4-17-24 - 6am - Welcome Jimmy, NDA's and Jena Griswold

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Good morning, Michael and Dragon asa drive in this morning, and I'm
waiting for glorious sunrise. I trulyhope, truly, with all my heart
hold that you guys won't ruin itwith a cackle and laugh crap. Okay,
give us a break. You gotyour talk back back, and I

(00:25):
can see that glorious sunrise upon us. Good morning, Jimmy Sangenberger, filling
in for Michael Brown today and tomorrow. Great to be with you. I'm
the investigative columnist at the Denver Gazette, longtime host formerly at another station in
town, and here today to stirup some trouble with Dragon on the other

(00:48):
side of the glass. Dragon brother, Good morning, Good morning, good
sess. So I have to askyou. Have you learned how to spell
Sangenberger yet? Not a clue.I didn't even know how to say it.
It's Sangenburger. First of all,how you've pronounced it? Now,
I'm gonna help you learn how tospell it for a moment. Okay,
It's all ease all the time.There's no a I or you in sangin

(01:11):
Burger. Again, all ease allthe time. Once you know that sang
in burger is easy, but thereis sometimes why in Jimmy and Jimmy and
and I and Jimmy. You know, we're talking sang in burger all these
all the time. But if wewant to get in those other vowels,
we can certainly do that. Butno, my given name, James has

(01:34):
an e N. So there's alot of ease going on with me.
Easy like Sunday Wednesday morning. Itis a Wednesday morning, and sang in
burger is easy. And I'm gladto be here on KHW with you this
morning. Hey, Dragon, how'syour week going? Not too shabby?
I mean, Michael's gone, soeverything's great from here on forward. It

(01:56):
is party time for this week,and I'm ready to go. And I
want to ask you what would beyour feeling, your sense if I told
you that when we're not on theair, I needed you to sign an
NDA how much you're paying me?Well, that's the thing. It would
include some money at least. Yeah. That's the accusation that's been leveled this

(02:20):
week by the former communications director ofDenver Public Schools, who said at a
board meeting on Monday evening, Hey, guess what. There are people who
have been given severance payments if theysign an NDA. I didn't sign the
NDA and get that payment. Butthere are employees who've done exactly that,

(02:45):
which is pretty shocking when you thinkabout it. Well, NDAs aren't I
mean, you sign them and youcan't not acknowledge that they exist, right,
But the details in the NDA you'renot allowed to talk about. So
yeah, See, the thing Ifind striking is when we're talking about and

(03:07):
I'll play a clip of Will Jones, the former spokesperson for DPS at a
moment, but when we're talking aboutpublic sector government employees as opposed to private
sector folks where you might have sensitivepatent information or things like that, unless
there's a particular bar and we don'tknow the specific details at this point.

(03:30):
They weren't provided by Will Jones asto these are the reasons that NDA's we
signed, Like what the specific categorieswere, Was it sensitive information about students
or what have you. But ifthat's not the case, if it's something
broader than that, I feel likethat's something that government employees shouldn't be having

(03:53):
to sign. And when I lookat this, I have to listen to
Will Jones himself. After the boardhired your employee, he instituted something called
executive limitations. Executive limitations can,unfortunately, limit what the board knows about

(04:14):
the district's day to day operations.In fact, your employee came to my
office one day and told me,if board members come to me with questions
not to answer them, to politelyrefer them to him and he would do
the responding. So that was anotherpiece that he had talked about. And
that was, by the way,talking about the superintendent of schools, a
guy by the name of doctor AlexMorrero, and he was told, limitations,

(04:41):
you have to bring any questions ofboard members to me, you can't
address them directly. Well, thenyou got these confidentiality agreements. After the
board hired your employee, he institutedsomething called executive limitations. Executive limitations can
unfortunately I'm playing the wrong clip there. There we go. Recently learned that
your employee just mandated that all membersof the DPS communications team must now sign

(05:06):
confidentiality agreements. A curious mandate.There we go, A curious mandate and
specifically talking about the communications team.That seems a little unusual to me,
and it certainly has garnered some mediaattention and some outrage from parent activists who
have been paying a lot of attentionto Denver Public schools have made all sorts

(05:30):
of school safety issues. There havebeen a lot of behind the scenes things
where they've tried to keep things fromthe public, including last year, most
infamously, after the tragic shooting thathappened at East High School in March.
The next day, they went behindclosed doors of the school board meeting and
said and came up with a temporarypolicy to bring back school resource officers that

