The controversy swirling around the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce and their continued support of a City Councilman who pleaded guilty to domestic abuse has reached new audiences. There is a man in Grand Junction who calls himself a Tea Party of One because he has gotten cross-wise with both GJResult/Tea Party and the nameless group formerly known as Western Slope Conservative Alliance, of Saturday Night Live fame. Yesterday he sent out a commentary that ended with a request for at least six recall petitions for Rick Brainard.

The path that got this self-described Tea Partier to support the efforts of feminists who are protesting domestic violence is quite circuitous. He supported the candidates put forth by the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce because he was assured by one of them that they would not spend any money on the Avalon Theater, the anchor to one end of Grand Junction’s historic Main Street.

Redevelopment plans for the Avalon have been in the works for a long time, with downtown merchants strongly supporting the efforts. It is an old theater with seats that make your butt go to sleep during any concert or movie. There are no dressing rooms for performers. There is no way for seniors using walkers to get up to the balcony for nostalgic or other reasons. The lobby is so small that people wanting to use the concession stand may need to line up outside. The city owns this building.

Meanwhile back to the “Chambermades,” a term coined by Anne Landman, a local blogger. They voted to table the Avalon renovation proposal in the first city council meeting populated by Chambermades. Brainard, who was promoted by the Chamber because of his business acumen, said that the projections weren’t robust enough and asked for a better analysis. Speaking strictly as an ex-banker, investments should never be made based on a best case analysis. What business acumen?

Meanwhile, back at the Chamber, certain downtown business men went ballistic. Some, like the owner of Main Street Bagels, who enjoys the foot traffic when there are events at the Avalon, wrote letters to the editor of the local newspaper. Others, as the rumor goes, reminded the Chambermades of the $50,000 they contributed out of candy profits to the Chamber’s PAC in order to get these guys elected, and demanded that their financial interests in neighboring properties be protected. Whatever the truth of the matter is, the Chambermades sang a very different tune the next time they met and the Avalon renovation was back on track.

Feeling betrayed by the men who assured him that there would be no money spent on the Avalon, the Tea Party of One now wants to join forces with the feminists who want Brainard out.

The Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce could not possibly have done more damage to their reputation than if they had tried corporate suicide. They backed four candidates. One lost, the other three were elected and promptly one of them was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. They are lucky that it was only a misdemeanor, a felony would have automatically removed him from the City Council. The fates love a good joke, so the one race that was lost by the Chamber may once again be within their grasp, since that Councilor has since passed away. The sitting council will appoint his successor, although people who contributed $50,000 may not be as willing to support Chambermades in the future, given the results of the first cloning.

While Glenn Menard is not alone in bemoaning the unsurprising fact that government bureaucracies often prevent public officials charged with overall responsibility from anticipating and/or proactively responding to “crises” based on timely and accurate information (“Leaders don’t plead ignorance of decisions”, May 24, 2013), Menard’s lame lament betrays his own irresponsible ignorance of relevant details.

Thus, the “Fast and Furious” fiasco began during the Bush Administration, but Bush’s outgoing and fully-informed Attorney General did not brief Eric Holder about it.  Thus, President Obama and his AG remained unaware of the DEA’s failed operation until previously seized weapons turned up at a Border Patrolman’s murder scene.

As to “Benghazi”, both the President and Secretary Clinton necessarily relied on the best intelligence then available – which was more accurately refined over time.  We now know that Ambassador Stevens twice declined security support from our military, that his contract security detail was lounging around away from their automatic weapons when the attack began, and that – even though Secretary Clinton was apprised while the attack was still in progress – it was already too late for anyone to do anything about it.

As to the “AP investigation”, since Watergate, the President is legally prohibited from any involvement in on-going DOJ/FBI criminal investigations.  Because AG Holder was privy to the leaked classified intelligence and thus was interviewed by the FBI as a potential “suspect”, he properly recused himself from the AP matter.  Had the President been “informed” or Holder remained “involved”, inquisitors of Menard’s bent would be asking “what did they know, and when did they know it” – implying political influence.

This predictable outcome is confirmed by the “IRS audit” matter, wherein underlings in Cincinnati haplessly created a political firestorm that is now exposing widespread abuse of tax-exempt status by – particularly – “conservative” groups seeking to conceal their donors’ identities.

