Mayor's accuser told to 'put up or shut up'

Colorado Springs City Councilman Jerry Heimlicher is calling on an investment adviser who filed a conflict-of-interest complaint against Mayor Lionel Rivera to "put up or shut up."

Heimlicher fired off a sternly worded e-mail to Ron Johnson a week ago demanding that Johnson produce the evidence he claims proves the mayor committed an ethics breach.

"Your approach of using the press as your information agent is totally unfair to an impartial hearing," Heimlicher said, referring to the complaint being reviewed by the city's Independent Ethics Commission.

"If the Mayor is not guilty of your beliefs, then you have damaged a person with rumor and alleged evidence," he said. "If he is guilty, let the system determine that in a factual manner."

Johnson, president and CEO of Central Bancorp, is accusing the mayor, vice president of investments at UBS Financial Services, of managing accounts of LandCo Equity Partners and its chairman, Ray Marshall.

Last year, LandCo beat out three other companies bidding for a $53 million development deal with the city and the U.S. Olympic Committee. Since then, the deal has fallen apart.

Johnson had said he intended to provide the ethics commission with brokerage statements "showing that the mayor had a direct financial relationship with a Ray Marshall entity."

But last week, he changed his tune.

Johnson told City Attorney Patricia Kelly in an e-mail that the three-member City Council-appointed panel was going to have to use its subpoena powers to obtain the documents because the person who has them is "restricted from freely distributing the statements due to ongoing legal actions involving Marshall."

Johnson copied Heimlicher in the e-mail to Kelly, apparently because Johnson lives in Heimlicher's council district. Heimlicher responded an hour later.

"I ask that you discontinue writing me on this issue as I consider elected folks innocent until proven guilty just as is the right of all Americans," Heimlicher said. "I have no idea why you are copying me on all of your notes and I demand that you stop it. Put up or shut up."

Heimlicher also asked Johnson to disclose to the ethics commission his "alliances" with a developer who bid on the $53 million deal.

Jeff Smith, chairman of Classic Cos., which partnered with Nor'wood Development Group to bid on the project, is a minority stockholder in some of the businesses Johnson heads.

Johnson told The Gazette last month that he wasn't on a vendetta and that Smith didn't know he had filed a complaint against the mayor.

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