(05:55):
had been banned from the district intwenty and twenty and did it behind closed
doors, crafted this policy, cameout in public and then voted on it
in a matter of minutes without anydiscussion. That's just one prime example of
the various instances where the school boardand the school district have been all kinds

(06:16):
of quiet about what has happened inDenver Public schools. And so this just
really seems to fit in with athread that is common in the district.
Maybe another instance of trying to keepthings from being spread about that might be
unflattering to Denver Public schools. Now, the interesting thing, too, is

(06:43):
that there was a law passed lastyear by the Colorado legislature that prohibits school
districts and other local governments and thestate government and their departments, institutions a
lot of things. Basically all governmentsand Colorado from having NDAs except for specific

(07:03):
circumstances. I'd like to know whatin the world is going on here relative
to do they meet the criteria underthe state law for that or not,
because if they don't, then theymight have some legal problems. If they
do, then there's a question ofwell, then maybe it is legitimate,

(07:23):
maybe it isn't. It depends againon the circumstances. But what's fascinating to
me is about these NDAs and theuse of NDAs among government employees and by
government officials. In I think itwas two thousand and nineteen or twenty twenty.

(07:45):
They'reabouts the first Deputy Secretary of Stateof Secretary of State, Jennier Griswold,
her number two, left the office, but that was after having signed
a settlement agreement that included an NBAconfidentiality provision. And by the way,
it also included talking points they couldn'tyou can't bad now the former boss and

(08:07):
the former boss can't bad nouth you. So they had some kind of agreement
that actually included these talking points,and Jenna Griswold said, this has to
happen. We need you to beall confidential, something that would be illegal
if done today because of this lawpassed last year. Or you have a

(08:31):
secretary of State who, of coursehas been in hot water quite recently.
This is the same person who's beencatching flak over the recent Donald Trump lawsuit
that the Supreme Court of course ninezero said, nope, Donald Trump stays
on the ballot in Colorado and havingimplications of course across the country. That's

(08:54):
the same Jenna Griswold. And shewent ahead and signed a set of agreement
with her first deputy number two righthand gal and said, I'm going to
keep you quiet as well. Whywhat's going on there? And a column
for the Denver Gazette on Friday,I wrote about a six figure settlement that

(09:20):
was made by Griswold's office with aformer employee who alleged discrimination based on race,
that he was not hired for ahigher level position because he was Hispanic.
And he went through this whole rigamaroleof a complaint and aggrievance and The

(09:43):
process took quite a while, andeventually it got to an administrative law judge
who said, you know what,there there might be a case here.
He might have some evidence, primifacia, evidence that shows, hey, guess
what, there's discrimination here. Andso that judge said, we're going to

(10:03):
move forward with this case. ButJenni Griswold's office set a month later,
I'm not so sure that we wantto proceed with this case. You can
be the judge as to what themotivation may or may not have been there.
But bottom line is they reached asettlement with this guy who left with

(10:26):
a cool one hundred and twenty thousanddollars, which is what he would have
made if he got this position.He was a longtime employee, like ten
years in the Secretary of State's office, a career guy, his name was
a Boss Montoya, and he didn'tget this higher level job and an alleged
discrimination and then leaves with the coolone hundred and twenty k. This all

(10:52):
adds more to this Jenna Griswold figurewho's had massive turnover in her office.
I'm telling you, within the firstthirteen months that Griswold took office, all
of her senior staff that she hada point in political positions said sayonara,

(11:18):
and we're gone within thirteen months.And that trend continued with a number of
other departures, and now she ison her chief of staff number five.
That guy's been there for a fewyears and guess what he's leaving two now
just made a post and the jobis open for chief of staff for Jenna

(11:41):
Griswold. Dragon, brother, doyou think you might want to go apply
to be chief of staff for JennaGriswold in the Secretary of State's office?
Almost anything to get away from Michael. But I don't know that the almost
is key because I don't know thatanybody should put themselves through working for Jenna
Griswold, even if it's for oneday. Yeah, would definitely, as

(12:05):
much as it pains me to say, it would be a step down.
And then you and I could worktogether like today and tomorrow, and that
would break your heart, right.We don't want to break Dragon's heart,
absolutely, and we're just getting toknow each other, so you can't do
that. But Griswold is somebody whopeople don't talk about this turnover or how
she treats her staff, and yetthat's a major thing with this Secretary of

(12:31):
State, who everybody understands to haveaspirations toward the governorship. We could have
a heck of a gubernatorial primary withJenna Griswold, Phil Weiser, the Attorney
General, maybe Joe Nigose, thecongressman from Boulder, although he's now number
four for the Democrats and the USHouse of Representatives. So I'm kind of

(12:54):
iffy on that whether he would say, yeah, I'm going to leave this
top leadership position that i can runfor governor of Colorado. But you never
know he might end up doing that, and then you have a real heck
of a primary going. Could youimagine Jenny Griswold as governor? Though I
just I can't. I don't wantto. It just it makes me shiver.