Kudos to the Daily Sentinel for Monday’s coverage of the IRS “scandal”:  “Ground zero of scandal:  IRS unit in turmoil” (NYT), “Aide:  Obama didn’t know of targeting” (AP), and “Audit flap energizes tea party coalition” (AP).

Contrary to Senator Rubio’s contention that “this is what happens when you expand government”, the reported facts demonstrate that the “scandal” arose from mindlessly shrinking government, changing “the rules of the game” without providing adequate guidance, and then inundating IRS employees with thousands of dubious applications.

Under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, only “social welfare” entities not “primarily” engaged in politics are entitled to tax-exempt status – under which we taxpayers effectively subsidize their activities and their tax-deducting contributors can remain anonymous.

Political groups of every persuasion sought to exploit the loophole opened by the Citizens United decision by claiming to be primarily “social welfare” organizations entitled to conceal the identities of – particularly -- their wealthy and corporate donors.

Despite the contents of their applications, many such groups appeared to be ineligible for tax-exempt status.  For example, “Tea Party” and other “conservative” groups using patriotic-sounding euphemisms in their organizational names had publicly vilified both government in general and President Obama in particular, suggesting that they were not “primarily” engaged in promoting “social welfare”, but rather partisan political views.  Nevertheless, only some 70 of 300 groups purportedly “targeted” were “conservative”.

Unfortunately, that “targeting” took the form of intolerable delays and IRS requests for additional information which were not narrowly tailored to the law’s eligibility criteria – evidence of mismanagement that justified the resignations of incompetent bureaucrats.

Thus, the real “scandal” is that the Tea Party, et al., having been caught with their hands in the public “cookie jar”, are “outraged” at being “singled out” -- not because they are “conservative”, but because they are self-evidently and primarily political.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/politics-nation-irs-scandal-cold-open/n37067/

Recently Kevin McCarney was quoted, first in the Denver Post and later in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, in stories about how the IRS went after conservative groups and how Western Slope Conservative Alliance (WSCA) was hassled by the IRS and still does not have its not-for-profit status. These days WSCA is calling themselves Freedom ! Colorado.

There is a long and quite sordid story behind this story, and it is about the Republican Party being scared to death of the Tea Party. The Tea Party, truly a grass roots movement, grew out of discontent with government spending. But locally it got hijacked by Western Slope Conservative Alliance, an invention of the Republican Party. Kevin McCarney, recently transplanted from Chicago, eventually joined the hijackers. However one of the first hijackers was Janet Rowland, Mesa County Commissioner at the time, previous candidate for Lt. Governor, and current Director of the Center for Local Government at Colorado Mesa University, another Tim Foster Republican hire.

I’ve been told that Richard Shoenradt, a previous Tipton staffer and one of the first directors of WSCA advocated for WSCA to be called Western Conservative Coalition (WCC) just to irritate Western Colorado Congress (WCC), which works diligently to protect the air, water, and soil quality on the Western Slope, and frequently is at odds with the oil and gas industry. Full disclosure, I sit on the board of Western Colorado Congress.

But I digress. The original Tea Party event in Grand Junction was put together by GJResult/Tea Party. It was a rally in Lincoln Park with as many as 3,000 attendees protesting what they perceived as runaway spending by the government. At the time Janet Rowland offered to put organizers in touch with a local DJ with a sound system. With the day of the event approaching, Rowland announced that she had promised speaking slots to several Republicans and that the Republican Women would handle the sign-up for the event. GJResult/Tea Party considered themselves non-partisan and did not want the GOP to control their event. Rowland threatened to cancel the P.A. system, effectively blackmailing the Tea Party into submission on that day.

I heard much of this story from a local activist who calls himself American Patriot. His frustration with trying to tell the story to local reporters led him to start posting comments at my blog. To his surprise, even though I’m a known liberal, I did not delete his comments. You see, I actually believe in free speech. I rarely agree with American Patriot on policy issues, but I do believe he has a right to speak his mind, so I had no problem with allowing those posts to stay available to the public. Eventually Kevin McCarney started posting there also. Still further along the time line, McCarney dictated that nobody should post anything at my blog, although American Patriot continues to post occasionally to this day.

