{"id":49063,"date":"2021-01-21T17:01:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T00:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-city-council-nixes-joint-statement-against-lauren-boebert\/"},"modified":"2021-01-22T00:01:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T00:01:09","slug":"durango-city-council-nixes-joint-statement-against-lauren-boebert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-city-council-nixes-joint-statement-against-lauren-boebert\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango City Council nixes joint statement against Lauren Boebert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango City Council has declined to issue a joint statement condemning recent statements and actions by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango City Council has declined to issue a unified statement condemning U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert for what some residents view as supporting an insurrection earlier this month at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

Boebert has continued to be a lightning rod for controversy in her first two weeks as the representative for 28 Western Slope and southern Colorado counties in the 3rd Congressional District. Calls for her resignation and an investigation into her actions during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol have come from around Colorado, including Durango.<\/p>\n

While City Council did not agree to issue a unified statement during Tuesday\u2019s City Council meeting, several members have individually denounced her actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all sort of appalled by the behavior that took place from many people, including our representative,\u201d said Councilor Chris Bettin.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s critics have said she supported sedition by expressing \u201csolidarity with insurrectionists\u201d based on her Twitter messages during the Jan. 6 riots, when supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building.<\/p>\n

Boebert also objected to Congress\u2019 official certification of Electoral College votes for the presidential election, which Joe Biden won.<\/p>\n

Petitioners say her objection was based on conspiracy theories and lies dismissed multiple times by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

In the last two weeks, more than 65 elected officials in the 3rd Congressional District signed a joint letter<\/a> opposing Boebert\u2019s actions, including Bettin, Durango Mayor Dean Brookie and Councilor Barbara Noseworthy.<\/p>\n

More than 33,700 people signed a petition<\/a> calling for Boebert to be expelled from Congress, along with multiple other petitions calling for investigations into her actions or for her resignation.<\/p>\n

Boebert has hit back in kind by defending her actions, throwing barbs at Democrats and casting herself as a defender of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI denounced the violence over the summer just as I did the recent events at the Capitol,\u201d she said in a news release<\/a>. \u201cI defended our Constitution and I always will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

In Durango, Indivisible Durango has been pushing a petition asking City Council to formally condemn Boebert for her actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s over 650 signatures to this petition, so it demands our attention,\u201d Brookie said. \u201cThe question is, what is our role as City Council to respond to this request?\u201d<\/p>\n

Noseworthy expressed support for a joint statement of condemnation. Councilor Kim Baxter denounced violence and said her role on council is to make an impact locally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI condemn what she did, just by the spreading lies on the national stage,\u201d Bettin said. \u201cI don\u2019t know that it\u2019s this particular council\u2019s role \u2026 to make that comment as a collective whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several council members said the council needed to act as a nonpartisan entity, as required by the city\u2019s code of ethics which says \u201cpartisanship shall not be a factor in any official action of any city official.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilor Melissa Youssef was concerned about making a joint statement, saying it was an ethical \u201cgray area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAny language that we crafted would have to be so very, very carefully crafted that I think it might take away from the potential strength of the original cause intended,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Brookie said council members had already taken action individually when they signed the joint letter from Colorado elected officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m questioning \u2026 the impact of a letter of this nature at this time, knowing that Congress itself is taking action against Lauren Boebert,\u201d Brookie said. \u201cWe would be requesting action that\u2019s already been taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilors ultimately recommended the petitioners can take action by sending their signatures directly to Boebert\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Boebert Condemnation letter (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents wanted city to condemn newly elected House member<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4795,981,950,1020,507,28,29,265,1126],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civil-unrest","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-durango","tag-durango-city-council","tag-durango-city-officials","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics","tag-politics-general"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49063","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=49063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49063"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}