(13:20):
We would never miss out on atopic to talk about. I mean,
we would always have something to say. Yeah, that's true, that's
true. She'd be the content giftthat keeps on giving in that governorship,
and she'd be a regular contributor toMSNBC, just as she already is.
So some things will never change evenif there's a governor. Governor Griswold I'm

(13:41):
just gonna stop putting that out therebecause we've probably lost our audience and maybe
maybe you'll stay away if I keeptalking about that and putting that thought out
there. But seriously, though,when you have a person in a position
like secretary of State, which hasbecome a really significant role in the past

(14:01):
several years, you want to havesomebody with integrity, who treats their staff
with respect and dignity, and whoprobably isn't signing NDA's along with talking points
for an employee who's leaving. Hashappened with that first number two, that

(14:24):
first Deputy Secretary of State, somebodyby the name of Jenny Flanagan. I
mean Griswold is on Legislative Director numberfour, Communications director number four, now
looking for chief of staff number six, and what she's halfway through her second
term of office, not even yet. I mean I look at this and

(14:52):
think, Okay, this is thestate of Colorado, and this is the
track that we're going because nobody ina serious position of power authority in this
state has the goal to take heron. You got Republicans shure they're going
after they did an impeachment effort thatprobably wasn't advisable from a political standpoint last

(15:13):
week, and it didn't work outto impeach Jenna Griswold. But what you
do have with the Democrats in chargeare people who, frankly, I hear
a lot of Democrats aren't big fansof Jenna Griswold GSP So why do they

(15:37):
not dare to challenge her? Whoknows? That's That's a question I'm very
curious about. Well, with thekind of influence that somebody like Griswold amassed
nationally. She's the chair of theDemocratic Association of Secretaries of State, She's

(15:58):
the of a network of dark moneythat connects to a couple of George Soros
organizations like Open Democracy, Pack andmore. The fulcrum of this network of
dark money that has thrown about millionsand millions of dollars across the country and

(16:18):
right here in Colorado for Secretaries ofState races and for county clerk races,
and of course is a fixture overon MSNBC. Everybody just loves Jenny Griswald
over there. But that might helpto explain a little bit about why Griswold

(16:41):
has this kind of position where theother Democrats will not there challenge her,
at least not in any open way. And meanwhile, she clearly doesn't have
the best working environment. You don'thave this kind of turnover or if that
is the case. In fact,her first legislative director has expressed concerns about

(17:08):
this before. When he left intwenty twenty, in a LinkedIn post,
he said this, this office hasover two hundred percent turnover within its executive
team in less than two years undercurrent leadership, and he added, quote,
other options are better suited for talentedindividuals looking to make an impact in

(17:32):
Colorado. What a wonderful, winningendorsement of working for Jenna Griswold at her
office as Secretary of State when you'reappointed legislative director that she handpicked and said,
I want you to be my personwith the legislature, says other options

(17:52):
are better suited for talented individuals lookingto make an impact in Colorado. Go
figure. I don't think very manypeople think differently than that who worked at
Griswold's office and left. I'm JimmySangenberger in for Michael Brown. Even right
here that's going on, we're justgetting started. Good morning, Dragon,

(18:21):
and welcome aboard to the Michael Brownshow, Jimmy Sangenberger. For all you
goobers who do not know how tospell singen Berger, it is easy.
There are no a's, i's,o's, or you in Sangenberger. It's
all ease, all the time.Have a great show, Kenna Gwiswold,

(18:44):
Governor of Colorado. People, itcan happen. This state is so hard
to the left, you know,it's unbearable at times. But those independent
voters, that's your harvest field.That is your mission to convince them to

(19:07):
be Republican and to be Republican activists. Oh gosh, somebody else putting out
their Governor Griswold. Yes, Unfortunately, it could in fact happen. Jimmy
sang in Berger, all ease,all the time, filling in for Michael
Brown today and tomorrow. And look, I mean the reality again is that

(19:32):
Jenna Griswold has somehow been able tocarve out as Secretary of State some real
influence within the Democratic Party, whichis why you don't see very much public
criticism of her from the left andwhy you can, in fact have the
possibility of that, Governor Griswold,don't let that happen. Make sure you

