ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Several Englewood residents reached out to Denver7, concerned about a link to a partisan voting guide found on a neighborhood group's webpage in the weeks leading up to the November election. The issue? The neighborhood webpage was found on Englewood's offical City website.
"You might want to vet, during an election campaign, what's going on, on your website," said Kevin Timken, a concerned neighbor.
The webpage was for the "Belleview Park Neighbors" group. It existed as part of an 'englewoodco.gov' URL address, along with all of the other neighborhood group websites. On the "Belleview Park Neighors" page, it reads, "Regardless of how people decide to vote, we support informed and active participation by all Englewood voters! Please read up on candidates and issues." It then shared the link to a third party group: Vibrant Englewood, who endorsed specific candidates in local races and also shared concerns about other candidates they did not approve of.
That neighborhood group also included the link in their Fall Newsletter.
The city said the authority to chose what was posted on neighborhood webpages or newsletters was up to the neighbors themselves.
"Neighborhood group leaders. Citizens that aren't a part of the city government," said Anderson, "I don't think there was any approval process just because of the level of trust."
Timken filed a Campaign Finance Complaint with the Secretary of State, claiming, "To the any citizen voter, it appears that the City of Englewood is endorsing certain candidates. It also appears to any citizen voter, that the City of Englewood agrees with the negative description of the candidates running in opposition to their "approved" candidates."
Englewood City officials confirmed that the fliers cost the city $340.
"One of the services the city offered to the neighborhood groups was printing and distributing the the newsletters," said Englewood Mayor Pro-Tem Joe Anderson.
"Who is paying for this? You and me, people in Englewood," said Timkin, "so it should be nonpartisan."
Following the citizen outrage, city council called for their own investigation.
"Nobody in the City wants the City government to even have the slightest appearance of endorsing candidates for city election," said Anderson.
"It was pretty clear when we got the investigation back, that it was totally unintentional," said Anderson. "But the results of that investigation was, there could be some measures that that are tightened to make sure this kind of thing, doesn't happen in the future."
City officials told Denver7 the money spent on the flyers has been refunded by the neighborhood group leader who included the external link, all neighborhood webpages have been taken off the City's website, and City Council recently voted to give the City Manager, Shawn Lewis, a one-week unpaid suspension.
"There's a restorative relationship process that has to begin now and trust rebuilding and I want you and the staff and the community to know that I'm fully committed to that," Lewis said after the decision was voted on.
Lewis is still at work, council has given him the choice on when to take that suspension.
Anderson explained the City Manager is ultimately responsible for the governance of the city as a whole and Council does not have the authority to discipline outside of directly the City Manager.
"The way the investigation came out is, City Manager didn't know about this. He wasn't at fault, but ultimately, he's responsible so that's why we decided on the one week suspension," said Anderson. "We didn't think that this was some something that was worth terminating over, but something that is an important enough issue that we want to make sure the message is sent that we don't want this to happen again, and also to reassure the community that we're taking this kind of thing seriously."
Rita Russell, a candidate not favored by the Vibrant Englewood voting guide, lost her race for mayor in November. She spoke prior to the City Manager suspension vote, saying, "I believe this was a learning experience for the city and my hope right now is that we will move forward and unite the constituents in this city."
Timkin is frustrated that he'll never know what impact the error had on the election, but said he and his neighbors will be keeping a close eye on the next one.
"They'll at least know that people are watching them now, and hopefully they don't play this game. We're getting better at watching them," Timkin said.
Anderson told Denver7 the complaint is still being heard by the Secretary of State's Office and the city is hopeful they will have the opportunity to cure, or prove to the state, that the issue has been addressed.
