The wheels of local government came to a screeching halt in the Dacono City Council chambers during a public meeting last Monday when a group of city councilmembers attempted to obstruct a recall election, marking the second time that group of councilmembers has tried to meddle with the recall vote.
The four councilmembers – Kathy Wittman, Jim Turini, Danny Long and Jackie Thomas - abruptly walked out of the meeting mid-vote, apparently to prevent the chamber from moving forward with efforts to plan the voter-initiated recall election against Thomas and Turini.
The most recent disruption comes after months of tension that began when the same four councilmembers unexpectedly fired the longtime Dacono City Manager AJ Eukert during a February meeting. The move appeared to be a coordinated effort. If that is the case, it would violate Colorado’s Open Meetings laws, a possibility that was recently investigated by state officials.
Things fell apart more than 90 minutes into an otherwise functional city council meeting last Monday when the topic turned from development permits and backyard chicken coops to the subject of the recall election.
Mayor Adam Morehead raised the question of hiring a legal consultant to help the town handle the upcoming recall. Dacono does not
currently have a city attorney after the previous city attorney, Kathleen Kelly, resigned from her position the day after the city manager was fired in February.
Thomas and Turini both voiced objections to the proposal. They appeared surprised and outraged when Morehead explained they weren’t entitled to vote on matters related to their own recall election.
Thomas insisted she was still eligible to vote on the recall issues.
“The last time I checked, I live in America," Thomas said during the meeting. "I am innocent until proven guilty.”
Turini argued that he and Thomas should keep their votes, framing recall election expenditures as simple budgetary concerns.
“Another spending of the citizens’ money,” Turini said disparagingly of a proposal to rent voting equipment.
That prompted an incredulous councilman Kevin Plain to pipe up in frustration.
"So you’re trying to block your own recall election. Are you seriously trying to do that?” he exclaimed.
Although the question was still open, Long made a motion to adjourn the meeting.
"We're out of here," he said, as Wittman signaled her agreement.
The resolution to hire a legal consultant managed to pass, even as councilmembers shouted over each other. Morehead resorted to pounding his gavel for order, which only led to more acrimony.
"You won't silence me with your little hammer," Wittman told him.
As Morehead attempted to move forward with other recall-related proposals, Long, Wittman, Turini and Thomas walked out of the meeting.
A proposal to rent equipment for the recall election passed just before Wittman and Long left the room, causing the council to lose quorum, or the minimum number of councilmembers needed to take a vote. A third proposal to purchase recall ballots did not make it to a vote because Wittman and Long had already left.
In a post-meeting interview with KUNC, Mayor Morehead spoke unequivocally about the reason his fellow councilmembers left the room.
Their intention, he said, was “to lose quorum so we couldn’t vote on anything without them. They were trying to walk out to obstruct us voting on the election-related agenda items,” he told KUNC. “It's going to be hard to do any city business when four [councilmembers] are not ethical and have their own agendas to the point of walking out of a meeting to try and obstruct a recall election.”
Morehead said the recall election will move forward, whether or not city councilmembers continue to obstruct the recall ballot purchase.
“I won’t allow it to be [obstructed]. We have a constitutional duty to have the election,” he said. “I will make sure the ballots get purchased. The will of the people is to have a recall election regarding councilmembers Thomas and Turini, and that election will occur."
Dacono residents filed petitions to recall Thomas and Turini last month. Petitioners told KUNC the decision to ask for the recall was a direct result of the councilmembers’ lack of transparency and unethical behavior when they fired the city manager in February.
The first time the same group of four councilmembers tried to interfere with the recall process was back in March, when they canvassed a residential neighborhood in Dacono together asking residents not to sign the recall petitions.
Their attempt to derail the petition was unsuccessful. The petitioners collected more than enough signatures to move forward with the recall election, which is set for June 27.
Wittman, Long and Thomas have not responded to KUNC’s repeated attempts to reach them for comment. Turini said he was not immediately available for an interview but sent KUNC a link to his website, where he states, “I voted for the will of the people and voted for a change of direction from what we had in the last 10 years.”
A state investigation wraps up
The meeting turmoil last week comes on the heels of an investigation into four Dacono city councilmembers that began in March. After Wittman, Turini, Thomas and Long abruptly fired the city manger in an off-agenda motion at the end of a council meeting in February, the bureau of investigation got involved to look into potential violations of Colorado's open meetings law, which requires "any state or local governmental body to discuss public business...in meetings that are open to the public."
The investigator, Agent Patrick Ness, spoke with former Dacono City Manager AJ Eukert, Mayor Adam Morehead, Councilmembers Doris Crespo and Kevin Plain, Community Development Director Jennifer Krieger, and Malcom Fleming, a city official from the neighboring town of Erie. The councilmembers under investigation—Wittman, Long , Thomas and Turini—did not cooperate with the investigation.
The finalreport, issued in mid April, documented several apparent violations of the open meetings law and other local government policies and rules, but did not draw any conclusions or make recommendations.
Executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition Jeff Roberts filled in the blanks.
"The CBI agent, in his interviews, found evidence of what people have been suspecting - that some members of the city council made this decision ahead of the meeting at which the city manager actually was fired," Roberts explained. "That was illegal because it wasn't noticed—people didn't know about it. It was made outside of the public view. And that's contrary to what the open meetings law is about."
In addition to the city manager being fired without public notice, the report revealed another incident where councilmembers improperly discussed public business in private.
Councilmember Doris Crespo recounted being invited to lunch by fellow councilmember Wittman, only to find that Turini was also waiting for them at the restaurant. Crespo had received training on open meetings law and knew it was prohibited for three or more councilmembers to meet privately and discuss city business. When Crespo raised her concerns, however, Wittman dismissed them.
Crespo became increasingly uncomfortable at their lunch meeting as Wittman and Turini proceeded to discuss city business, including their intentions to fire City Manager AJ Eukert, City Attorney Kathleen Kelly and Dacono’s Community Development Director Jennifer Krieger. Soon afterwards, Crespo reported the incident to the mayor and the city attorney out of a concern about potential open meetings law violations.
Crespo told KUNC she thinks Wittman and Turini were trying to recruit her to help them get rid of the City Manager and other city staff they didn’t like.
"I trusted [Wittman],” Crespo told KUNC. "I feel I got taken advantage of."
According to Roberts, it's unusual for the CBI to get involved in open meetings law inquiries, as such violations are considered civil—rather than criminal—issues. He said open meetings law is enforced when a citizen sues in state court.
“If [the judge] found a violation, they could nullify any action that was taken illegally. They could issue an injunction to say ‘don’t do that again.’ If there was an executive session and a recording of that executive session, they could order the release of that recording,” Roberts said. “That’s what typically happens in these types of lawsuits.”
Apart from what could unfold in the courts should someone file a lawsuit, Mayor Morehead still has a city to run.
“The next steps are to decide what council wants to do regarding the allegations in the report,” Morehead said.
That includes, according to Morehead, the possibility of publicly censuring the councilmembers involved in the violations in question.
“That'll be up to the two council members that aren't involved in the investigation and not alleged to have done anything,” Morehead said.
Morehead fears navigating council meetings could prove messy in the aftermath of this turmoil.
“If city business is not going their way and their reaction is to walk out of that meeting and create a scene, it's going to be difficult,” Morehead said.