It didn’t take long for GJResult/Tea Party to realize that the Republican Party was not a trustworthy partner in their grass roots efforts. Two months after its founding, the two Tea Party friendly members of WSCA were voted off the board. Once these individuals were removed, the remaining board was a who’s who of Mesa County Republicans: Jennifer Bailey, President (Two Rivers 9:12 Representative); Janet Rowland, Vice President (At-Large Member); Rose Pugliese, Secretary (Mesa County Young Republicans Representative, and current County Commissioner); Richard Shoenradt, Treasurer (At Large Member); Lois Dunn (At Large member and current Mesa County GOP Chair); Ruth Ehlers (Mesa County Republican Women Representative, and immediate past Mesa County GOP Chair), Karen Kulp (At Large member); Jeff Laney (At Large member); Duncan McArthur (At Large member); Sandy Peeso (Pro Second Amendment Representative); Kelly Sloan (Americans for Prosperity- Mesa County Chapter Representative, advisor to Steve King and a Canadian citizen); and Doug Thompson (At Large Member). 

When WSCA refused to allow the grass roots to vote on board members, GJResult/Tea Party, the actual grass roots group, officially resigned from WSCA. They believed in the democratic process. Eventually, in order to accept tax-deductible donations, WSCA allied themselves closely with Americans for Prosperity, at least that is where their on-line donations at the website were directed.

Another thing sticking in the craw of GJResult/Tea Party was their support of Bob McConnell for the CD3 seat. WSCA endorsed Tipton, who won the primary with 56% of the vote to McConnell’s 44%. GJResult/Tea Party felt the wishes of the grass roots were steam rolled by the local Republican Party which was on the Tipton bandwagon. To this day, GJResult/Tea Party does not support Tipton, despite his occasional teabag lapel pin.

GJResult/Tea Party began chaffing at the notion that WSCA would call themselves “THE” Tea Party. This hubris on the part of WSCA is largely why they are now known as Freedom ! Colorado. GJResult/Tea Party registered Western Slope Conservative Alliance/Tea Party with the Secretary of State in order to thwart WSCA efforts to call themselves “The” Tea Party and anointing their candidates with the tea party label.  It took almost two years for WSCA to realize that they did not own the Tea Party iteration of their name.

Thus began the name game. Both WSCA and the grass roots GJResult/Tea Party began searching for names, although for different reasons. GJResult/Tea Party needed a name for a sister group in Delta which had been using the name Western Slope Conservative Alliance/Tea Party. Various names were considered, including Colorado Liberty Alliance which was already taken by a Colorado Springs consulting group, which didn’t stop McCarney from using it for a while.  Another choice was Colorado Freedom Alliance, which GJResult/Tea Party registered on 1/17/13.  But that name was tainted when Kevin McCarney used it as his group name in sponsoring an “open carry” rally two days later. On 2/14/2013, GJResult/Tea Party registered the name Freedom Colorado. A little more than a week later, Kevin McCarney’s group sponsored a fundraiser, as a not-for-profit, at a local Grand Junction restaurant. This was a cash only fundraiser, presumably because they did not have the documentation required to open a checking account anywhere. Freedom ! Colorado is the name currently being used by the group formerly known as WSCA, although they frequently forget to use the exclamation point in communcations.

Kevin McCarney is the current leader of Freedom ! Colorado, but he lost his position as Vice Chairman of the local GOP during the last reorganization. It seems the Country Club Republicans got a little tired of the sleazy and controversial “educational” events promoted by Freedom ! Colorado, i.e. Agenda 21 conspiracy theories and “open carry” events.

It isn’t likely that McCarney decided on his own to go to the Denver Paper. American Patriot, co-founder of the GJResult/Tea Party, theorizes that Janet Rowland made the suggestion. It is a strategy that she has used in the past. McCarney is not the most reputable person on the planet, so it is amusing that he is now being given a voice by Front Range newspapers. For the record, Ray Scott and Kevin McCarney are friends. McCarney managed Ray Scott’s last campaign. There are unsubstantiated rumors that Scott helped McCarney hide assets from the IRS when McCarney pursued a personal bankruptcy, bringing the IRS story full circle.

Kudos to the Daily Sentinel for Thursday’s coverage of the continuing IRS “scandal”:  Gary Harmon’s “Area group caught in IRS dragnet, member says”; Ruth Marcus’s “IRS complacency on tax-exempt rules overshadowed by political scandal”, and the AP’s “GOP, Dems push Holder over subpoenas to the AP”.

