City Attorney Mark Morgan bullies City-funded newspaper to delete columns

Durango City Attorney Mark Morgan has bullied The Durango Herald newspaper into removing a guest column as well as the Opinion Editor’s column it published that were both written in response to the city government’s handling of a citizen ballot initiative.

Durango City Attorney Mark Morgan.

Columnist Joe Lewandowski wrote a column about a citizen’s group that was outraged by the actions of ICE agents in the fall of 2025.

Alarmingly, the ICE agents operated in Durango while masked and displaying no identification, detaining a father and his two children facing deportation. In response, Durangoans followed city rules and gathered the necessary petition signatures authorizing a special election to set new policing standards, said Lewandowski.

The citizen’s ballot initiative would have created a new ordinance in Durango, Colorado that prohibits masking of law enforcement officers and requires visible identification of officers.

In the aforementioned column titled, City Council silenced the voices of Durango residents, Lewandowski made this problematic claim about City Attorney Mark Morgan:

“Councilors followed the advice of the city attorney, who advised the council to reject the proposal on the grounds that it was “administrative” in nature rather than “legislative” – and thus not eligible for a citizen vote,” said Lewandowski.

The column appears to be blaming City officials for stifling this No Secret Police initiative.

Lewandowski argued that Durango City Council was responsible for silencing the voices of residents who worked on the citizen initative. Specifically, Lewandowski said that residents who gathered about 1,700 signatures to compel the City of Durango to hold a special election were denied the right to vote.

In a staff editorial in support of Lewandowski from Durango Herald Opinion Editor Ellen Stein, a similar argument was given, stating that council prevented voters from considering the ballot question in the first place. The piece from Stein was titled, Let the people speak.

In an email to the Durango Herald CEO John Blais, City Attorney Mark Morgan said that claims in both Lewandowski and Stein’s columns lacked a factual basis, and were possibly defamatory towards his reputation. That’s when Morgan decided to threaten a bunch of people with legal action.

City Attorney Mark Morgan: “Documentation of False Statements”

This is the meat of Morgan’s argument in his Demand for Retraction & Apology:

“Inaccuracies from City Council silenced the voices of Durango residence

Language from the column reads, “But Durango city leaders decided the voters shouldn’t get to find out. They denied citizens the right to vote – and a district court judge provided cover..”

The Durango city council passed resolution R-2026-0037 on April 21, 2026, calling for the citizen ordinance to be placed on the ballot June 30, 2026. The election was canceled by a judicial order in case number 2026 CV 30070 on May 14, 2026. The
quoted statement is an inaccurate and malicious misrepresentation of the facts designed to convince readers that the city council made a decision to deny the public their right to vote on the ballot measure. The facts are that the city council called an election and sought judicial clarity on the legality of calling that election. Weeks later a district court judge canceled the election that had been called by the city council.

The column further reads “Councilors followed the advice of the city attorney, who advised the council to reject the proposal on the grounds that it was “administrative” in nature rather than “legislative” – and thus not eligible for a citizen vote.”

This language is a gross, malicious and completely inaccurate statement of the city attorney’s advice to the city council. The city attorney advised the city council to seek judicial guidance on the administrative or legislative nature of the citizen ordinance. In
the article “Durango asks court to weigh in on anti-mask initiative” dated April 27, 2026, the city attorney is quoted as follows:

Morgan said at a City Council meeting on Tuesday that state statute dictates citizen initiatives can pursue “legislative” ordinances but not “administrative” ordinances. He said neither his office nor outside legal counsel could determine
whether the proposed ordinance banning law enforcement officers from wearing masks on the job falls into the “legislative” or “administrative” category.

This article and the quoted words of the city attorney clearly demonstrate that the Durango Herald had prior knowledge that the offensive language was inaccurate,” said Morgan.

Here’s a copy of the demand letter that Mark Morgan sent to the Durango Herald:

Then, Durango Herald CEO John Blais caves to the pressure from Morgan:

After Durango Herald CEO John Blais deleted the columns and issued an apology, Mark Morgan thanks him in another email chain:

Mr. Morgan also sends litigation hold letters to Joe Lewandowski and Ted Wright:

Moreover, City Manager Jose Madrigal and Public Information Officer Tom Sluis wrote some affidavits:

Furthermore, the Durango Herald receives thousands of dollars in annual funding from the City of Durango for legal and classified advertisements that the newspaper publishes. Does the newspaper’s revenue from City of Durango’s advertisements effect the CEO’s choice of responding to Morgan’s legal demands?

Leave a comment about whether you think that Lewandowski’s column was defamatory.