(19:57):
share, you spread the word aboutthe kind of person she is. Shameless
little plug. I mentioned my columnin the Denver Gazette from Friday where I'm
investigative columnist in the last segment andGriswold pays six figures on discrimination claim.
Is the name of that column.Go to Denver Gazette dot com and give

(20:18):
it a read and share it aroundif you want to spread the word about
the kind of person Jenna Griswold is. All right, let's get to some
texts you can text. Make sureto start with Michael or Mike. Then
you can add Jimmy if you wantto. But it's three to three one
zero three. That is the number. We've got a bunch of texts that

(20:41):
have been coming in in part aboutDenver Public Schools and these non disclosure agreements,
per the former spokesman, the formercommunications director for Denver Public Schools,
who on Monday had this to sayat the school board meeting. Coming back
as a private citizen, I alsorecently learned that your employee just mandated that

(21:04):
all members of the DPS communications teammust now sign confidentiality agreements. A curious
mandate your employee refers to superintendent,to Alex Morero, Mike and Jimmy here.
If you put the names, thenwe will share it with your listener.
Text coming in. So it's okayfor dps to impose non disclosure agreements

(21:30):
with their employees, but Donald Trumpis on trial for it and that rings
along with somebody else who Oh hethinks he or she thinks this would be
Gamer Gault. He's so clever andoriginal. Welcome mister Jimmy Snagerberger. By
the way, that is not anew one. It's hard for people to

(21:53):
find new variations on my name thatI haven't heard before. But please keep
going. All all good. Welcomemister Jimmy Snageberger. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it. Why does theMarxist media call it an NDA when
it's the left doing it, butit's hush money when it's the right Dragon,

(22:17):
why do you think that is?Is it just convenient or is there
something specific going on? I don'tknow what comes to your mind with Gamer
galts text. Are you implying therethat the media has some nefarious inteway?
I don't. I don't believe it, not for a second. God,
for a second, I think Dragon, and I are both on exactly the

(22:38):
same page here. It is nota bias, it's just it's just sensitivity,
alternative fact, alternative facts. Thankyou for that one from the vault.
Jen Hockey, do a appreciate Look, here's the thing and Dragon,

(23:03):
you and I were talking about thisa bit during the break. I get
NDAs, of course, non disclosureagreements. When you're talking about the private
sector, you have things like patentsor you have sensitive discussions. It's the
private sector for businesses, but publicsector is where you have employees who are
really working, at least supposedly workingfor the people. Right, So isn't

(23:26):
the information that they know unless it'sthe sensitive nature the property of the people
Or is that me asking too muchof our elected officials and their staff members.
I think it might be. Again, we don't know the specific details

(23:48):
at this point as to the NDAsthat we're being discussed by Will Jones,
the former communications director for Denver PublicSchools. But you have to think,
Okay, they've had a lot ofissues with privacy concerns. They've had a
lot of and by privacy concerns,I mean with themselves. Oh, we

(24:11):
need to go behind closed doors inan executive session for the school board and
talk about things we're not allowed totalk about, or they have a settlement
agreement that is reached with a schoolboard member by the name of Tay Anderson,

(24:33):
who I've written and spoken a lotabout. Tay Anderson, former school
board member. But he had thisinvestigation in twenty twenty one into allegations of
sexual impropriety, and they came outwith the report in September of that year
saying, well, we didn't findthe most serious, substantiate the most serious

(24:56):
allegations, but what we did dowas that he had, on multiple occasions
tried to coercively date a couple ofunderage students while as school board member and
a candidate and so many other intimidatingwitnesses during the investigation, and other findings

(25:17):
that are clearly beneath the school boardmember. But guess what last year they
gave him thirty five hundred dollars tohelp pay his legal bills for that investigation,
that, by the way, gothis board colleagues to censure him.
Never done before where a school boardmember had been censured by his colleagues,

(25:41):
and yet alas that was to Anderson, and so they made this payment,
which the school board never authorized.And then when guys like me in the
media put in open records requests sayinghey, we want this settlement agreement,
we want these details, they madeus jump through hoops. They gave us

(26:04):
the run around to finally get it. And that was in part because the
settlement agreement literally said, in theevent of an Open Records Act request,
you're supposed to deny it unless TayAnderson agreed to release it. Okay,
you could tell that there's a thread, a common theme in Denver Public Schools

