Flower Recall Election Is a GO!
Judge Rules Recall Petition Valid
Slams Hedberg’s Attempt to Stop the Recall
June 7, 2023
by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
Looks like ol’ Jordy “Red Bug” Hedberg caused Custer County a LOT of money and trouble again as he tried to derail the recall campaign against Custer County Commissioner Tom Flower with a bogus complaint that caused a huge ruckus. But, in the end, thankfully, justice prevailed and a recall election against Flower will be held soon and hopefully the Flower train wreck will derail and we will have a new Commissioner.
If you recall, Flower’s term as Commissioner has been mired in controversy with his temper tantrums at commissioner meetings, his two serious ethics violation convictions by the Colorado State Board of Ethics (where convictions are very, very rare and they even made him pay a fine which is even more rare). Plus his swearing (the “f-word”) in front of a married woman department head in the courthouse causing a disciplinary hearing by the commissioners resulting in Flower being punished by temporarily taking away most of his department supervisory jobs. This incident was also a reason for this good lady resigning from her long-standing job. And there were numerous complaints over the years of Flower harassing various county employees. The list goes on and on.
So, finally, since this unacceptable behavior kept continuing some concerned citizens headed by Ann Barthrop and Gene Ferraro, decided a recall of Flower was the only answer. They proceeded to set up a recall committee under Colorado law, enlisted a bunch of volunteers to gather signatures resulting in a signature count (869 in just a few weeks) sufficient to have a recall vote. These petitions were then submitted to our County Clerk and Recorder Kelley Camper, for review and acceptance. The Clerk’s Office deemed some signatures invalid but at the end there were still enough signatures and she informally stated that the petition looked good.
There is a 15 day period after a recall petition is submitted that a citizen may challenge it on various grounds or a person who signed the petition can withdraw his/her signature.
One person at the end of the time period did submit a protest petition. And that person was none other than the owner/editor of our local lefty newspaper (The Trib), Jordy “Red Bug” Hedberg. (Why anyone would not want to recall Flower is beyond us. But Red Bug and Flower are tight homies and Hedberg loves to cause trouble and cost the county money so situation normal for our very own narcissistic Socrates wannabe.)
Hedberg’s protest alleges that some of the signature gatherers used by the recall committee unduly pressured people to sign and were getting signatures sometimes in places where they shouldn’t have. He rounded up five people who said they were harassed (one was an employee of Red Bug) and had them give protest statements and bundled them together in a protest letter signed by Hedberg. (Note that none of the protesters signed the recall petitions…) The Clerk deemed the protest letter valid and said she needed a protest hearing in front of an official to see if the protests were valid or not. If any of the protests were valid, then the whole recall would be dead. Mrs. Camper asked the Fremont County Clerk to hold the hearing but that took several weeks to happen. Mrs. Camper, based on the filing of the Hedberg protest, also extended the time that people could withdraw their signatures from the recall petition.
As the recall petition signature count was not much more than needed to have a recall, this extended signature withdrawal period opened up an opportunity for the desperate Flower crew. They got a copy of all the petition signatures and started making harassing phone calls and visits to a bunch of people who signed the petition asking/demanding that they withdraw their signatures because good ol’ boy Tom didn’t deserve this as he was a good boy. So, during this extended time period, they did get a few dozen people to take their signatures back causing the signature count to drop below the minimum. (Voter intimidation anyone?)
Finally, the protest hearing was held. Hedberg, as the protest letter head, gave a rambling, self serving speech and then the individual protesters gave their testimony. Virtually no rebuttal statements or evidence was allowed by the hearing officer. (Much of the protesters’ testimony was flat out hokey. We interviewed the recall signature gatherers after the hearing and they rebutted virtually all of their testimony. It was basically a local political hit job orchestrated by Hedberg to save his lefty homie, Flower.) Not surprisingly, after the suspect testimony, the hearing officer deemed the protest invalid and the whole Red Bug protest letter attempt bogus and a no go. Red Bug was sad.
But, due to the time it took to have the protest letter hearing, the Flower harassment posse had enough signatures withdrawn so the recall petition now didn’t have enough signatures. So, Mrs. Camper declared the recall petition signature count insufficient and the recall dead.
