City Clerk Faye Harmer has been sued once again for refusing to provide public records to a city resident. John Simpson requested emails that were exchanged between City Councilors and City Attorney Mark Morgan regarding the creation of governance documents for the Financial Advisory Board, a public city advisory board. Simpson and his attorney allege that Simpson was denied access to public information that’s guaranteed for him by the Colorado Open Records Act. Basically, city officials are claiming that the emails between City Councilors and…

Records from San Juan Basin Public Health reveal some training expenses that former Director Liane Jollon took before leaving the department. These records were requested on August 18, 2023 and received on August 23, 2023. Immediately after I finished filling out the records request forms for these at the lobby in San Juan Basin Public Health, Brain Devine successfully had two Durango Police Department officers trespass me from the building. My video recording of the visit was their justification for trespassing me from the building.…

San Juan Basin Public Health redirected the public from the entering the public lobby in Durango while I video recorded my visit during business hours on 8/18/23, according to Environmental Health Director Brian Devine. To be clear, I was visiting the facility to submit written requests for public records and record public officials with a friend. Devine then called the police to claim that we were disrupting and interfering with operations by peacefully video recording. Alarmingly, Devine claimed that we were breaking the law by…

A Diversion Coordinator called me to give me directives that were already given to me in a Diversion Agreement regarding a heavy-handed attempt by La Plata County District Attorney’s Office to prosecute me for video recording in a public building in Durango. Over the phone, the Diversion Coordinator overseeing the case sounded surprised by the terms of the agreement. It was written during a Pre-Trial Readiness Hearing over some charges of trespassing against me at Durango Arts Center. DAC is a public building that’s owned…

Meeting times of the La Plata County Board of Health are scheduled by the Board of County Commissioners to occur at times that are difficult for the working-class public to attend. This post contains a petition to La Plata County Chairperson Marsha Porter Norton and Administrative Assistant Mary Caldwell to schedule the Board of Health meetings to occur at 5:00 p.m. or later in the afternoon. The next meeting of the Board of Health is scheduled to occur on Thursday, August 10 at 2:00 p.m.…

Durango Public Library staff have rejected multiple suggestions from members of the public to accept as a donation or to purchase a book titled “The Real Anthony Fauci” that’s written by presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. Alarmingly, the decision of the library staff appears to violate both the Library Bill of Rights and the Selection Criteria portion of their Collection Development policy. In response to questions about what standards were used or ignored before refusing to purchase this specific title, the library staff don’t have to…

A drone show has taken the place of a fireworks show on the 4th of July in the city of Durango for the years 2022 and 2023. Rather than put the Durango Fire Protection District for the night during what used to be a fireworks show, the City of Durango has instead adopted a nanny-state policy of paying a contractor to fly drones over the city. What used to be an exciting hour-long fireworks show is now a 10-minute choreographed aerial display of 125 drones…

Durango Arts Center Executive Director Brenda Macon and La Plata County Deputy District Attorney Connor Wills are on a war path to have my video removed that I published on the internet about my last visit to the publicly-owned and funded community building. Most recently, DDA Wills is trying to get me to delete a video and agree not to publish any videos about the organization for a one-year period. Specifically, both of their requests to have have the video removed stem from my last…

Judge Reid Stewart gave Deputy District Attorney Connor Wills some case law to use against me for his prosecution at a May 19, 2023 hearing in the case of my alleged trespassing at Durango Arts Center. Basically, the prosecution wants to keep me as far away from Brenda Macon as possible in order to inconvenience me through the court system. Macon and the prosecution have flexed their egotistical will upon me by convincing Judge Stewart to amend with further restrictions a Protection Order that’s already…

The Citizen Complaint Review Panel of Durango Police Department meets in secrecy every March to make recommendations about the citizen’s complaints that were already disposed of by city investigators or supervisors. Police Chief Bob Brammer said that the panel reviews complaints that are considered personnel matters. Deputy Police Chief Brice Current referred to the panel as a ‘committee’ at a Durango Police Department Town Hall meeting that they held at Durango Public Library. “They look at all of our complaints at the end of the…

