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Time to give the boot to Marbury, White

Sweetie Marbury and Dick White demonstrated they have no fiscal responsibility, questionable ethical standards and put their personal agenda ahead of real city issues.

Examples of their misguided use of city funds include:

Spending nearly $30,000 on reusable grocery bags, which was for promoting the proposed city bag tax and the single stream recycling facility.

A lavish retirement dinner ($17,000) for the former city attorney.

White’s sustainability budget has been running in the red since it was started. To be fair, the budget is balanced this year but only through higher fees.

Here’s one example of questionable ethical standards:

Rather than ask the voters to approve a grocery bag tax, they called it a fee and quickly approved it. Fortunately, the voters recalled the referendum and then overwhelmingly voted it down.

Marbury displayed a reusable bag at a city council meeting, stating it was from a friend to the north. The bag was from a company in Rifle, and Durango had been buying bags from them for six months. While her statement wasn’t an outright lie, it was less than forthcoming.

There is a paper trail that states the purpose of the bags was to promote approval of the bag tax. It is against Colorado law to use public funds to promote a position on elections. Once the public started asking questions, the bags mysteriously disappeared, probably at the request of the city attorney.

Citizens should ask the attorney general to investigate this potential illegal use of city funds.

Marbury and White have focused on their personal environmental agenda rather than core long-term issues the city faces. It’s been known for a long time that expensive sewer upgrades were needed. Instead of focusing on this early in their term, they focused on the bag tax and sustainability. Long-term planning could have resulted in more cost-effective options. Have you looked at the higher rates on your last utility bill?

McHenry and Waddell have solid business and finance backgrounds; please vote for them.

Dave Peters

Durango



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