Aspen Mayor Explodes At ‘Swift Boat’ Tactics

June 19th, 2008 at 08:06pm Post Staff 43

ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—In a contentious electronic mail exchange between members of the Citizens Budget Task Force (CBTF) and the Mayor of Aspen and the City Council, Mayor Mick Ireland is charging unnamed parties with violating Colorado campaign laws in a move he likened to the “Swift Boating” of Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.

“This country has suffered greatly under Karl Rove and Dick Cheney,” the Mayor wrote in an email, “and I am not going to stand still for that same wedge politics, Swift Boat method being used here. If people want to raise money and run for office, let them do so under the Campaign Finance Act. I don’t like 527 attack groups and I am not going to wait until the attacks are launched before speaking out on what is happening. This is constant politics, don’t let the council do anything but respond to attacks and claims and spin and requests for tons of documents.”

The Mayor has failed to name any names or identify the 527 political group using such tactics. In a subsequent email, he called the unnamed group guilty of breaking the law. He was also critical of plans for an independent non-partisan investigative reporter funded by the nonprofit Fact and Accuracy In Investigative Report (FAIR) group and the hiring of a part-time executive director by the Aspen Citizens Group. The subject line on the email said: I meant what I said.”

“When ‘citizens’ are raising undisclosed campaign PAC money contrary to state finance laws,” he wrote, “when the stated intent of their campaign on Burlingame is to elect a new council, we have a right and duty to call out this illegality. When a ‘citizen’ walks into the city attorney and tells him he has an ‘obligation’ to prosecute [former Council Member, now Pitkin County Commissioner] Rachel Richards because she campaigned for Burlingame and may have cited the brochure, something very wrong and pernicious is going on…. I know, Mick is just being paranoid in connecting the dots, the call for a Ken Starr special prosecutor, the "investigative reporter" being hired, the undisclosed PAC, the demands for every document that uses the word Burlingame in the last ten years be produced not once but twice.”

The tension between task force member Marilyn Marks and the Mayor and Council Members Jack Johnson and Steve Skadron blew up at a work session the politicians did not expect to be recorded by and televised on GrassrootsTV. Marks had informed the Council of her plan to pay the $300 cost out of her pocket, but Skadron, Johnson, and Ireland expressed indignation and even rage at televising the session in question. After being dressed down by the Mayor and Council Members, Marks resigned from the CBTF and the affordable housing subcommittee.

In yet another email, Mayor Ireland wrote: “The people in this town have voted again and again for campaign finance disclosure laws. If you want to put up candidates for office, file the paper work and report it. Even the so called 527s have to file some paper work. There is great danger in secretly funded political campaigns, the people have recognized this and the law should be followed.
“Personally, I think this community and nation have suffered from undisclosed attack ads and behind the scenes funding of causes. I know I have. I know when the ‘investigative reporter’ gets hired, he/she won't be looking at your life, it will be me and my family, as usual. And I know the citizen action group executive director position being advertised is not to work on some ‘transparent’ political organization.”

In email to the Mayor and the City Council, subcommittee chairperson Ward Hauenstein sprang to Marks’s defense.

“I respectfully call upon CC to show more compassion and diplomacy with their comments to the public,” he wrote. “I have told MM [Marilyn Marks] several times that she is a 78 rpm record in a 45 rpm world (a quote form Chris Cassatt). How is it that MM can so move people to provoke the reaction from CC [City Council] in general and you Mick in particular. Mick we have been friends for longer that I can recall, but I was shocked at the rancor of your remarks…. I know it must be very difficult to keep your emotions aside, but that is what is expected of you as elected representatives. We, the public hold you to a higher standard.”

Mayor Ireland quickly responded: “And I don’t think speaking the truth is rancorous.”

In a response to an email by Council Member Dwayne Romero, Ireland also wrote: “What do your kids learn from a group that raises money in secret, probably illegally? That decorum means we can’t speak out against that activity? That we dare not call it what it is, that speaking the truth about the Endless Campaign is indecorous and that we should remain silent while democracy is replace by plutocracy?”

Task force member Jim DeFrancia wrote in an email about Marks: “A great loss of a true "worker bee" and the CC should be ashamed of its conduct on the 10th and I, for one, intend to tell them that!!”

“It was an effort to discuss an important issue in public for the widest public benefit,” DeFrancia wrote in another email to Mayor Ireland. “Are you afraid to have wide public observance? The regular meetings are aired, so what is the problem with work sessions being aired?

“And under any circumstances the conduct of the CC was deploarable. Who in the hell are you guys to berate citizens? Who in the hell do you think you all work for?

“Shameful!!!”

Entry Filed under: Aspen, Colorado, Affordable Housing, United Post, Aspen City Council