Probable Falsehood – the incumbent has no intention of retiring after he is reelected.
The incumbent has told audiences at candidate forums on more than one occasion that he did contemplate retiring some time ago, but was talked back into running again for another term.
Probable Truth – The incumbent is probably carrying out his plan to pass on his baton to the other doctor in the office, Kelly Lear-Kaul, to whom he has referred on two or more occasions as his “partner”.
The incumbent has now admitted in candidate forums that he announced his retirement 18 months ago. He said he would retire as soon as his kids were out of college (they are). The incumbent has already built his retirement home in Kremling.
A search of the Colorado Secretary of State’s Business database reveals that Arapahoe County Coroner employee, Forensic Pathologist Kelly Lear-Kaul, has formed her own LLC, 5280 Forensic Pathology.
See for yourself. http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityDetail.do?quitButtonDestination=BusinessEntityResults&nameTyp=ENT&masterFileId=20081143429&entityId2=20081143429&srchTyp=ENTITY&fileId=20081143429
Already, other counties are paying this LLC (rather than Arapahoe County) for autopsies that Dr. Lear-Kaul does for them. Remember, Dr. Lear-Kaul is supposed to be a full-time employee of Arapahoe County, as the Medical Examiner.
People who have been in the Arapahoe County Coroner’s office have stated that the incumbent’s plan is to get re-elected, then retire, and have the Commissioners appoint Dr. Lear-Kaul as the incumbent’s successor.
Certainly she is following in the footsteps of the incumbent, and is already doing precisely as he has been doing for many years now – running her personal business out of the Coroner’s office.
QUESTION:
Does the incumbent have a secret deal with Dr. Lear-Kaul where he will retire, get her appointed, and then she will hire him back on a contract basis to perform all the “extra” autopsies of the office, at his currently exorbitant rate (nearly twice the rate of Dr. Gallaway)?
Only time will tell. Unless on November 2, the informed voters of Arapahoe County “retire” the incumbent and spoil his plans.
QUESTION: Why did Dr. Lear-Kaul decide to open an LLC in order to conduct her private autopsy business? The incumbent does his private business under his own name. Is it because that business name shields her from making an easy connection between her conducting autopsies outside her full-time job, and the money that is coming to her?
Maybe she has seen that the connections are too easily made showing that the incumbent is running his own personal business out of the Coroner’s Office, and she wants to avoid that kind of easy scrutiny.