As local Tea Party member Kevin McCarney impliedly admitted, the Western Slope Conservative Alliance (“WSCA”) has always been an overtly political organization.  Moreover, it reportedly claimed to have non-existent tax-exempt status when soliciting funds at its functions.

As Marcus explained, federal law mandates that only entities “exclusively” engaged in “public welfare” activities are entitled to tax-exempt status.  In 1959, the IRS redefined “exclusively” to mean “primarily” – so tax-exempt groups have been “allowed to engage in partisan activity as long as it constitutes less than half their operations”. 

Thus, the real question remains:  what “social welfare” activities has the WSCA performed which ever entitled it to tax-exempt status?  Apparently, the WSCA believes that its very existence serves the “public welfare” – thereby depriving the phrase of any real meaning.

Because the Tea Party’s dominant theme was bashing government and complaining about high taxes (even though Americans are among the least taxed industrial nations, with the lowest overall tax rate since World War II), it is perhaps understandable that some IRS workers in Cincinnati took umbrage (which does not excuse their illegal conduct, if any).

Ironically, the FBI is investigating possible violations of the Hatch Act – which prohibits partisan political activity by federal employees – involving an area of the Tax Code that was to be free of partisan politics ab initio.

Therefore, as Senator Bennet’s spokesman aptly noted, the ultimate outcome of all the investigations should insure that “political organizations do not masquerade as social welfare organizations and take advantage of the tax-exempt status that comes with it”.

While the Sentinel’s self-righteous indignation at the Justice Department’s secret subpoena of telephone records of selected AP reporters/offices is to be expected, its penchant for distorting the facts to serve a biased editorial agenda is “getting old”.

In June 2012, with Congressional Republicans demanding action (including continued prosecution of leaks occurring during the Bush Administration), the Justice Department began investigating the AP’s revelation that the CIA had successfully infiltrated a mole inside Al Qaida in Yemen – who foiled a plot to blow up an airliner headed for the U.S. by giving the CIA access to the terrorists’ unique explosive device. 

Obviously, the AP’s reporting directly threatened national security -- by compromising our ability to thwart “the next attack”.

President Obama had no knowledge of the inquiry’s details because -- since Watergate (another Republican abuse) – Presidents are precluded by law from an involvement with ongoing criminal investigations.  Because AG Holder was privy to the highly classified intelligence regarding the mole and the plot, and was consequently interviewed by the FBI, he correctly recused himself from overseeing the continuing investigation.

Precisely because “the subpoena was filed with a federal court”, a federal judge will ultimately determine whether the Justice Department properly complied with both the law and its internal procedures.  Meanwhile, the Sentinel conveniently failed to mention that – during the Bush Administration -- Republicans filibustered Democratic efforts to enhance “shield law” protections for the press.

Both “Fast and Furious” and “Benghazi” were/are faux “scandals” fueled by right-wing fanatics who subordinate both the facts and the national interest to partisan political gain.  Likewise, the “IRS scandal” is proving to be an inept effort by civil servants to deal with widespread abuse of nebulous tax exempt status – particularly by “Tea Party” groups falsely claiming to be “exclusively” or “primarily” engaged in “social welfare” activity.

The law that gave personhood to corporations can be directly blamed for the current division within the city of Grand Junction.  Normally city council elections are ho-hum affairs, and not many people pay attention. I started paying attention when I realized that the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce was stacking the deck.

Western Colorado Business Alliance was organized as a 501(c)(4) in August of 2012—just in time to start raising money and planning for the next election. The Registered Agent on the Secretary of State filing is Diane Schwenke, long standing President of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce. The stated purpose of the entity is “to take measures to strengthen the business community in Grand Junction, Colorado and the surrounding area.” It is organized “exclusively for the promotion of social

welfare pursuant to section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.”

It was no coincidence that Referred Item A (Brady) in the city election and the four hand-picked candidates had really slick campaign signs and ads. Anonymous money can buy a lot of things that don’t have to be reported to the Secretary of State under campaign finance laws.

The Chamber didn’t ever pretend that they were doing anything other than stacking the deck. They announced that they were picking the issues and candidates they wanted, and that there was no reason for them to not do so. When asked by Grand Junction Sentinel’s Reporter Amy Hamilton why they had not filed any campaign finance reports, Diane Schwenke replied, “Why should we? The  Alliance and Brady have done everything that’s required by the law.”

