The Gazette (Colorado Springs): Colorado Springs and its utility have spent more than $100,000 over the past three years jousting with Monument clean-air advocate Leslie Weise.
Weise sued the city and Colorado Springs Utilities in 2015 to obtain an air-quality report on the coal-fired Martin Drake Power Plant.
Utilities had paid AECOM to produce the report, which never has been made public.
Weise and the city agreed to drop the lawsuit when it was in the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Then last March, City Attorney Wynetta Massey went after Weise’s law licenses in California and New York, pursuing professional sanctions against her. The City Council reportedly directed Massey during an executive session to do so, though by law no decisions are to be made in closed sessions.
Councilman Tom Strand confirmed that the council gave the direction in a closed meeting because Weise detailed the substance of AECOM’s report even though, as a lawyer, she knew the document was not to be made public.
Releasing that confidential information, Strand said, was an ethics violation that many felt the Bar Associations in California and New York should know about.
Councilman Bill Murray said the decision to pursue those sanctions came at the recommendation of Massey and Mayor John Suthers.
Strand and Murray said they opposed the move.
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