It's become painfully clear after the October 12th Election Committee Special Meeting that Longmont Councilmember Karen Benker and her loyal mouthpieces intend to use this committee as their own little political hit squad. Ms. Benker has now filed 5 complaints to get done what she wants done - and her 5 complaints are the ONLY complaints filed so far. Call the wahh-mbulance.

Until tonight there were only 3 complaints, but they were amended, and what was in those amendments is what's really seedy. The complaints were made against Longmont Leadership Committee, who have allegedly put out mailers, push-polls, and robo-calls. Their address was filed with City Clerk when they registered. So Ms. Benker and her merry bunch, which according to her complaint includes current council candidate Kaye Fissinger, went driving around town looking for the Longmont Leadership Committee. Unfortunately, Ms. Benker apparently dropped a digit from their filed address. Real brain surgeon material here.

What was interesting was the email exchange that ensued between Ms. Benker and Ms. Fissinger. It appears that Ms. Benker is schooling her lackies in how to use " CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line so she doesn't have to forward them to the city's server. In the complaint, she left out the original email from Ms. Fissinger and only shared the 2 that followed. Just because someone says " CONFIDENTIAL" doesn't mean it is, as the City Attorney clearly told them over a year ago. From what I saw, these were clearly NOT confidential. Let's take a gander at them.

On October 5th, in a reply to Ms. Fissinger's original email, Ms. Benker says " Kaye, I tried checking out the address on the flyer ( flyers are people who fly airplanes, fliers are brochures). Looks like it is just a house. 600 Hover St, C3 #129 Do you have any way to figure out who owns it? karen" ( She got the address wrong and is trying to get Ms. Fissinger to hunt down info on the owners of this house! Remember, this is a city council member telling a citizen and council candidate to do some snooping on a private citizens residence, very creepy stuff).

Within 13 minutes, Ms. Fissinger replies: " I think they may have listed the address incorrectly. 1600 Hover Street C3 is a mail box business. I had Duane ( presumably Duane Leise, fellow " What's In It For Longmont" member) drive over there within the last week or so because it's also the address for Longmont Leadership. Coincidentally (or not) it's very near the Longmont FAA facility (where Rodriguez works). The #129 is probably the actual box number. Kaye"

So, there you have it. Karen Benker, Kaye Fissinger, and Duane Leise are driving around town on a quest of what Ms. Fissinger once called the " politics of personal destruction" as they try to collect information on private citizens, and stalk around my work (which is a Federal installation). I made it clear to the Election Committee tonight that if they want to drag the FAA into this little game Ms. Benker is playing, I'd be more than happy to bring along a federal attorney next time.

Here's a little tip to this trio of stalkers and spies: I have a government classified clearance, its level is of no business of yours. Ms. Fissinger is implying a couple of things here: that this group they were snooping after is located at a federal facility, or that it's no coincidence that I work near where this group is supposedly located, implying I'm part of this group or I run it. First, I'm not part of Longmont Leadership or any other group. Second of all, I'm reporting this to FAA Security. Based on the content of that communication, it appears one or all of these three are casing this federal installation and making assumptions of what goes on there. They don't take too kindly to that kind of thing, I can assure you.

Lastly, regardless of anything else, this sort of activity is way over the line - and these communications make it clear that Karen Benker is directing these citizens to carry out her dirty work for her. Even if it means driving by peoples homes, businesses, places of employment, or digging up homeowner information. It's not a stretch to assume they have their own " enemies list" and the ends justify the means.

I haven't written much about candidate Fissinger as I think the only thing saving her from finishing dead last in this race is that there's another candidate who isn't campaigning at all. As far as Karen Benker, she's proven to be one of the more loathesome politicians this city has seen in recent memory. If this doesn't prove that, I don't know what does.

So, the moral to this story: speak up or make your opinion known and the political attack police (currently headed up by Karen Benker apparently) will come after you in whatever way they deem necessary to meet their objectives. The Election Committee/LFCPA is just one tool in their arsenal, who knows what else there is. Why don't you ask the people above, I'm sure they're interested in transparency.

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©2009 Chris Rodriguez/Longmont Advocate LLC (Chris Rodriguez is a Longmont resident, and the publisher and broadcaster of Longmont Advocate, a community website and podcast that raises local issues to increase public awareness and interest)