What are Mayor Dean Brookie and Councilor Chris Bettin up to? With Councilors Kim Baxter and Barbara Noseworthy, we are finally seeing the necessary oversight of city financials and budgeting. During the 2020 budget process, Brookie and Bettin were upset with the increased level of financial focus. To muzzle Baxter and Noseworthy’s questions, they drafted a city working agreement. The agreement requires councilors to not make requests to the city manager without full City Council support!
Then Brookie and Bettin lobbied for hiring Greg Caton to be city manager. Caton is a close friend of Ron LeBlanc, the past city manager. Caton has a poor track record and was dropped. Later, Amber Blake applied for the job with backing from Brookie and Bettin. They do not want someone from outside the LeBlanc circle to be city manager and don’t want financials questioned! Are they worried that a new, outside manager might uncover something that is embarrassing to them or maybe worse?
It’s worth noting that Bettin and his real estate company were caught up in the ethics complaint where his company sold LeBlanc’s home. Bettin quickly backpedaled and said the profits would be donated to charity.
We have two candidates for city manager and the clear winner for the public and transparency is Jose Madrigal. Let’s hope we get three fair-minded city councilors to vote for him.
Tonya McKnightDurango
