Colorado Politics: Democratic lawmakers from Boulder County are questioning how public a public meeting really is if an oil-and-gas company controls who can speak.

They further called out Crestone Peak Resources for “bullying” the public at an Oct. 18 meeting.

A Crestone spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for a comment Tuesday afternoon. (We’ll update this story if we hear back.)

State Sens. Matt Jones and Steve Fenberg, along with Reps. Mike Foote, Jonathan Singer and Edie Hooton, sent a letter to Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission director Matt LePore dated Monday and obtained by Colorado Politics.

“COGCC should investigate the suppression of free speech rights, and the bullying and intimidation of the general public and people living within the Comprehensive Drilling Plan’s affected area,” the lawmakers wrote.

The company is proposing as many as 216 wells in eastern Boulder County, but the public meetings it held two weeks ago either were by invitation only, and that initially excluded one Foote and Jones, who taped their encounter at one meeting, in which they were not invited to.

As the lawmakers and angry public applied pressure, the company said it would hold a telephone-only public meeting to collect more public input — while avoiding a confrontation with activists.

The Boulder County Attorney’s Office sent a letter to state regulators more than a week before the Oct. 18 meeting objecting to Crestone’s handling of the public hearings.

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