Well, the drama within the city of Durango continues, starring Councilor Olivier Bosmans and Infrastructure Advisory Board member John Simpson. The throughline in this narrative of secreting communication of city business is revealed in the tagline Simpson added to emails: Confidential – – This message is private and not subject to CORA.
For Bosmans and Simpson who say they’re all about transparency, 374 pages of additional email communications between them delivered in an open records request from The Durango Herald, show otherwise
Previously, the city learned of six emails where Simpson wrote, “Private communication, not subject to CORA,” apparently attempts to avoid compliance with the Colorado Open Records Act.
Quite a lot of nerve for both to continually accuse the city of a lack of transparency. Communication between a councilor and city advisory board member should be made public. Clearly, subject to CORA.
At the time of this writing, Simpson still withholds emails as part of the Herald’s open records request.
Within those 374 pages are instances of accusations, back-channeling business and sharing of internal City Council communications. Overall, there’s a feeling of creating confusion and doubt in city staff members’ competencies.
Sadly, the whole of correspondence comes across as a willingness to kneecap Durango.
Emails indicate Bosmans and Simpson are aligned. Their exchanges raise fundamental questions about their motives, the weaponizing of records requests, who could profit (potentially Pagosa Springs-based attorney Matt Roane) and how all this fits into the political climate in our country, where this same scenario is playing out in other places.
One telling exchange between City Manager José Madrigal and Bosmans addresses the councilor inundating staff members with requests, when Bosmans could easily access information himself. On Pages 341-342 of the collected emails, on May 10, 2022, Madrigal responded to Bosmans about additional questions on the breakdown of the Community Emergency Relief Fund. Madrigal tells Bosmans that his “series of questions have already taken up a considerable amount of staff time.”
First, Bosmans asked detailed CERF questions in March, then staff members responded. He asked again in April, then staff members responded. In May, Bosmans had more questions about the same matter.
Madrigal said, “You do not see the staff time that is being accumulated,” including “staff clarification questions, requests for guidance from a director or myself, discussions regarding reprioritizing workload to free up the time to gather and draft a response on the information requested, and final review of the data and email response. Each of these steps can take up to several hours of staff time from several staff members.”
Madrigal suggested that Bosmans use OpenGov, a transparency portal, to access real time financial data – updated daily – with all revenues, expenditures and everything from fund balances in departments to what the city is spending on staplers.
Staff members had already provided tutorials for councilors on OpenGov. The city manager then offered to provide a “refresher.”
While being happy to help, Madrigal said, “It does seem that your request is no longer a question but assigning additional work.”
Considering City Council hires the city manager, it was likely awkward for Madrigal to tell Bosmans, “I do not have the staff resources to provide this service to every Councilor without impacting other operations.”
The very next day, Bosmans forwarded Madrigal’s email to Simpson.
Why?
Previously, the city’s legal department said 30% of time and resources have gone to investigating and responding to “meritless and/or false” allegations made by Simpson.
Seeing a pattern? The tactic is repeated again and again.
Other points of concern.
On Page 73 of the emails, on Jan. 23, 2023, Simpson emailed Bosmans about a library district meeting and a supporter of the district who “said she is a socialist from California and that is why she supports a tax increase. That is not someone who should be making decisions for Durango.”
Unless a transcript confirms the words of the library district supporter, we’re wary of Simpson’s account. If true, should volunteer members of citizen advisory boards be excluded because of political beliefs?
He ends with, “This message is private and not subject to any CORA request.”
On Page 83, Simpson emailed Bosmans about a request for construction bids: “Thanks Olivier. I will also bring this up at IAB.” The men’s coordinated efforts could poison the relationship between Council and the IAB. Again, Simpson’s sign-off, “This message is private and not subject to CORA.”
No, it definitely is subject to CORA.
On Pages 315-317, on Sept. 11, 2022, Madrigal and councilors were adamant that Bosmans’ accusations about an alleged undelivered promise on the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report were both serious and incorrect.
Bosmans sent the thread to Simpson with, “Any suggestions on how to handle this?” Inappropriate for Simpson to weigh in here.
Emails exchanges go on and on. It’s tiresome, especially for those of us who champion transparency. We’re ready for the end game, where we expect all truths will come to light.
