A Durango Herald editor received a thing of value when acquiring a home on a lot that was developed using city tax dollars, raising questions as to how it could create a conflict of interest in how she writes about city officials and policies. Durango Herald Opinion Editor Ann Marie Swan applied for the privilege to purchase a deed-restricted workforce housing unit. A lottery was held to determine which pre-qualified candidates would receive the privilege to purchase one of the homes. Swan’s application and lottery…

Brenda Macon, the former Executive Director of Durango Arts Center, has divorced her husband Todd Macon, left her job as the Director and moved to another state. Also, Todd Macon sued Brenda, Brenda’s father James Burger, and the trust who Todd entered into an Agreement with regarding the eventual home sale proceeds. Together, Brenda and Todd Macon moved into a house on Ophir Drive in 2013. That house was owned by Brenda’s father, James Burger. In 2019, Brenda’s mom, Nancy Burger, prepared a document where…

A person critical of the police has been blocked from the Durango Police Facebook page. To be fair, most of the 40 Facebook accounts that the staff at Durango Police blocked were spammers or scammers. However, there was one personal Facebook account whose owner I was able to contact and confirm that they were blocked from Durango Police for dubious reasons. Broadly, the blocked list raises the question of whether the account of Natan Rebelde and the 39 other users had their First Amendment (U.S.…

Durango School District 9-R settled a lawsuit for $500 dollars that Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser filed on behalf of the Elections Division of the Secretary of State over an illegal campaign contribution. The lawsuit started after a Durango resident complained of an illegal election campaign contribution from Durango School District 9-R towards one of its school board members, Katie Stewart. Of relevance, this story below details a response from the district’s Public Information Officer to my questions about the contribution to Stewart’s campaign. The…

An illegal election campaign contribution from Durango School District 9-R towards one of its school board members is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser on behalf of the Elections Division of the Secretary of State. The problem of electoral advocacy arose after Katie Stewart–a member of the Durango School District 9-R Board of Education–had announced her candidacy for the General Assembly in House District 59. Earlier this year, questions arose about whether Stewart was capable of serving on both…

The City of Durango lost its appeal of a district court ruling that found the city illegally hid financial records from a local advocate of open records and transparent government. Plaintiff John Simpson filed the original suit against the city over an alleged CORA violation in 2021. Simpson had sought the draft 2021 Comprehensive Report. As an excuse, the city had claimed that the draft version was work product was exempt from disclosure. In the end, the appellate court ruled that the draft report was…

An unwritten Durango Police Department (DPD) policy that prohibits staff at the front office of the facility from accepting legal documents from process servers appears to be attempting to obstruct justice upon its officers. Specifically, DPD Records Supervisor Julie Harris is willfully refusing to accept delivery of personal service from staff at La Plata County Sheriff’s Office. Harris said she would not accept civil court documents to hand over to an officer listed in a lawsuit. In January of 2024, La Plata County Sheriff’s Office…

A former financial consultant and Chief Financial Officer of the City of Durango is getting sued for allegedly retaliating against a Chief Internal Auditor in Texas who reported credit card theft by city of El Paso officials to the police. Tommy Gonzalez worked as a financial consultant for Durango in March of 2023 while he was simultaneously employed as the city manager for El Paso Texas. Gonzalez was paid $35,000 as a contracted financial consultant for the city of Durango, who he worked for remotely…

Jennifer Coponiti, the Civilian Operations Supervisor for the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office in Farmington, New Mexico initially tried to avoid providing the text messages of Sheriff Shane Ferrari that I requested in writing. After asserting my belief that Ferrari’s text messages were not exempt from disclosure according to the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) of New Mexico, Coponiti looked into it further. Jennifer Coponiti called me back in a second phone call to tell me that she researched the law further and learned…

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…

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…