NOREEN: This could be the LandCo smoking gun

A meeting in September 2007, as it turns out, was about a bridge to nowhere.

Several months later, the Colorado Springs City Council approved a $53 million deal that went nowhere fast.

The United States Olympic Committee deal has left City Hall's credibility miles from nowhere.

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.

Embattled Mayor Lionel Rivera's political career path has become a head-long dash to the same destination.

Will he take the rest of the city along for the ride?

Considering that the first talk of a deal occurred in the summer of 2007, it has been almost two years since the city/LandCo/USOC saga began. The deal began to unravel right after it was agreed to, but the revelations about Rivera's links to LandCo developer Ray Marshall have been peeled away slowly and more recently.

On Thursday it was confirmed by members of the Downtown Development Authority that Rivera lobbied on Marshall's behalf at a meeting on Sept. 27, 2007 -- 15 days after the city put out a request for proposal for the USOC redevelopment deal. At the meeting, Vice Mayor Larry Small said on Thursday, Rivera argued on behalf of Marshall's idea for a skybridge between the city's parking garage and a building Marshall owns at the corner of Colorado Avenue and Tejon Street.

At the time Rivera was using his influence as mayor to benefit Marshall and a skybridge idea that would become part of the USOC redevelopment package, Rivera also was acting as Marshall's investment broker at UBS, an investment company.

Unless some videotape emerges, this is as close to a smoking gun as we are going to get that Rivera's involvement in LandCo's pursuit of the USOC deal was both early and improper. Two attendees from the meeting acknowledge Rivera was there.

Thursday's revelation cripples Rivera's repeated denials that he had a conflict of interest. It also contradicts Rivera's insistence that he never did anything to advance Marshall's interests.

The Downtown Development Authority doesn't like skybridges because they keep pedestrians away from storefronts. The mayor was trying to talk the DDA out of its position to help a guy who was paying brokerage commissions to the mayor.

C'mon.

Given this city's political sensibilities, Rivera is lucky a recall effort has not been launched.

It's amazing more council members have not expressed misgivings, if not anger, that Rivera kept them in the dark about his ties to Marshall.

Does the USOC mess have the potential to impede the city in other ways? To the extent that a mayor is needed to advance City Hall's agenda, the answer is yes.

It's important to keep the USOC in Colorado Springs, but City Hall is facing other problems and some will be hard to solve if Rivera is the point man.

For instance, it appears the council will place a tax question on the November ballot. It will be a tough sell.

Voters will be persuaded only by someone they trust.

Read my blog updates at gazette.com/blogs/barrysblog