The director of one of the fastest growing airports in Colorado left his job abruptly last month, just days after critical comments he made about residents living near the airport were revealed to county officials.
Paul Anslow called people raising concerns about Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport operations “nut jobs” and belittled their concerns about airport noise, according to a 2021 transcript of a private conversation given to KUNC News as part of a public records request.
Jefferson County officials told KUNC earlier this month they would not say why Anslow suddenly left his $154,000-a-year job at the airport, which is owned by the county. Three weeks after Anslow’s departure, four of the six members of an airport advisory board resigned from their roles in protest of Anslow’s “firing.”
“It is with deep frustration and disappointment in Jefferson County’s recent decision to fire Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport Director Paul Anslow that we, the undersigned Advisory Board Members, tender our immediate and full resignation,” a letter from the resigning board members reads.
In the letter, board members contended Anslow’s firing was a result of “political maneuvering.”
Anslow told KUNC Wednesday he did not want to comment on the transcript or his departure from the airport because he is in negotiations for another job.
A KUNC News investigation has revealed more about the circumstances leading up to his sudden departure. Days before Anslow left, county officials received evidence he privately criticized people concerned about airport operations, had downplayed concerns about lead pollution from airplane exhaust, and said he wanted neighboring governments to “waste their time and money” fruitlessly trying to mitigate concerns about airport noise.
Dozens of northern Colorado residents packed community meetings in recent years saying excessive aircraft noise at the busy airport negatively impacted their lives.
Public records Jefferson County provided to KUNC News show the county received two complaints about Anslow in July and early November from Daril Cinquanta, the head of the Jefferson County Aviation Association.
Then, less than a week before Anslow’s departure on Nov. 29, the county said it received, verified and rapidly distributed to county commissioners the 60-page transcript of what is presented as a private conversation in 2021 between Anslow and Cinquanta about airport operations.
According to the transcript, Anslow asked Cinquanta if he was listening to the monthly community meetings about airport noise, called "community noise roundtables," where elected officials from nearby communities meet to talk about residents’ concerns.
“No, and I should,” Cinquanta replies in the transcript.
“You should,” Anslow continued. “We laugh because we get nut jobs who complain about the airport, and want to shut us down and do all that stuff.”
According to the transcript, Anslow also told Cinquanta Boulder County, Jefferson County, Arvada, Superior, Louisville, Lafayette and Westminster wanted to pay a consultant to study alternate flight paths at the airport as part of their efforts to reduce aircraft noise.
“I want them to waste their money and time,” Anslow is quoted as saying in the transcript. “Cause here’s the deal, Centennial (airport) had a (noise) roundtable for 20 plus years, nothing gets done. It just makes people feel happy that they’re part of the roundtable and they get to bitch.”
In the transcript, Anslow is quoted offering his vision for how he thought governments’ efforts to mitigate airport noise would end.
“It will probably take five years, and a couple hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer’s money that’s wasted, and I get to sit there and be like, ‘Hey we support this, we do anything we can to help (with) noise,’” Anslow is quoted as saying.
A board to address airport noise was formed in 2021 at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. Surrounding governments are projected to spend $96,000 participating in the meetings this year, according to budget documents.
Jefferson County spokesperson Cassie Pearce said the county investigated the transcript of the conversation and took steps to verify the accuracy of the document, including by talking to Anslow about it.
“The county did confirm the conversation happened, and they confirmed the transcript was accurate,” Pearce said. “The county attorney asked me not to elaborate on the investigative process. I can’t expand on the steps that were taken to verify the transcript.”
Pearce said the county understands the “PA” in the transcript was Paul Anslow and the “DC” was Daril Cinquanta. The county said it didn’t receive an audio recording of the conversation. The transcript is not dated, but several quotes included in the transcript match quotes Cinquanta included in one of the complaints he sent to county commissioners about comments he said Anslow made to him during their 2021 meeting. The comments included Anslow criticizing attendees of the monthly roundtables on airport noise and expressing his desire to have governments “waste their time and money” on the issue.
Cinquanata said Wednesday he did not give the county the transcript.
“I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “That is not my work product, and I didn’t submit it.”
Asked if he recorded the conversation at the heart of his Nov. 9 complaint against Anslow, Cinquanta said “not that I recall.”
In a previous interview with KUNC about Anslow’s departure, Cinquanta said he sometimes recorded conversations he had with Anslow without telling the airport director, which is legal in Colorado as long as the person recording is party to the conversation.
“He would never say half the things he said to me over the years if he knew I was recording him,” Cinquanta said.
Neighbors react
Charlene Willey, a Westminster resident who has spent years asking the airport to help reduce noise and air pollution, told KUNC Wednesday that comments in the transcript suggesting Anslow wanted governments to “waste their time and money” trying to address airport noise made her feel sick.
She called Anslow’s comments “jaw dropping” but not surprising. Willey said she's been frustrated by a lack of progress at the board meetings about noise, and she said she continues to think the meetings are a “charade.”
“He got caught saying what everybody knows,” she said. “It's sickening to watch the charade, and I have for all these years.”
Bri Lehman, who leads a group pushing Front Range airports to become quieter and more environmentally friendly, said this week she disagrees with Anslow’s comments that neighbors are trying to shut down the airport.
“I think that the members of the community have been very clear in our public comments and other communications with the airport and other officials that our intention is not to close the airport, but, in fact, to ask Jefferson County and the airport to behave as reasonable neighbors, as a public agency ought to in terms of soliciting community input,” she said.
A county spokesperson also said she disagreed with Anslow’s comments in the transcript about the noise roundtable.
“The county does not condone any of that language or what was said in that transcript,” Cassie Pearce said. “Community noise roundtables are incredibly valuable and important to our relationship to the community as it relates to the airport.”
Jefferson County officials would not comment on whether Anslow’s sudden departure was related to county leaders’ review of the transcript the week before.
‘An important transcript’
Jefferson County officials told KUNC they couldn’t reveal specifically how the county got the document.
“A staff member received the transcript in a personal capacity and opted to bring that forward in hard copy to county leadership,” county spokesperson Cassie Pearce told KUNC.
She said when they got a copy of it, county leaders wanted to quickly forward the transcript to commissioners.
On Nov. 23, Jefferson County paid $58.41 to have FedEx send a hard copy of the transcript overnight to Jefferson County Commissioner Tracy Kraft-Tharp while she was at a timeshare in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to a receipt obtained by KUNC and interviews with county officials.
“They felt it was a pretty important transcript,” Pearce said.
Commissioner Kraft Tharp declined to comment Wednesday on Anslow’s departure or the transcript.
In their resignation letter, Airport Advisory Board members Phil Rosnik, Randy Holliday, Joe Ramos and Jon Dwight supported Anslow, calling him, “a “passionate, dedicated and hard-working leader for the airport, the community, and airport stakeholders.”
Anslow had served as director of the airport for five years.
