Rivera ally recuses herself from ethics review

Saying she was taking the high road, Jan Doran announced Tuesday that she had decided to recuse herself from the city's Independent Ethics Commission when it hears a conflict-of-interest complaint against Mayor Lionel Rivera, a political ally.

In another development in the closely watched case, the mayor's chief accuser said he will be represented by Lindsay Fischer, a longtime Colorado Springs attorney and former city judge, when his complaint goes back before the City Council-appointed panel Friday.

"I was approached by a number of people, both in the business and legal community, over the last 10 days, all of whom were somewhat offended and outraged by what's going on and by what is not going on," said Ron Johnson, who filed the ethics complaint against the mayor.

Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Central Bancorp, is accusing Rivera, a financial adviser by profession, of having an improper business relationship with a developer who was chosen over three others last year for a $53 million deal involving the U.S. Olympic Committee.

When Johnson and Fischer go before the ethics commission, Fischer plans to give the panel four subpoenas, which he prepared, seeking documents that Johnson says show the mayor's ties to Ray Marshall, chairman of LandCo Equity Partners, the developer in the USOC project.

"It is up to you to stop a cover up - or prove that there is no cover up," according to Fischer's prepared statement to the commission, obtained exclusively by The Gazette.

Whether or not the commission uses its subpoena powers to obtain the alleged documents remains to be seen.

But what is clear is that the three-member panel will be down to two on Friday.

Doran, who had come under fire for refusing to step aside despite her political ties to the mayor, said she decided to recuse herself after "much introspection."

"While I am confident that I could make an unbiased recommendation, I am sincerely concerned that, if a perception of bias exists, that could harm both the maker and the receiver on a complaint, as well as the community," she said, reading from a prepared statement at Tuesday's City Council meeting.

"I do not want to compromise the process in any way," she said. "I believe this is taking the high road."

Doran's about-face follows an editorial Monday in The Gazette calling for her to recuse herself if she cared about the mayor and Colorado Springs.

Doran, who declined to comment afterward, made the announcement before council members voted unanimously to renew her term on the commission.

Only Rivera was absent from the meeting.

Councilman Jerry Heimlicher told Doran he understood and appreciated her decision. When the city created the ethics commission, Heimlicher said Doran was at the top of the list of potential candidates.

"I know of no one that I would want to be in front of if I violated my trust to this community," he said. "I wouldn't want to be in front of you for anything because you'd come down on us with a ton of bricks, which you should. That's the reason we appointed you."

A watchdog group critical of Doran's initial decision to review the complaint against Rivera commended her for thinking it over.

"We applaud Ms. Doran for taking the high road, as should be expected in every instance from any ethics commissioner, by withdrawing herself from hearing the pending complaint against Mayor Rivera based on her ties to his electoral campaigns," said Chantell Taylor, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, in an e-mail.

Doran, a past president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, actively campaigned for the mayor's unsuccessful congressional bid in 2006. She actively campaigned for him again and served on his campaign committee in 2007, when he was re-elected mayor.

Doran said last week that she had disclosed her relationship with the mayor to City Attorney Patricia Kelly, who told her she didn't have to recuse herself from reviewing the complaint.

Although the commission could decide to name a replacement for Doran, Kelly has determined that it is not required to do so, city spokesman John Leavitt said.

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