Mayor Johnston and his administration are hiding things from you. Let's Talk Guns is buying ads. An update to Polis enabling a cop killer to try for early parole.
Mayor Johnston and his administration are hiding things from you.
There have been a couple recent CBS news articles (among others) about how Denver Mayor Mike Johnston used a disappearing message app to communicate with some employees in his administration.
Likely these were used to discuss the moving of homeless people and/or migrants around and to other cities by them, but we'll never know because the messages ... disappeared.
I hope you join me in finding this sort of thing unacceptable. Whether you agree with Mayor Johnston or not, citizens have the right to know what their government is doing.
I wrote an open email to him, to city council and to any and all employees involved where I could find a public email (listing the ones that I couldn't so that readers would know who was involved). That email is below.
If I hear or see any action by city council on this, I will update. As I say below, not speaking against it says plenty.
An open email to the Denver City Council, Mayor Johnston, and Matthew Mueller, Denver Office of Emergency Management
Hello to all,
My name is Cory Gaines. I am not a resident of Denver, but I am a property owner there. I am also a firm believer in the idea that government should be accountable to the people funding it and this necessitates transparency.
I was unable to find city email addresses for the following individuals who should by rights be on this email: Wendy Shea, Attorney for the Department of Safety; Elias Diggins, Denver Sheriff; Katie McGloughlin, Denver City Attorney ; Joshua Posner, Director of Strategic Initiatives; Jenn Ridder, Chief of Staff. If anyone on this open email would like to forward it to them, I would be appreciative.
I am writing re. what I read in the CBS articles linked at bottom. The first article details how Mayor Johnston and the members of his administration either on this email or named above participated in chats using a messaging app (Signal) which deleted their communications. It mentions how the mayor and these officials did so despite (and here I quote a 12/11/2024 email from Denver Chief Information Security Officer Merlin Namuth which appears in the article) warnings that encrypted messaging apps were "For personal use only. Please avoid using these applications for city work."
Mayor Johnston was initially not available to respond to questions by CBS, but in the second article linked below Denver's mayor, caught in the open and thus unable to duck the questions, responded that (quoting the second story), he felt "great" about his transparency and that he was "...deeply committed to it [transparency]."
I get two senses of why Mayor Johnston and the city employees mentioned might be trying to evade sharing their messages with the public. It might be due to Trump's moves on immigration. It might be due to trying to hide information on what Denver was doing moving homeless people and migrants around into Aurora. I don't know that I care which one it is.
The reason being that, whether you like a particular policy, political party, politician, or what have you, it really doesn't matter. Transparency and open government are values that transcends such concerns, that ought to transcend tribalism. We citizens, again those that agree or don't agree with what Denver has chosen to do, have every right to expect that our government be completely and totally open to us. It is also, I believe, the law that it be so.
Mayor Johnston and all the other city employees listed that participated in their disappearing messages knowingly and purposefully broke that faith with the people that either elected them, employ them, or pay the money that funds it all.
There is no other or better word for this than unacceptable.
I urge the city council members on this email to join me and many other Coloradans in condemning what the mayor and his administration have chosen to do. I urge you to follow my suit and do it publicly. Your silence or lack of action on this issue would send the signal that you think his and others' behavior to be okay.
Cory
Let's Talk Guns is buying ads
I have written in the past about the website run by the Office of Gun Violence Prevention (housed in CDPHE) called "Let's Talk Guns Colorado".
This was the site that I caught repeating gun control and Democrat talking points on guns, something they eventually fixed but didn't seem to find a problem until it was pointed out publicly (see the first link below for the newsletter detailing the problem).
I had a reader send me an email the other day to tell me that they'd seen an ad for this website on their Amazon Prime account. Got me curious: where are they buying ads and how much are they spending?
A relatively quick email returned the following from the Office (quoting my email):
The OGVP spent a paid media budget of $892,475 for media airing this fiscal year, and outlets include:
ABC News
Amazon Prime
AMC
Bravo
CBS sports
CNN
Comedy Central
Discovery
ESPN
Food Network
Fox 31
Fox News
Fox Sports
Fubo
FX
GOLF
Hallmark
HGTV
History Channel
Investigation Discovery
MLB
MTV
NBA TV
NBC
NFL Network
Oxygen
Paramount
TRU
TNT
TLC
Tubi
Google paid search
Digital media
Youtube
Meta
Reddit
Pinterest
Snapchat
LinkedIn
96.9 KCCY - Pueblo
99.1 KUAD - Northern Colorado
100.5 KRSJ - 4 Corners Area
99.9 KEKB - Grand Junction
Digital Billboards
Grand Valley Transit Buses
Standees and posters at gun ranges across the state
Northern Colorado Style Magazine
Veterans Life Magazine
Colorado Hunter Magazine
Daily Sentinel - Western Colorado Hunting annual edition
I am not sure about you, but I had to look up just exactly what a Fubo is. Some kind of online TV I take it.
You know, I don't think there is anything nefarious in doing the ads, but I question a couple of things here.
One, if they are as sloppy with their writing as I found, if they are as careless in merely echoing partisan talking points, if they present themselves as a good source of info but don't check what they draw upon, I ask if wider distribution is a good thing.
Two, I wonder at the investment of nearly a million dollars just for ads for this site. I've seen it. Frankly there's not much revelatory there. Maybe it's because I spend my days immersed in politics (gun control being part of that), but I didn't see anything there that changed my life.
Nonetheless, your tax dollars at work.
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/cdphes-lets-talk-guns-campaign-echoes?utm_source=publication-search
An update to Polis enabling a cop killer to try for early parole.
I posted late last week about a young man who killed a cop and was trying for a skills training/early parole program, his being eligible to apply thanks to a law Polis signed in 2021. I linked to that newsletter below if you need or want to read it.
Towards the end of that post, I put that I had written to Colorado's Department of Corrections to see if and how people could send in their thoughts on Garcia-Gomez's inclusion in the program.
I didn't hear for a long time and followed up. After the follow up I got a response from the department's public information officer.
Quoting an email sent me:
"To clarify, Raul Gomez-Garcia's application to the Juveniles and Young Adults Convicted as Adults Program (JYACAP) was denied on April 4, 2025, after a comprehensive review. The application did not meet the eligibility requirements outlined in Administrative Regulation 650-08, meaning he is ineligible to reapply for three years. JYACAP, established under C.R.S. 17-34-101, follows a structured, multi-step process to ensure fairness, accountability, and public safety. Participation isn't automatic; applicants must meet defined eligibility requirements. Admission isn't guaranteed, as all applications are subject to an eligibility review, a program suitability assessment, and victim input. The Colorado Department of Corrections is committed to a thorough, fair, and accountable review process that prioritizes public safety."
That's good news. I heard of the denial from a reader when I posted this, but didn't hear the update that Gomez-Garcia is ineligible to apply again.
As to the other half of the question, namely whether and how the public can send in input on a prisoner's application, I had to follow up the email with a phone call to the same public information officer. I haven't heard back on that.
If I do, I'll update.
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/polis-enabled-a-cop-killer-to-try?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false