(26:27):
of let's hide the ball from thepublic. Oh, by the way,
they just settled a lawsuit as wellin Denver Public Schools with a DPS mother
who was blocked from Tay Anderson's pageafter she asked him, Hey, who
do I email to get an unredactedversion of the report that I just talked
about from that investigation, which,by the way, the only person who

(26:49):
could release an unredacted report is tyAnderson himself. He didn't like the question,
so he just blocked her and deletedthe comment, and she sued and
there was a twenty five thousand dollarssettlement Denver Public Schools paid ten thousand dollars
for themselves and fifteen thousand dollars forTay Anderson, former school board member as

(27:10):
well. So I don't know whatit is with these settlements and what we
keep seeing, whether it's Tay Andersongetting money or Jenna Griswold's office giving it
out to a former employee getting onehundred and twenty thousand dollars after a discrimination
claim. It is just why Idon't know what's in the water. Alexa

(27:33):
texting in Jimmy, welcome the DPSboard. Like Tay and Jenna Griswold are
the gifts that keep on giving,and the school board is so dysfunctional even
without Tay. Tay loved your columni, Jenna, thank you. I do
appreciate that. Another text. Ilove this one. I've already railed about

(27:59):
this on the show. For theenot for me. There's no one in
that gold Leaf building that represents myvalues, morals, or scruples. Very
fair and of course, as MikeRosen used to frequently tell us, behind
every double standard lies and unconfessed singlestandard. That's the modus operandi of the

(28:27):
left. Thank you, Goober fortysix ninety five for that reminder, and
it definitely applies. Why is itrules for thee but not for me when
it comes to the left in particular, Jenna Griswold and Denver Public Schools being
cases in point. But here's thething. This isn't political, This isn't

(28:51):
about left or right. It shouldn'tmatter that Kay Anderson and Jenna griswald Er
died in the wool progressives. Thefact is that good governance is good governance.
Acting appropriately is acting appropriately. Nondisclosure agreements, hush money payments,
however you want to put it,are exactly that. And if they're not

(29:18):
good in some instances, maybe theyshouldn't be in others. But that double
standard does exist because of a lotof folks in the media and people in
power. But I have to tellyou one of the encouraging things for me
has been in Denver Public Schools theoutcry of parents left right and center who

(29:41):
have said, our schools are notsafe. We need to fix the disciplinary
policies in the district. They pushto return law enforcement to high school campuses,
which they did, and they're continuingto push back against the hiding of
the ball. On the other things, the DPS keeps doing just parents who

(30:07):
are fed up, A lot ofpeople fed up in Colorado and across the
country right now. And we'll see, by the way, how that pans
out come November of this year.I'm Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Michael Brown.
We'll keep it going, keep thetext coming, thirty three one o
three three three one zero three textin there. Put Michael or Mike first,

(30:32):
and we'll get the ball rolling.Jimmy Sangenberger in for Michael Brown.
Of course, Dragon wouldn't do it. He just he wouldn't do that to
me, not not yet, atleast not to Okay. See, all
right, we're off to a goodstart in the trial period. First hours
pretty much coming to a close.I think we're on good term so far.
Good. I'm glad. I wasworried we might have to sign some

(30:52):
kind of non disclosure agreement again andhave some hush money payment, but I
don't know how that would work.I'm a little confused that how that all
goes down anyway, by the way, and we'll talk about this more later
perhaps, but this is just hadcome out from last night breaking news overnight
from the Denver City Council. Theyjust approved a panel, a budget panel

(31:21):
just approved Denver Mayor Mike Johnston's fortyfive million dollars in budget cuts. That
includes eight point four million dollars incuts to police, to law enforcement at
a time when with rampant drug useand all the chaos and all the problems
that just keep going on in thecity of Denver, when we need law

(31:45):
enforcement. And this is a guywho ran on a promise. He promised
law and order was something he supported, he would advocate for law enforcement to
do the things that needed to bedone. He's supported bringing police back to

(32:06):
Denver public schools. That's the guyin Mayor Johnston who now has put forward
forty five million dollars in budget cutsto, by the way, provide more
aid in assistance to illegal immigrants ina sanctuary city, that sanctuary city known
as Denver, Colorado. And it'sonly going to get worse, both the

(32:31):
immigration crisis and how it's impacting Denverand the safety failures and breakdown that's happening
in Denver. It's abominable. Andif he gets his way here with eight
point four million dollars and cuts,you won't have more police on the street
because that's going to impact their abilityto hire new police officers while Denver's in

(32:55):
decay. What in the world isgoing on here