Council Member Joan Peck Admits She Contacted OUR Center Board President as Part of Official Duties

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

An unusually contentious and heated City Council meeting opened with a lengthy discussion of the on-going question of whether Council Members Polly Christensen and Joan Peck engaged in improper or possibly criminal behavior.

Christensen diverted the Council from its planned agenda from the opening of the meeting to issue an apology. In her apology, she asserted her lack of political experience saying, "I'm not a politician, I'm a representative." She admitted that in hindsight using her personal email account to contact the OUR Center was wrong, but justified her choice by saying that she was expressing her personal opinion rather than the opinion of Council. Christensen promised to not make the same mistake again. Christensen did not apologize for the content of the message and said that she would not make further comment pending the possibility of legal action by the Boulder County District Attorney.

This defense was complicated by Peck later in the meeting. Discussing a phone call she made to OUR Center Board President Julia Rush that was part of the complaint, Peck acknowledged that she made the call as a component of her duties as a member of City Council. This substantially complicates the defense that Christensen opened the meeting with; that Christensen's assertion in writing that she was using her personal email account as both she and Peck are involved in HOPE as a component of their private affairs.

The floodgates having been opened, they could not be closed and discussion on the unplanned topic continued for over an hour.

During the confrontation, Bagley said, "I picked up the phone and said 'Hey Tim Johnson', who served at the District Attorney's office for 21 years, 'I've got a question. I would like to know, I'm going to send you a stream of emails, I would like to know if there is any criminal component to this. At which point he sent me this, A Guide to Commonly Used Federal Statutes in Corruption Cases. He sent me Colorado Revised Statute 183207, Criminal Extortion, and said 'Yeah!' He also said 'those who helped 182201 Criminal Conspiracy."

Bagley, however, did not disclose that Tim Johnson is an employee of his private legal practice. It would be typical to disclosure that a legal opinion represented to be independent includes a close relationship such as employment.

Earlier in the meeting, Peck had asked why she was not contacted by Bagley and asked about the content of the phone conversation by her fellow councilmembers prior to turning over the information to local news outlets.

Bagley replied that if he had talked to either councilmember about the complaint he could have been considered an accessory.

The discussion ended with Council voting on establishing a special meeting to learn more about ethics.

Update: 8:32 AM November 21. The original version of this article implied that either Mayor Brian Bagley or Tim Johnson may have a conflict of interest in offering a legal opinion on this matter. This article has been revised to clarify that at issue is that Bagley did not disclose that Johnson is an employee of his private legal practice.