First-year Metropolis Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez is underneath investigation by the Denver Board of Ethics after a former staffer filed a criticism final month alleging she flaunted metropolis spending guidelines repeatedly throughout her first few months in workplace.
The 42-page criticism options pictures of receipts, invoices, aircraft tickets and screenshots of emails and textual content exchanges between workplace workers members. It alleges at the very least a half dozen situations of monetary mismanagement and, in some circumstances, obvious makes an attempt by Alvidrez to hide how the councilwoman was spending her workplace finances.
In a single instance detailed within the criticism, Alvidrez agreed to pay her ex-husband, Cesar Duron, $4,234 out of her Council District 7 workplace finances to construct a float for the Broadway Halloween Parade. Alvidrez already had contracted with Youth on Report, a nonprofit group, to construct a float for $10,000.
The councilwoman chalked up the 2 floats — including as much as greater than $14,000 — to forgetfulness on her half, in accordance with the criticism.
Alvidrez is certainly one of six new council members sworn in July 17 together with Mayor Mike Johnston. She represents a number of south Denver neighborhoods and succeeded Jolon Clark.
In a textual content message on Tuesday morning, Alvidrez denied particular allegations included within the criticism.
The existence of the criticism and the open ethics investigation were first reported by Denverite, which additionally reported that every one 4 of Alvidrez’s council workplace aides had resigned since December. The ethics criticism kind lists the primary identify “Leya,” which matches the primary identify of her former aide Leya Hartman, who’s recognized within the emails enclosed with the criticism.
The ethics board voted 4-0 at its Jan. 3 assembly to direct government director Lori Weiser and the Metropolis Lawyer’s Workplace to additional examine the allegations, Weiser confirmed Tuesday morning.
The board will take the matter up in a closed-door government session on Feb. 7 earlier than deciding tips on how to proceed. If the board finds the claims are substantiated and that it has jurisdiction, Alvidrez could have the appropriate to a public listening to, ought to she request one, in accordance with Weiser.
It’s additionally doable the board will determined it isn’t the correct physique to listen to the matter. The board sometimes screens complaints in government classes, as allowed by metropolis legal guidelines.
“The Board of Ethics doesn’t have impartial authority to self-discipline or penalize an officer, official, or worker upon discovering a violation of the Denver Code of Ethics,” Weiser wrote in an e mail. “The Ethics Code offers that the Board could suggest self-discipline to the appointing authority.”
Within the case of elected officers, the appointing physique is the voting public — with public scrutiny of the violations by voters serving because the efficient punishment.
Different allegations within the criticism embody that Alvidrez sought reimbursement from the town for alcohol and gross sales tax paid throughout a lunch with an aide, which allegedly violated metropolis spending guidelines she had been warned about. She is also accused of utilizing a metropolis journey card to pay for flight upgrades on a visit to and from Chile for the Biennial of the Americas in October.
The aide claims that upgrades weren’t allowed underneath metropolis coverage and that Alvidrez was anticipated to reimburse the town for improper use of the journey card.
“As of my final day together with her workplace … Councilwoman Alvidrez, to my information, had nonetheless not reimbursed the town for a lot of of her private purchases,” wrote Hartman, who left the District 7 workplace for one more metropolis job on Dec. 8 and filed the criticism 10 days later. “These documented situations described on this ethics report point out to me a willful disregard of fiscal guidelines and accountability for spending taxpayer {dollars}.”
Alvidrez denied looking for reimbursement for sangria she drank at that lunch and likewise denied that the town footed the invoice for any flight upgrades on her Chile journey.
In her response to JS, she took concern with a portion of the criticism wherein the previous staffer claimed Alvidrez yelled at her throughout a dialogue of the councilwoman’s monetary habits and metropolis spending guidelines.
“Additionally the declare that I yelled at an worker shouldn’t be true and information to me as a result of by no means in any criticism … or e mail did anybody point out yelling earlier than this Denverite article and that’s not my temperament,” she wrote.
The Metropolis Council’s central workplace has obtained complaints from Alvidrez’s workers, spokesman Robert Austin confirmed Monday. However these complaints “concerned office conduct that didn’t rise to the extent of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation prohibited underneath the Respectful Office Coverage warranting an investigation,” he stated through e mail.
The Denver Metropolis auditor, in a report final month, dinged the Metropolis Council for poor oversight of its use of metropolis bank cards and a scarcity of coaching round monetary guidelines.
Austin, in a response, highlighted that in 2022 the council central workplace employed a human assets director and financial administrator to enhance workplace processes and evaluate purchases.
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