If ordinary citizens give money to candidates or organize issue campaigns, we are governed by Colorado’s Campaign Finance laws, which requires that all donors be listed and reported to the Secretary of State. There are limits on the amount of money that any one individual can contribute. In the shady world of 501(C)(4)’s, there is no required reporting and no limits. The Chamber hasn’t stacked the deck for this one election. They will continue stacking it until we citizens wake up and demand full accountability.

Today the City Council was taken over by the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce. Three out of four councilors sworn in today were hand-picked and supported by Western Colorado Business Alliance. Sam Susuras, the husband of Lois Dunn Susuras, chair of the Mesa County Republican Party, and former City Council Board Member, is the new Mayor of Grand Junction. Susuras was elected in a special session of the newly sworn-in City Council about 30 minutes after being sworn-in. Notably absent was Bennett Beschenstein, the Councilmember who called for Rick Brainard to step down.

Also absent were the many individuals who have been demonstrating against Brainard since his arrest. The swearing-in was done in alphabetical order. Brainard was first. As soon as he began his oath of office the “uninformed lynch mob” (his words) stood and turned their back on him. As soon as his oath was completed, they marched from the auditorium into, the microphones of waiting press. By my count about half of the people in the room were there to protest, the other half were there to celebrate the accomplishment of their loved ones or friends.

The clock starts ticking now. Instead of just Brainard being in the cross-hairs of the demonstrators, who mostly came out of a group called Women Helping Others Resist Exploitation and Sexism, he has company. The idea that a Mayor could be elected without any discussion immediately post swearing-in, with no official agenda posted, smacks of back room deals. No doubt the first of many designed to line the pockets of certain people in the real estate business while endangering the public, since regulations will be ignored or recinded.

Grow up Grand Junction, you can’t stay a sleepy back water forever.

There was another briefing in Parachute about the Williams Midstream disaster at Parachute Creek. You know it is serious when very senior people from COGCC, CDPHE, and EPA show up to face concerned citizens. Dave Keylor, Williams Midstream's vice president of Piceance Basin operations was in the room, but not part of the official panel.

The first week in April, at a meeting in Rifle, Keylor was one of the primary spokespeople. At that meeting we were told for the first time that there had been a previously unreported spill at the location where high concentrations of contaminants had been found. A spill that began in late December, or early January was not reported because it was less than 25 gallons. Bob Arrington, a resident of Battlement Mesa, retired engineer, and head of Western Colorado Congress’s Oil and Gas Committee estimated last night that the 25 gallons was more like 1,200 gallons based on his scientifically based calculations.

At the Rifle meeting, we were told that the source of the contaminants was unknown. By the end of April the source is known to be a gauge with a hole in it which controlled a 4 inch pipeline coming from a natural gas plant owned by Williams. Back when the source was unknown, Keylor said that about 6,000 gallons of hydrocarbons and about 252,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater had been pumped from the plume of contamination. Sometimes the information in these sessions is presented in gallons and sometimes it is presented in barrels. I’m not sure if this is a deliberate attempt to confuse the public, but for the record an oil barrel is 42 gallons.

In Rifle we were shown maps of the contaminated area with detail about the number of monitoring wells drilled, the amount of benzene found at contaminated sites, and were assured that the plume was following the creek, but not in the creek. By late April, the benzene is in the creek. It is important to remember that more than benzene was leaked, but the focus is on benzene because it is a known carcinogen.

Safe levels of benzene in drinking water is 5 parts per billion. The creek is testing at over 5,000 parts per billion in places, but because the creek is not the source for any drinking water, the agencies aren’t as alarmed as ordinary citizens are. Citizens were relieved that Parachute and Battlement Mesa water is taken from the Colorado River upstream from the confluence of Parachute Creek and the Colorado River. Of course there are only 30 million people getting their drinking water downstream from that confluence.  

Ah, but here comes the good news. Benzene would rather be in air than in water, and it floats on water. Because there is more air than water in the arid west, the agencies in charge are planning to allow the benzene to evaporate into the air. In fact, they are going to encourage evaporation by installing bubblers (my term). Fish are attracted to bubbles in the water, so we might assume that fish are going to be attracted to the most dangerous parts of the stream. The representative from CDPHE admitted that he had not considered the impact on fish, amphibians, or wildlife. His admission was rapidly followed by a comment from a COGCC representative who indicated that he speaks regularly with the Colorado Department of Wildlife, also noticeably absent from this meeting.

