This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
During the discussion of the Our Center matter at the city council meeting on November 19, council member Joan Peck asked Mayor Brian Bagley why he failed to inform her of Julia Rush’s Our Center complaint. Mayor Bagley replied that he did not want to be an accessory to a crime.
If the Mayor was so concerned about becoming an accessory, why didn’t he refer the Our Center complaint to city attorney Eugene Mei and let him handle it? Eugene Mei is the legal expert for the city. He could have dealt with the matter. At the very least, the city attorney would have informed council member Peck and Christensen of Ms. Rush’s complaint.
Instead Mayor Bagley sent the Our Center emails to council member Tim Waters on Wednesday, November 13 at 10:08 AM, a day after Ms. Rush contacted the Mayor. Council member Marcia Martin received her copies of the emails from Bagley at 10:09 AM, a minute later. Two days after that on November 15, Mayor Bagley apparently thought it was necessary to send copies of Ms. Rush’s Our Center emails to the Longmont Observer. It is clear that Mayor Bagley wanted those emails to become a news story, since he sent them to the news outlet. John Fryar of the Times-Call requested copies of emails that were provided to the Longmont Observer in his open records request to the city on November 15.
For the entire week of November 11, Mayor Bagley never informed Joan Peck and Polly Christensen of Our Center’s complaint against them. The two council women received news of the complaint from Times-Call reporter John Fryar.
Mayor Bagley also neglected to inform the two council women of his plan to hold an impromptu discussion on the Our Center matter at the November 19 city council meeting. Peck and Christensen repeatedly told the Mayor and council member Tim Waters that they were not at liberty to talk about the matter because it was being reviewed by the Boulder County District Attorney’s office. But the two men did not seem to care. They went at the women as if they were prosecutors on a TV show.
Why did Mayor Bagley seem so intent on keeping fellow council members Christensen and Peck out of the loop regarding the Our Center matter? His actions suggest that he meant to inflict maximum damage in the court of public opinion before the two council women even knew there was an issue? Maybe it was also intended to quash their influence on city council because they are seen as obstacles to key parts of Mayor Bagley’s political agenda
Ruby Bowman
Longmont, CO 80501
