Anti-fracking activist, former Lafayette mayor reach deal on First Amendment lawsuit

Times-Call (Longmont): Former Lafayette Mayor Christine Berg reached a deal Tuesday on her First Amendment legal spat with Cliff Willmeng, offering to pay the anti-fracking activist roughly $5,000 following his allegations that he was blocked from the elected official’s social media page in retaliation for critical comments.

In a statement, Willmeng’s attorneys said the offer of judgement, in which the city of Lafayette is named a defendant and who likely will be making the payment, amounts to the former mayor conceding that she violated Willmeng’s constitutional rights when she censored her official Facebook page.

Miko Brown, an attorney representing the city, pushed back on that notion Tuesday, suggesting the offer is not an admission of guilt, but rather an act of compromise made in order to save taxpayers from funding a long and costly legal process.

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