PERRY: Local journalists set the table with transparency for Aurora voters choking on heaps of word salad

Love us or hate us, journalists get the job done when it comes to drawing critical information from people who would rather not talk about it.

Sometimes the job is so damn easy.

Such was the case withDonald Trump and his coterie of able assistants, just a few years ago. The former president and Rudy Giluliani once gushed to the media about how they pressured Ukraine officials to investigate and make trouble for Joe Biden in a political maneuver to undermine his presidential aspirations.

We all know how well that “perfect phone call” worked out for Trump.

Extracting answers from local political candidates last week was a little trickier, but a trio of regional reporters came through in pressing for information from Aurora City Council hopefuls. 

Denver Gazette editor Luigi Del Puerto, 9News reporter Marshall Zelinger and Sentinel Colorado reporter Max Levy honed in on a herd of city council candidates during a Aurora TV Channel 8 political forum last week. The Sentinel, the Aurora Chamber, the League of Women Voters and the Aurora Women’s Club regularly sponsor these events during local elections.

The forum covered every city council race in Aurora, including that of mayor. 

Across all the city council races, the questions were pointed, and the reporters persisted until they got real answers.

It got very real at the end of the evening, when this year’s three mayoral candidates took the dais.

This year, incumbent Mayor Mike Coffman is facing two challengers for a second term: Ward IV Councilmember Juan Marcano and outsider Jeff Sanford.

What could have been an hour of competitive bragging was actually a truckload of revelations and useful nuggets for voters.

It was the first time almost everyone in the city met Sanford, a veteran, a federal employee and a political newcomer. While his often impromptu and atypical responses to reporter questions were wildly entertaining by political forum standards, his non-partisan campaign lobbed a few surprises, too.

Sanford, sounding sometimes progressive, lurched right when he told reporters he would give all “illegal” immigrants a clear message that the United States is full, and that they needed to “go back” where they came from.

When he chimed in that he was not impressed by Aurora’s current “gypsy” police chief saga, but that he liked sending shoplifters to jail for three days.

Even more insightful were mic moments from Coffman and Marcano.

Del Puerto pitched over the plate when he reminded mayoral hopefuls that a year ago, the city decided to get “tough” on shoplifting, which has become a national and local scourge. Team Republican on the city council overruled Team Democrat more than a year ago and enacted a law mandating at least three days in jail for anyone convicted of stealing more than $300 in merchandise. Since then, shoplifting reports have risen from 766 in August last year to 913 in August this year.

“Do you support the policy?” Del Puerto asked.

Marcano, who opposed it last year, walked out a giant “I told you so.” He and others believe that, just like in all crime, the threat of consequences does not meaningfully deter it, like the science shows. He pointed out that the vast majority of shoplifting, like most theft crimes, go unsolved. No suspect. No jail. No solution.

Coffman, who supported the bill, said he still does. He said he was out with cops one night when some shoplifters at a Target got caught. “So clearly it can work.”

Clearly?

Clearly, the city’s own data shows that not only did the policy fail, the problem is getting worse.

From there, Coffman offered a wilted word salad with too much dressing.

There was talk of sitting down. “I plan on sitting down,” he said, a few times. Meeting with Costco, finding common ground “and of, uh, being able to deter this..but, uh,but the policies need to be much more robust.”

So, a week in jail? Life in prison?

Good for Del Puerto.

Levy was able to hold Councilmember Juan Marcano accountable for his own tough talk over the past couple of years in regards to Republicans on the council dais.

“You called (The Republican Party) the most dangerous organization that ever existed on the planet…it had a fascist bent…a sadistic death cult,” Levy began.

He asked Marcano whether it was hyperbole if he believed he was going to have to, essentially, work with and represent several tens of thousands of virtual satanists if he becomes mayor.

Well, Marcano said, you need to understand the context of equating Republicans to evil incarnate.

The issue then was about catastrophic wildfires and the local oil commission creating a “resiliency commission” — or not, and opposing Republicans acted in bad faith and lied on social media. 

“I had had it, quite frankly,” Marcano said, mixed in with a nice leafy word salad.

We get that.

What we don’t get is how lobbing supercharged name-bombs on the dais is a way to move policy forward.

But he persisted. Marcano said the local stuff is a trickle down from the lying and deceit on a national level. Lying and deceit, apparently, being his new labels for fascism and death cult-ery. It’s unclear if there was an answer in there, but it was filling.

Well asked, Levy.

It was Zelinger who tossed the telling trust query to Coffman that illustrated how important the media is in offering reality to voters.

“Mr. Coffman, this question is about trust,” Zelinger said. He indicated the trust problem is with Coffman’s deception over his not just being involved in the recently nuked attempt to ask voters to change the city’s form of government, but he actually was the driving force behind the measure, as Sentinel and Channel 9 investigations revealed, and Coffman later admitted to on camera. Not only did the plot involve making a new mayor’s role, he essentially schemed to make himself mayor king at the ballot box.

“Power comes with trust, should trust come with transparency?” Zelinger asked.

Most people would say, yes, but with Coffman, power came with a lot of bitter greens and stale croutons.

“I said I would discuss it if it made the ballot,” Coffman said. “Those were my exact words.”

What he didn’t say is that he made that comment after the Sentinel outed him as the secret source behind the scheme.

“Was that a good strategy? No.” Coffman said. “That’s the nature of what we do…sometimes it’s everything, it’s a guestimate. You take action, and some things work, and some things don’t.”

That’s Et Tu, Brute salad dressing for, “sometimes you get busted.”

Zelinger clearly had dinner before the candidate forum and turned back Coffman’s offer of tossed vernacular.

“Do you feel it eroded trust?” he persisted.

“No,” Coffman said.

The answer blended in nicely with another serving of oily greens about the importance of “transparency” in preventing people from getting away with hiding the fact they’re helping sell stolen goods.

On this, we can all agree, the transparency thing is critical, and nobody serves it up better and hotter than do journalists.

Bon appétit, Aurora.

You can see the mayoral candidates and all the city council hopefuls serving up answers to reporters on AuroraTV.org through Election Day.

Follow @EditorDavePerry on Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com