Judge Lobato denied a motion by Deputy District Attorney Connor Wills that was made on behalf of Durango Arts Center Director Brenda Macon, who felt unnerved at the idea of me working at a property across the street from her home. Additionally, Ms. Macon has been worried after she received phone calls with heavy breathing ever since a video of her was published on the Press For Transparency website, said Wills. My jury trial for allegedly trespassing at Durango Arts Center was supposed to happen…

Durango Arts Center Director Brenda Macon made multiple false representations in an application and letter of solicitation for 2022 Lodger’s Tax Arts and Culture funds. After City officials received the application, the City of Durango awarded the Lodger’s Tax money to Durango Arts Center. Notably, the City of Durango’s 2022 Lodger’s Tax money was used to repair the roof of Durango Arts Center (DAC) following Brenda Macon’s submission of their application under false pretenses. Macon signed and submitted an Acknowledgement of Acceptance form on behalf…

San Juan Basin Public Health removed numerous bullet points of misinformation from their web page about the COVID-19 vaccines. Specifically, some time after Feb. 10, 2022, the public health agency deleted an entire web page about the jabs. They replaced it with a web page minus the same misinformation that they had previously published. In 2022, the URL https://sjbpublichealth.org/covid-19-vaccine/ was replaced with a page having less information. The newer page was published at the URL: https://sjbpublichealth.org/202/Vaccine. Some previous versions of their web pages about the…

District Court Judge Suzanne Carlson ordered the City of Durango to make a draft financial statement from the year 2021 available for public inspection following the city’s denial of the record to a local resident. John Simpson sued City Clerk Faye Harmer in her official capacity after she repeatedly denied his requests for the record(s) that he made pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act. Defendant Harmer made the argument that the release of the draft audit materials would cause significant public harm, because it…

Boards and commissions appointed by City of Durango Councilors will soon be dissolved in order to free up staff time and tax dollars that was previously spent working with them. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board was obviously disappointed about it. The dissolution was proposed by city staff and councilors for the following reasons, according to the agenda packet: Remove redundancy and increase efficiency. Retain and enhance a high level of customer service, ensure transparency, and allow for adequate public input. Lessen unnecessary administrative burden…

Judge Shopshire ruled against the plaintiffs on January 30, 2023 that were suing the District 9-R Board of Education and its election official for failure to timely declare a board vacancy and hold a required election. The contention began when Board Member Andrea Parmenter vacated the district that she was living in while serving on the board for that district. Then, while allegedly living in a different district (District E), Parmenter allegedly voted on board business at board meeting(s) (5/11/2021, 5/25/2021, 6/22/2021, 6/28/2021), according to…

Durango Arts Center Executive Director Brenda Macon lied to the police about the ownership and funding status of our fractionally-owned public property in order to have me trespassed while video recording in publicly-accessible areas during their business hours. While peacefully recording the art exhibits in the gallery, the gift shop and then the theater, I was confronted by some people who were rehearsing on stage. Geoff Johnson, and some other people on stage saw me peacefully recording by myself next to the seating area. Johnson…

Brian Devine, Environmental Health Director for San Juan Basin Public Health, failed to intimidate me from video recording what I could see in public at a public meeting at Durango Public Library.  At a public presentation that Peter Diethrich was giving on behalf of SJBPH, Devine told me that I couldn’t video record members of the public in the library without getting their permission first. In response, I told him that he was wrong and soon after recorded everyone at the meeting. Before starting…

Dissolution of San Juan Basin Public Health district via a joint resolution was approved by La Plata County Board of Commissioners at their November 15, 2022 meeting. Specifically, the La Plata County and Archuleta County Boards voted the dissolution of SJBPH to occur on December 31, 2023. When La Plata County creates its new health department, they will begin by funding it with $750,000 dollars, said County Commissioner Marsha Porter Norton. Reasons given by the County Manager Chuck Stevens and County Commissioner Porter Norton for…

Search and rescue professional and City of Durango resident Leo Lloyd III died of a heart attack while mountain biking with one of his sons on August 4, 2022. He had received numerous COVID-19 jabs, his brother said. At the age of 60, Lloyd will be known for how kind and caring he was for his friends and family, his brother Joe Lloyd said. “He’s just a good guy,” said Lloyd. “If you were ever to go climbing with him and he was teaching you…