However, Ann Barthrop and the recall committee examined Hedberg’s protest letter and noticed that it didn’t conform to Colorado law, as a protest letter must be taken “under oath” and the letter must be stamped by a notary with the words “and sworn to (or affirmed)”. Red Bug’s protest letter did NOT have that wording and thus was facially invalid. This was brought to Mrs. Camper’s attention, but she did not change her decision. The recall was still dead.
With that, the recall committee hired an attorney and sued the Custer County Clerk saying that the Hedberg protest letter should have been rejected when it was submitted as it was not sworn to by a notary. And if the Hedberg protest letter is rejected when submitted, then there should not have been an extension of the signature withdrawal period, which would invalidate all those signature withdrawals the Flower crew coerced out of the recall signers. Thus, the recall petition is valid as it had enough signatures at the end of the normal, short signature withdrawal and protest filing period. And the recall of Flower should proceed.
Well, it finally went to a hearing last month in District Court and the judge issued her opinion Wednesday, May 31st. Guess what
folks? The judge ruled that Hedberg’s hit piece protest against the recall was void when it was submitted as it was not sworn to a notary. The judge said because it did not have the wording, “and sworn to (or affirmed)” on the letter it was void, “ab initio”, meaning it was no good when filed. The judge concluded that because it was void when filed, Mrs. Camper made an error in accepting it which then required a hearing and which extended the signature withdrawal period. Thus, the signature withdrawals made after the regular deadline were invalid, thus, the recall petition had sufficient signatures and was good. Since the recall petition was valid, the judge ordered the Clerk to hold a recall election under Colorado Statutes (which would be 30 to 60 days after the Clerk declares the recall petition to be sufficient.) The recall of the problematic Flower is ON and the people will be allowed to vote and not have their votes suppressed by Hedberg’s bogus protest letter attempt.
(A couple of points here: again Red Bug Hedberg has caused a lot of trouble for Custer County and again has cost the county a lot of money. Remember the infant terrible’s lawsuit against the County Commissioners because they gave the legal notice contract last year to the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel instead of his cheesy publication? The commissioners were correct in giving it to the Sentinel as Red Bug had been attacking one of our public officials for a long time over something that Red Bug could not prove, but that didn’t stop him from his character assassination pogrom against that gentleman. But remember, Commissioners Day and Canda voted to give it to the Sentinel and Hedberg’s homie, Flower, voted to give it to Red Bug.
In that case, Hedberg sued in Federal court (!!!) alleging his precious free speech rights were violated. The county’s insurer folded and gave Red Bug $50k rather than spend a LOT more going through a Federal court trial where the county would have won easily. Hedberg knew the insurance company didn’t want to do a federal trial. This was, folks, flat out extortion using the federal court system as the vehicle. This will cause our county insurance rates to rise dramatically.
Now in this recall case, Hedberg’s protest letter caused the recall to be delayed and thus miss last November’s election which could cost the county taxpayers thousands of dollars to hold a special mail in election in the coming weeks. (Although, due to the extensive delays the recall vote might be put on the regular election ballot in November.) Plus, Mrs. Camper had to hire a private attorney to handle the Hedberg protest letter court case which was VERY expensive. But Red Bug doesn’t care, he doesn’t pay any property taxes. Us tax paying peasants have to pick up the slack.)
We must also say our County Clerk and Recorder, Mrs. Camper, had a mine field to navigate when Hedberg submitted his bogus protest. The statutes are vague and the recall protest case law on protest issues is virtually nil. In retrospect, Mrs. Camper made some errors but considering the vagueness and complexity of the recall statutes, it was errors that anybody could make. She did a good job in setting up the protest hearing and having an out-of-county, impartial hearing officer run it. And remember, none of this would have happened if Hedberg had not tried to suppress a vote by the people to try to save his side kick, Flower.
So the recall election to throw Flower out of office and get somebody in there with integrity is on. And about time. Plus, we are blessed to have a solid Republican on the ticket to replace the problem Flower. It is time to get back on course again, voters. Let’s make this happen.
(We printed the entire court’s judgment on page 15. Please read the whole thing. It is a well written and clear finding.)
Update 6/14/23:
This week, the Custer County Clerk and Recorder posted the Statement of Sufficiency for the Recall Tom Flower effort. See below:
Editor/GG: THE RECALL IS ON! August 8th is the Election Day! Word is there’s a great replacement candidate running. More on the recall next week.)