| 10/26/2007 |
| Habig literature under investigation |
| Peter Jones , Staff Writer |
A
Centennial resident has taken legal action in response to what he
and many city officials say are erroneous claims in the campaign
literature of Ward 1 city council candidate Betty Ann Habig.
"I decided that what Betty Ann Habig has been doing is unwarranted and unjust, and if somebody doesn't help her put a stop to this, it's going to continue," Drury said. Chief investigator Mike Knight expects a speedy investigation of the matter. "I assigned it to an investigator immediately as Sam brought it in. I don't anticipate it will take much time. The biggest problem is making sure everybody cooperates," he said. Habig blames Mayor Randy Pye for the fracas. Pye had referred the issue of her literature to city attorney Robert Widner last week. Widner later cited a state statute in outlining a possible course of action for the city or an individual citizen. "Sam has been a rabid and at times irrational supporter of the mayor, so his recent actions come as no surprise," Habig said. "I have confidence the people of Ward 1 will see through this for what it is, a strategically timed political hatchet job designed to help get the mayor's candidate elected." Further, Habig, a former council member who did not seek re-election in 2005, stands by the claims in her campaign literature. "It appears the mayor is not only attempting to abridge my freedom of speech and engage in overt acts of intimidation, but abusing his power through the misuse of Centennial resources for his own political purposes," she said. "The data provided in my campaign literature comes straight from Centennial's Web site. Therefore, I stand as firmly behind this data as the city that provided it." Pye rejects Habig's assertion that he is trying to silence the candidate. "My request to the city attorney was in response to a citizen's request," he said. "I'm not sure how she interprets that as misuse of city funds when I'm responding to a citizen." Habig's critics believe that she may have violated a statute that makes it a criminal offense to knowingly or recklessly "make, publish, broadcast or circulate ... any false statement designed to affect the vote on any issue submitted to the electors at an election or relating to any candidate for election to public office." Last year, state Rep. Morgan Carroll, an Aurora Democrat, cited the law in an unsuccessful complaint about claims made in automated "robo-calls" to voters, but Republican prosecutors, Attorney General John Suthers and 18th District Attorney Carol Chambers declined to press charges against the Republican Trailhead Group. Habig has waged contentious, but unsuccessful battles for the state Legislature as a Republican and raised the ire of many GOP leaders in the process. The Class 1 misdemeanor of "knowingly" distributing false election material is punishable by a minimum penalty of six months in prison and/or a $500 fine. "Recklessly" doing the same thing is a less serious Class 2 offense that can bring the guilty party three months in prison and/or a $250 fine. Any resident can file a criminal complaint on the matter. Habig's principal opponent, incumbent council member Vorry Moon, supports Drury's actions. "There are some on council who want to wait until after the election. I want to see it done now," Moon said of a possible Habig prosecution. Ron Phelps, a third Ward 1 candidate, has stopped campaigning and endorses Habig, but his name remains on the ballot and he has not officially withdrawn from the race. Controversies about Habig's literature came to light at last week's city council meeting when city manager Jacque Wedding-Scott publicly refuted the candidate's claim that her annual compensation is $262,000. According to city officials, that figure actually includes Wedding-Scott's $145,000 annual salary, plus her benefits package, a car allowance and the salary of her administrative assistant. Some of Habig's other claims may be more a case of semantics. One reads, "Did you know you're being taxed through franchise fees imposed without your consent on gas and electric, a new stormwater authority and your cable service?" By definitions in state law, franchise and stormwater fees are not technically taxes because they are collected to pay for a particular service, though like taxes, the fees are collected on citizens by government agencies. Other claims involve the misleading use of numbers, Pye asserts. For example, according to Habig's flier, over the past two years, the council has increased Centennial's administrative expenses by more than 400 percent. "Actually, she could be right about that," the mayor said, "but we had almost nothing in administrative expenses in the first two years. If you start at zero and increase it by 400 bucks, that's a 400 percent increase." Habig further asserts that the city council spent $75,000 on a public opinion survey, though Pye says the research project - as part of a larger contract with marketing firm GBSM - actually cost the city $15,000. As Centennial negotiates its service contracts with Arapahoe County and still reels from last winter's debilitating snowstorms, Habig may have touched a particular nerve with her assertions about public works. The candidate's literature says that even though sales taxes were raised in 2003, the council is making service cuts. Moon responded to that claim in a point-by-point rebuttal. "All of these funds are fully accounted for in the contract with Arapahoe County Public Works, verified by all budgets and annual reports on the city's Web site," he wrote. Habig's campaign literature is the latest chapter in the former council member's controversial tenure as a civic activist. The candidate is known for her tenacity and hard work, but is equally recognized for her divisiveness. On council, she sparred with her colleagues on a range of issues and her outspokenness made her among the most watchable of Centennial's founding council members. She waged a bitterly fought, but unsuccessful campaign for the state House of Representatives last year. Later, after being passed over for an appointment to the state Senate, she raised the ire of Republican leaders when she filed a formal complaint alleging violations of party bylaws and state statute. Many activists who supported Habig's House run abandoned her by the time she vied for Senate. The thought of the former council member returning to the council has been a source of uncomfortable nostalgia for Pye, Centennial's founding mayor. "It's like going back to the past," he said. "During the first four years, we were in disarray among the council because of infighting. We had a number of folks who liked to go for headlines. When I saw that she was running, my stomach went to knots." |
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