Another agency absent was OSHA. There have been reports that workers were exposed to dangerous levels of contaminants without benefit of the protective gear required. A local reporter said he had spoken with some workers who claimed to stick their heads into places to see if they could smell contaminants. The workers expressed concern that they had been exposed to fatal levels of benzene. Keylor had something to say about that: any worker has the authority to stop a job at any time that s/he feels it is dangerous to proceed. That comment didn’t ring true with most of the citizens in the audience.

The real purpose of this meeting was to explain why primary jurisdiction was moved from COGCC to CDPHE. The simple version is authorizing statutes passed by the legislature. Depending on where product is in the production cycle, different agencies have primary jurisdiction. The confirmation that the contaminants came from a 4 inch pipe leaving the natural gas plant made CDPHE responsible.

CDPHE makes me nervous ever since I read Full Body Burden, Living in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kirsten Iverson. When cleaning up Rocky Flats they decided that a full clean-up was impossibly expensive, so the standards of remediation were lowered. Notice that the factor was not how safe it was for the public, but how expensive it would be for the government and responsible management companies at Rocky Flats. I’d like to believe that CDPHE is really concerned about the health of our ecosystems and citizens, but I have my doubts. Those doubts were reinforced when Dr. Urbina of both CDPHE and COGCC testified against having a health study of oil and gas health risks in the current legislative session. I also saw him in denial about the Doc Gag Order that got the medical association all worked up.

I hope you enjoy picnics on the banks of a stream where benzene is being pumped into the air, and fish that are flavored with benzene. That may be the future of Colorado’s streams.

Yesterday, Christy Dimond, a young reporter at KKCO in Grand Junction scored an exclusive interview with Rick Brainard. For those of you who may have been camping in an ice cave and not aware of the story, Rick Brainerd was elected to Grand Junction’s City Council in the last election. But before he could be sworn in, he was arrested and charged with an incident involving domestic violence.

Since that arrest, people in Grand Junction have staged protests and started petitions asking him to step down. Brainard will not step down. The women organizing the protests have sworn to go for a recall of Brainard, which cannot happen until he has held office for 90 days.

Full disclosure: I do not live within the city limits, so I did not and could not vote for or against Rick Brainard. I did attend protests because I was appalled that a man admitting that he hit a woman would have the audacity to think he could represent voters in the city. Plenty of people who voted for him stood up and said that they wished they could take back their vote.

Christy Dimond did a great job of asking questions of Brainard, and then allowing him to talk. Evidently he has sought counseling, and in the process learned how prevalent domestic violence is in this city. He claims that he wants to shine a light on it and find tools to help the community solve the problem of domestic violence.

I have some experience with domestic violence. My sister has been abused by men during her lifetime, and I’ve been a witness to the aftermath of that abuse. Men who abuse women rarely change their stripes.

I don’t believe that Brainard has had any kind of change of heart. I present as evidence his own statement: “that’s what uniformed people do-- they stage rallies.” Mr. Brainard, there is nothing uninformed about the people who have rallied against you. We know that one out of every four women will be the victim of domestic abuse in her lifetime. We know that men who abuse women usually blame the woman, and say things like I just wanted to shut her up. We know that when caught they lie and try to justify what happened. We know that men who abuse women act just like you did in the interview.

Clearly Brainard has remorse. In my opinion he is remorseful about being caught and embarrassed. He should be embarrassed. He should step down. He claims he is getting “great” counseling. Finish that counseling, and then get back to us. In the meanwhile we don’t want you making decisions about how the largest city between Denver and Salt Lake City should be run.

Just as I couldn’t vote in the election, I can’t sign a recall petition. But there is nothing stoping me from speaking out or helping people circulate those petitions. Another of your comments motivated me to stay involved, even though I don’t have a horse in this race. “As a businessperson, as a leader, I'm the same person today that I was a month ago. This city needs that help and I want to carry out the mission I signed up for and I don't think this incident has anything to do with my role as a city council person.”

Mr Brainard, your arrogance and denial is showing. You are not the kind of person that we need leading our city.

Watch the full interview here.