Rug Merchants Latest Gambit Against Glendale Fails
by Glen Richardson
The owners of Authentic Persian & Oriental Rugs on Colorado Boulevard (Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and his relatives through M.A.K. Investment Group LLC) suffered their latest defeat in their war against the City of Glendale, its residents and officials, in Denver District Court. M.A.K. wants to build a massive high-rise at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and East Virginia dubbed the “Iranian Death Star” by residents. Glendale residents have opposed it and the City Council has indicated that it will not scrap its Master Plan and Zoning Code to allow it.
In order to force the City and its residents to bend to its will, M.A.K. had brought a half dozen lawsuits in federal and state courts orchestrated by Russell Kemp of the Denver law firm of Ireland, Stapleton, Pryor & Pascoe, which have cost the rug merchants and the city millions of dollars in legal fees. The rug merchants hired a top public relations firm and held marches and protests with threats issued against the Mayor and City Council of Glendale. They also, it is alleged, got the FBI to unsuccessfully attempt to bribe various City officials. An undercover FBI agent, Charles Johnson, was arrested in Glendale after harassing Glendale officials and citizens who had spoken out against the M.A.K. project.
All of the lawsuits have been dismissed and the public relations efforts ended badly. But the latest gambit by the rug merchants was to file a myriad ethics charges against Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon and other officials. The charges were dismissed as frivolous in hearings in the City of Glendale, but another attorney at the Ireland Stapleton law firm, Bernie Buescher, had a novel concept of filing them with the state Independent Ethics Commission (IEC) to which he had close ties.
The hearings on the M.A.K. claims before the IEC have taken years to adjudicate. When the IEC finally declared it had jurisdiction over the matters, suit was brought in Denver District Court before Judge Edward D. Bronfin asking that a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) be issued preventing the IEC from proceeding.
Judge Bronfin took the unusual step of skipping the TRO process and went directly to issuing a permanent injunction against the IEC declaring: “any decision made by the IEC [regarding Mayor Dunafon] is deemed null and void and is vacated. Any and all pending and further IEC investigations as about the the complaints against Mayor Dunafon are permanently enjoined.”
The ruling was closely watched and celebrated by various municipalities throughout Colorado. The IEC is viewed by many as an out of control entity which is attempting to expand its power in all directions. Much of the criticism is directed at Matt Smith who lives in Grand Junction, and William Leone who resides in New York City, who periodically shift off the IEC chairman role. Smith and Leone have asserted that the IEC is not subject to term limits or most of the state ethical rules. Smith has been on the IEC since its inception in 2007 and Leone since 2013. The two dominate the proceedings and try to cajole or, if necessary, bully the three other commissioners resulting in regular turnover at the other three spots.
Smith and Leone also have regularly claimed that IEC is not subject to the Colorado Open Records Act which is being challenged in a separate lawsuit before Judge Bronfin. Most of the IEC work is held in executive sessions away from the public. If the recordings of those sessions are made public some believe they will be highly embarrassing to Smith and Leone, or worse.
The exact question before Judge Bronfin was could IEC assert jurisdiction over ethics complaints involving home rule cities that had their own ethical standards of conduct like Glendale, Denver, Colorado Springs, and many other Colorado cities. Amendment 41 to the State Constitution, which brought the IEC into existence, expressly states that Amendment 41 does “not apply to home municipalities that have adopted charters and codes” relating to ethics. Smith and Leone have long claimed that the expressed plain language should not apply if the IEC does not believe that any charter or code is not the same or more stringent in virtually all aspects to Amendment 41. Judge Bronfin ruled the language in the Amendment was “clear” and moreover the intent of the drafters was the same and the IEC did not have jurisdiction.
Embarrassed by the ruling Smith and Leone convinced one more commissioner in a 3 to 2 vote to appeal the court ruling up to the Colorado Court of Appeals. In the Colorado legislature Leone has alienated many state legislators by personally yelling and screaming at them concerning past legislative attempts to rein in the IEC. It is expected that new legislative attempts will be made this year at the State Capitol especially since the new governor, Jared Polis, was the progenitor of Amendment 41 and may believe that Smith and Leone have not conducted themselves in an ethical manner or in a manner intended by the language of Amendment 41.