<\/p>\n
With November\u2019s election just weeks away, an old email is creating fresh headaches for La Plata County Sheriff Duke Schirard.<\/p>\n
Though Schirard sent the email in March, his Democratic challenger, Deputy Sean Smith, leaked it to public officials in the past two weeks.<\/p>\n
In the email, Schirard lambasts changes in Durango\u2019s population and government, saying he doesn\u2019t even \u201cwant to go downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schirard, a Republican, sent the email from his official sheriff\u2019s office email account to Bayfield resident Wendy Cox on March 18. From the email\u2019s stampings, it appears Schirard was responding to an email Cox sent to Schirard, Smith and Undersheriff David Griggs, asking whether any of them intended to go to a meeting of the Durango Gun Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe demographics of downtown Durango has changed so drastically in the 42 years, I have lived in La Plata County that I don\u2019t even recognize it or want to go downtown. Every day at noon I sit in Colorado Trading Co. on 8th Ave. and visit, most days with John Malarsie, Tom Price and others. We are disgusted and as upset with the situation as you or anyone else. (sic)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is purely a reaction from your liberal, democratic, gun hating, pot loving, abortionist, Obama supporting socialist who have taken over Durango City government and want it to be Aspen south.\u201d (sic)<\/p>\n
In a phone interview Wednesday, Schirard admitted authoring the email, but said it was never intended for broad consumption.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a private email in reply to a question from Wendy Cox, who\u2019s a concerned citizen out here in Bayfield. I know her political leanings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Schirard said at the time he wrote the email, he was chagrined by Durango City Council\u2019s demand that the Durango Gun Club either stop requiring members to join the National Rifle Association or decamp from its rent-free location on city property.<\/p>\n
Schirard said the way he described Durango \u201cmay be a little harsh.\u201d He continued: \u201cBut I was describing my political philosophy and feelings. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any doubt that I\u2019m a very politically conservative person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schirard accused Smith of obtaining his email to Cox through surreptitious means.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy concern is that if he\u2019s going to root around in my emails for political (purposes) \u2013 the sheriff has a lot of power. If I didn\u2019t like somebody \u2013 what else might he do if he had that power? I don\u2019t know to what extent he would go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith denied that he had ever \u201crooted around\u201d in Schirard\u2019s emails.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never been in his email, once, ever,\u201d he said. \u201cWendy (Cox) sends questions to the three of us quite often. You can see from the way his email is addressed that he clearly hit \u2018reply-all.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said he started forwarding the email to Durango city councilors and La Plata County commissioners in the last 10 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI held onto this email for a long time, and debated releasing it. But the public has a right to know what Schirard thinks, particularly people in the city of Durango. I even told the sheriff to his face last week that I intended to use it,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Of the 52,000 people who live in La Plata County, 17,000 reside within Durango, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.<\/p>\n
While insulting large constituencies is impolitic in an election year, Smith said Schirard\u2019s assessment of Durango \u2013 the county\u2019s largest city \u2013 undermines the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are not the words of a leader \u2013 or a professional,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t be a leader when you\u2019re alienating half the population with your statements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durango Mayor Sweetie Marbury said she found Schirard\u2019s comments about Durango \u201cdisappointing and very hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, he hurt himself, too, because he forgot that he represents all of us,\u201d she said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Marbury said she\u2019s a strong supporter of free speech, and Schirard is more than entitled to his own opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe really slammed the whole city, the people who live here, who work here, our businesses. It reveals a lot about the person who wears the badge. When he says he won\u2019t come to Durango, he\u2019s slamming the Strater and the Rochester hotels, putting down Francisco\u2019s and Karyn Gabaldon and Durango Olive Oil \u2013 everybody who works hard to make a living here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Schirard has inflamed political sensitivities using his work email. During the last two years, he has sent emails to his staff bashing liberals, gun laws and President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
When they became public in June, Smith said some people in the sheriff\u2019s office found them offensive. He said though the sheriff is an elected office, employees shouldn\u2019t feel pressured to share their boss\u2019 politics while going about their work. He said it\u2019s improper for government officials to use the time, resources and property that taxpayers fund to further their personal political agendas.<\/p>\n
Durango City Councilor Keith Brant, a Republican, said he hadn\u2019t yet read Schirard\u2019s email. \u201cI don\u2019t know that I have a comment to make, except that making outlandish statements like that isn\u2019t very smart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Marbury defended the course Durango has taken over the last decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchirard\u2019s right: It\u2019s true that Durango has changed over the decades,\u201d Marbury said. \u201cBut change has brought a lot of good things too. New people, new businesses \u2013 we have things like the trolley, for example, and new people volunteering for nonprofits in Durango.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
about \u2018socialist\u2019 take of City Hall, how city has changed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,4415],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-117834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-sheriff-duke-schirard"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117834"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=117834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}