LovelandPolitics
| Loveland's Independent News Source |
Loveland, March 7, 2015
Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez departed this week for Washington, D.C. on a city paid trip to
hear President Obama address the annual conference of the National League of Cities.
Ironically, a theme for this year's annual conference will be transparency and accountability within
the communities the attendees serve. Just as the National League of Cities announced their
goals for this year's conference last Tuesday, Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez was combing
carefully through his own personal email account to decide which city emails he would release for
public scrutiny and which he would not.
According to the Chairman of the National League of Cities, in response to President Obama's
Task Force on 21st Century Community Policing, "Local officials have an essential role in
creating a culture of transparency and accountability,"
However, Gutierrez was not motivated by a sudden change in conscience due to the conference
theme but instead reacting to a very specific request for public information under the Colorado
Open Records Act filed by LovelandPolitics. Gutierrez has long maintained that he does not use
private emails to conduct city business and thwarted previous attempts for transparency by flatly
denying he has any city related correspondence in his personal email account.
Mayor Gutierrez Exposed By Careless Staff Member
What made this instance different is the appearance of an email by Loveland's Director of
Economic Development, Betsey Hale, in reaction to a previous LovelandPolitics story on the
controversial activities of the Go NoCO regional tourism authority board Chairman Rick Raesz.
Below is Hale's email,
February 27, 2015
6:45 AM
Title: Miki Roth, The Group Real Estate
FROM: Betsey Hale
TO: tdonnelly@larimer.org, jvazquez@windsorgov.com, cecil_gutierrez@yahoo.com ,
renee@spirithospitality.net,.............
Potential Board replacement for Rick?
Please see the link. Miki is a member of the Community Marketing Commission which
oversees the lodging tax. Please forward to Marilyn. Any others…..someone from
Windsor? Larimer County?
Sent from my ipad
The above email was retrieved by LovelandPolitics from the Larimer County open email system
where average citizens can access official correspondence by the Larimer County
Commissioners anytime. Notice the email by Hale is sent to the NoCO/RTA board member's
business or government emails with the exception of Mayor Cecil Gutierrez whose private emails
account of Cecil_Gutierrez@Yahoo.com is receiving the official correspondence by city staff.
Subsequently, another board member responded to the same named individuals and than a
number of the RTA related emails were removed from the county's website with the exception of
the two already posted by that time on the LovelandPolitics' blog.
The False Disclosure
Following consultations with Loveland's City Manager and City Attorney, Gutierrez notified
dozens of staff members and others on March 4, 2015 that he will no longer be communicating
with them using his personal email account and directed them to begin using his official city email
account. Ironically, Gutierrez did not make these emails available to the public even though they
specifically refer to people he acknowledges in his own email should have been contacting him
via his official city email.
Instead of a full and transparent disclosure, Gutierrez released only those few emails he believed
LovelandPolitics already had in our possession which specifically are those he received
regarding the NoCO RTA matter that appeared on the Larimer County Commissioner's email web
page.
A Loveland Reporter-Herald article published last Thursday titled, Loveland mayor's email use
under scrutiny, explains the Mayor's assertion that he didn't know from which email account he
was sending correspondence because he was using an iPod,
Those devices allow emails to be viewed through an "All Mail" function that doesn't
specify to which address an email is sent. His replies came from his personal email account
if the original messages were sent there."
While this may serve as a valid explanation, it contradicts with his disclosure that doesn't include
any emails sent from Gutierrez's personal email account. Instead, the response to our request
only contains emails received by the mayor's personal email account that are also heavily
censored.
Another claim in the Reporter-Herlad article by Gutierrez is that NoCO/RTA board members were
specifically asked to provide their personal email accounts to avoid disclosure of confidential or
proprietary business information they are not required to disclose under CORA. The City of
Loveland already has a process by which literally hundreds of emails containing proprietary
business information, personnel matters and confidential attorney-client communications are kept
confidential despite being sent over the city's official email accounts. In addition, contrary to
Gutierrez's claim, he is the only member of the NoCO/RTA board apparently using his personal
email account to communicate while all the others (as can be seen in the email above) use their
employer or city email.
Anyone containing additional city related emails from Gutierrez's personal account are
encouraged to post them on our blog page so the public can have access to that information.
Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez departed this week for Washington, D.C. on a city paid trip to
hear President Obama address the annual conference of the National League of Cities.
Ironically, a theme for this year's annual conference will be transparency and accountability within
the communities the attendees serve. Just as the National League of Cities announced their
goals for this year's conference last Tuesday, Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez was combing
carefully through his own personal email account to decide which city emails he would release for
public scrutiny and which he would not.
According to the Chairman of the National League of Cities, in response to President Obama's
Task Force on 21st Century Community Policing, "Local officials have an essential role in
creating a culture of transparency and accountability,"
However, Gutierrez was not motivated by a sudden change in conscience due to the conference
theme but instead reacting to a very specific request for public information under the Colorado
Open Records Act filed by LovelandPolitics. Gutierrez has long maintained that he does not use
private emails to conduct city business and thwarted previous attempts for transparency by flatly
denying he has any city related correspondence in his personal email account.
