Sore Loser: The Trib Hires a Lawyer Over
the Legal Notice Bid Award

by George Gramlich,
News and Notations

Our local whine fest lib newspaper, the Wet Mountain Tribune, apparently has had a pretty sizable meltdown following the Custer County’s Board of County Commissioner’s decision in January of this year to award the county’s legal notice publication bid to the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel. The Trib’s owner and editor, Jordan “Red Bug” Hedburg* hired a local lawyer, Mr. Wade Gateley to fight this.

Mr. Gately did some basic research based on Red Bug’s opinion that somehow awarding the bid to another local newspaper was illegal. Mr. Gately then sent a “Demand Letter” to the commissioners stating that they violated the Colorado Constitution and a U.S. Supreme Court decision. (Red Bug also attacked our Custer County Attorney Clint Smith in the Trib in several pieces about allowing this  ‘outrage’ to happen, and, in a continuing temper tantrum, accused Smith of being incompetent and not doing his job. See below for more on that.)

If you recall, Red Bug launched a vicious, long term, personal attack in the Trib almost two years ago against our Public Health Director, Dr. Clifford Brown, accusing him of listing a masters degree in public health on his resume, that Red Bug alleges was fake. Red Bug even filed a complaint with the state’s Ethics Commission about this.
(The real reason Red Bug doesn’t like Brown is that Brown took a reasoned, sensible approach to the Covid bug hysteria re masks, distancing, shots, business closures and restrictions, gatherings, etc. and Red Bug, wearing his Chinese made anti-bug respirator 24/7 for a year or more, wanted to shut the county down and have us all hide in caves until Judgment Day. Note that Red Bug swears he is a Libertarian. Libertarians make a big deal of letting people do their own thing, but I guess when it gets personal, Red Bug goes for the police state.)
The Ethics Commission ruled against Red Bug’s complaint (Waaaaaaa….) and Dr. Brown produced some transcripts for the degree and this made Red Bug more mad. Red Bug refused to make a real apology after being shot down which riled Commissioners Kevin Day and Bill Canda. The Trib won the last yearly bid for the legal notices (the Sentinel didn’t bid on that one) and when this year’s bid for the legals came up in January, Day and Canda voted to give it to the Sentinel even though the Sentinel’s bid was higher. (Commissioner Tom Flower of course voted against giving the bid to the Sentinel perhaps because he doesn’t like the Sentinel pointing out his outrageous behavior towards county employees, and other questionable actions.)
So, Red Bug’s ‘hired gun’, Attorney Gately, sent a letter on February 1st of this year to the commissioners demanding they rescind the bid and give it to Red Bug. Gately based his demand on two legal points. First, Gately alleges that Day and Canda violated the Colorado Constitution. He states that “your decision … violates the clear language of the Colorado Constitution , which requires in Section 29, Article V, that state subdivisions must award printing contracts to the ‘lowest responsible bidder.’”
The second point Gately made is that Day and Canda’s decision “violates controlling case law based on the United States Supreme Court decision of Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee, Kansas, 518 U.S. 668, 116 S. CT. 2342 153 L.ED.2d 843 (1996), which prohibits county government action in retaliation for protected speech under the First Amendment.” The letter ends with a bunch of threats against Day and Canda that if they don’t kowtow to Red Bug’s demands, he is going to hurt them by suing them to death.
County Attorney Smith, after consulting in Executive Sessions with the commissioners, wrote a response. ( See below.) To Gately’s first allegation re the Colorado Constitution Smith responded:
“Section 24-70-101 et seq, C.R.S., is the statute that addresses the publication of privately supported legal notices and publicly supported legal notices in Colorado counties when such notice is required by law. Both the Sentinel and the Tribune satisfy the statutory requisites for being legal newspapers. There is no language in this statutory provision that requires a bidding process or that the selection of a newspaper of record be based on circulation numbers. The County Commissioners have the authority to select any legal newspaper they wish for the county’s legal publications so long as it is published in the county. See Section 24-70-108, C.R.S.”
Well, that was interesting. Smith further explained:
“It is my opinion that your reliance on Section 29, Article V of the Colorado Constitution is misplaced. I do not disagree with your assertion that counties are political subdivisions of the State of Colorado, but Article V deals exclusively with the Legislative Department of Colorado; it does not regulate the conduct of county government business. Further, your letter states that Section 29 requires state subdivisions to award printing contracts to the lowest possible bidder. Nowhere does Section 29 use the term “state subdivisions”. Section 29 has nothing to do with the publication of legal notices at the county level.”
With regards to Gately’s U.S. Supreme Court case, Smith noted:
“Nor does the case that you cite—Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee County, Kansas v. Umbehr—have any applicability to the factual situation presented in your letter. In Umbehr the plaintiff was an independent contractor (a trash hauler) whose contract the Board voted to terminate or not automatically renew because he was an outspoken critic of the Commissioners. In Custer County the decision as to which newspaper to choose for legal publication is made on an annual basis. Mr. Hedberg was not terminated, nor did he have a right to automatic renewal in 2022. Since the selection of the Tribune expired at the end of 2021, there was no retaliation involved in this instance; the Board of County Commissioners was free to choose either the Tribune or the Sentinel for whatever reasons the members believed were appropriate. As I stated above, circulation and competitive bidding are not reasons the Board must consider.
Finally, Section 10 of Article II of the Colorado Constitution reads in part as follows: “No law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech; every person shall be free to speak, write, or publish whatever he will on any subject . . .” The County Commissioners do not pass laws; they pass ordinances. And this Board of County Commissioners has not passed any ordinance that infringes in the least on Mr. Hedberg’s right to print whatever he wants in his newspaper. Just as your client has exercised his right to print unrelenting attacks on the Custer County Public Health Director, so have the Commissioners exercised their right to freedom of speech in the course of their deliberative process. The deliberative process privilege stands for the principle that the thought processes the Commissioners employed in making their decision to select the Sentinel cannot be inquired into. But to the extent that they did offer an explanation, they were expressing their personal opinions, and their comments were protected by their constitutional right to freedom
of speech.”
Thus, the commissioners rejected Red Bug’s demands.
With respect to Red Bug’s attacks against Attorney Smith in the Trib. let’s talk a bit about Attorney Smith’s background. Clint Smith has been a licensed Colorado attorney for 50 years. He was a prosecutor for the Pueblo County District Attorney and the Otero County District Attorney. He was in private practice for years specializing in criminal and family law. Smith was a magistrate in Pueblo (magistrates have all the power of a county judge and a district judge) for 14 years. Smith was also selected as the Magistrate of the Year by the Colorado Judicial Institute in 2004. He became our County Attorney in 2014. Until Red Bug’s recent attacks on Smith, there has been no issues at all with Smith’s performance. A guy with that background being our county attorney is a blessing. We are lucky to have him.
We will keep you posted.

• When the virus was spreading from  China  and Jordan was freaking out, in and outside his editorials, and on FoolBook, our editor nicknamed him, rather affectionately, after the virus. It stuck. Thus, the title Jordan “Red Bug” Hedberg.