City Lottery for Parks During DNC Turns into Farce

From Recreate 68:

THE CASE OF THE MISSING LOTTERY CARDS
City Omits Recreate 68 Applications from Park Permit Lottery

DENVER, March 18, 2008—In a comedy of errors, the city lottery for park permits during the DNC came to a screeching halt today as Recreate 68 member Barbara Cohen discovered that a card representing her application for R68 was missing for four of the five days she had applied for. Further investigation revealed this was not the only discrepancy.

Coincidence? That the major protest group organizing a coalition of groups to demonstrate at the DNC was almost left out of the process? We have no evidence this was a deliberate omission. But we have to ask, if this is the way the city handles something as simple as a lottery, what will happen in August when the DNC is here?

After over two hours and forty-five minutes, as city employees tried to figure out what to do next, Katherine Archuleta of the mayor’s office announced that, because of “discrepancies,” the city would halt the process, and look at original applications again and re-issue tickets for the lottery process. Ms. Archuleta suggested that the “safeguards” the city had put in place had ensured that the process worked properly. But in fact, it was only because Ms. Cohen carefully inspected the cards and discovered the “discrepancy” that the problem was brought to light.

The city will try again to carry out the lottery Thursday, March 20, at 1:00 pm in Room 4G2 in the Webb building. We can only hope that the second time is the charm.