC' still exists, and now provides a very wide range of policy advice to the city on the Internet, city networks, wired and wireless, public-private telecom partnerships.

Mayor Bob never forgave me for beating him and his highly paid city lawyers. Mayor Bob was smart, but he tangled with a fellow West Pointer who knew his onions too.

So Mayor Bob at 80 has died and is being carried to his grave in Evergreen Cemetery by a horse-drawn hearse, with many deserved honors. We will not be communicating with him anymore.

While I, at 80, am still alive, and have plans also to be taken to Fairview Cemetery by a horse-drawn hearse. Except I expect to be buried by my sons with a laptop computer run by solar power that has heuristic software in it - capable of learning and changing by feedback, like humans do - with a wireless connection to the Internet. I figure you may be reading many more Hub articles and Blogs from me after I am dead.

Aren't you thrilled?

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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments

Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 5/12/2008 @ 9:00:38 AM

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Now one of the reasons I championed computer-to-bulletin-board (today called blogs)for Electronic Democracy was that everyone is 'equal' online when its only their written words that are between them. The issue is dealt with by the power of the arguement, not the 'appearance' of the debators. Today so much of politics is dictated by the appearance, dress, voice, image over television that they have come to dominate. Abraham Lincoln could not be elected today. Too ugly.

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Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 5/12/2008 @ 8:54:03 AM

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Some have asked me what Isaac had against 'Electronic Democracy.' Well, for starters he had never handled a modem or micro. (In fact I doubt if he ever touched a keyboard all his life) But secondly, if you knew him operate, you would see that he mastered the subject first, then with his booming voice and sitting on the raised dias at Council meetings he intimidated most who stood at the podium and fellow councilpersons. THAT 'presence' was one key to his political influence and power. So he said "I don't need computer communications. Anyone can meet with me or call me on the phone. Online its only your 'words' that count, not your personality and presense. It made him 'equal'

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Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 5/10/2008 @ 9:08:33 AM

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Oh, my wife answered the question. She found a small note saying he was being interred in Grace Episcopal Church. They have some crypt space. Ah yes, Grace is OLD Colorado Springs, Episcopal, which, derived from Church of England (little London) bury many dignitaries in their walls, from Kings to notables.

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Submitted By: Dave Hughes

posted on 5/10/2008 @ 8:02:27 AM

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Oh? Where is he being buried? Or being cremated is he being put in the Memorial Gardens walls? The press didn't say.

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Submitted By: Ingrid Mcdonald

posted on 5/10/2008 @ 7:52:57 AM

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Very nicely put. He is not being buried at Evergreen cemetery.

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Submitted By: Travis Duncan