Mayor Gutierrez Exposed By Careless Staff Member
What made this instance different is the appearance of an email by Loveland's Director of
Economic Development, Betsey Hale, in reaction to a previous LovelandPolitics story on the
controversial activities of the Go NoCO regional tourism authority board Chairman Rick Raesz.
Below is Hale's email,
February 27, 2015
6:45 AM
Title: Miki Roth, The Group Real Estate
FROM: Betsey Hale
TO: tdonnelly@larimer.org, jvazquez@windsorgov.com, cecil_gutierrez@yahoo.com ,
renee@spirithospitality.net,.............
Potential Board replacement for Rick?
Please see the link. Miki is a member of the Community Marketing Commission which
oversees the lodging tax. Please forward to Marilyn. Any others…..someone from
Windsor? Larimer County?
Sent from my ipad
The above email was retrieved by LovelandPolitics from the Larimer County open email system
where average citizens can access official correspondence by the Larimer County
Commissioners anytime. Notice the email by Hale is sent to the NoCO/RTA board member's
business or government emails with the exception of Mayor Cecil Gutierrez whose private emails
account of Cecil_Gutierrez@Yahoo.com is receiving the official correspondence by city staff.
Subsequently, another board member responded to the same named individuals and than a
number of the RTA related emails were removed from the county's website with the exception of
the two already posted by that time on the LovelandPolitics' blog.
The False Disclosure
Following consultations with Loveland's City Manager and City Attorney, Gutierrez notified
dozens of staff members and others on March 4, 2015 that he will no longer be communicating
with them using his personal email account and directed them to begin using his official city email
account. Ironically, Gutierrez did not make these emails available to the public even though they
specifically refer to people he acknowledges in his own email should have been contacting him
via his official city email.
Instead of a full and transparent disclosure, Gutierrez released only those few emails he believed
LovelandPolitics already had in our possession which specifically are those he received
regarding the NoCO RTA matter that appeared on the Larimer County Commissioner's email web
page.
A Loveland Reporter-Herald article published last Thursday titled, Loveland mayor's email use
under scrutiny, explains the Mayor's assertion that he didn't know from which email account he
was sending correspondence because he was using an iPod,
Those devices allow emails to be viewed through an "All Mail" function that doesn't
specify to which address an email is sent. His replies came from his personal email account
if the original messages were sent there."
While this may serve as a valid explanation, it contradicts with his disclosure that doesn't include
any emails sent from Gutierrez's personal email account. Instead, the response to our request
only contains emails received by the mayor's personal email account that are also heavily
censored.
Another claim in the Reporter-Herlad article by Gutierrez is that NoCO/RTA board members were
specifically asked to provide their personal email accounts to avoid disclosure of confidential or
proprietary business information they are not required to disclose under CORA. The City of
Loveland already has a process by which literally hundreds of emails containing proprietary
business information, personnel matters and confidential attorney-client communications are kept
confidential despite being sent over the city's official email accounts. In addition, contrary to
Gutierrez's claim, he is the only member of the NoCO/RTA board apparently using his personal
email account to communicate while all the others (as can be seen in the email above) use their
employer or city email.
Anyone containing additional city related emails from Gutierrez's personal account are
encouraged to post them on our blog page so the public can have access to that information.
| Loveland Mayor Refuses To Release City Emails In Personal Account |
What is CORA? Secretary of State Website Info. "CORA" stands for "Colorado Open Records Act". In the spirit of open government, the Colorado Open Records Act [1] requires that most public records be available to the public. Anyone can request information that is in the possession of a government office, including the Secretary of State’s office. Where do I submit my records request? You must submit your request to the custodian of the record- the government office that actually holds the record itself. There is no central repository for public records or single office that fulfills public records requests in Colorado. For most governmental agencies, you can submit your request directly to the Public Information Officer of that agency. If you don’t know how to contact that person, call the government entity and ask how to submit your request. For records in the possession of the Secretary of State’s office, contact the Public Information Officer (PIO). City Response to March 2, 2015 CORA Request From: Terry Andrews <Terry.Andrews@cityofloveland. org> Date: March 6, 2015 at 8:51:28 PM GMT+3 To: "Guchwale (info@lovelandpolitics.com)" <info@lovelandpolitics.com> Subject: FW: cora request Mr. Weston, Attached are emails being forwarded to you in response to your open records request dated March 3, 2015. These emails are now in the City's possession and were provided by the Mayor as all the emails that were responsive to your records request. While the emails were addressed to or from the Mayor's private email address, now that these are in the City's possession portions of the emails that have a demonstrable connection to the exercise of the Mayor's official functions are public records subject to disclosure under section 24-72-201 C.R.S. Certain sections of these emails have been redacted to protect the email addresses of private persons as allowed by section 24-72-204(2)(a)(VII) C.R.S. and the identity of private parties, who may have a general expectation of privacy as social invitees with no apparent demonstrable connection to the exercise of official functions or expenditure of public money, and as confidential commercial financial information exempt from disclosure pursuant to section 24-72-204 (3)(a)(IV). Terry G. Andrews, City Clerk City of Loveland 500 E. 3rd St, Ste 230 Loveland, CO 80537 970-962-2322 ext 2 |
