In response to a failed recall effort that official representatives of the petition stated happened for a variety of reasons — including threats and retaliation — Commissioner Veronica Medina stated, at the September 3 Archuleta Board of County Commissioners meeting, that she has never threatened anyone, nor asked anyone to threaten someone on her behalf.
I more than half believe this for the following reasons.
First, I never stated Commissioner Medina threatened anyone, and do not believe she did. This is an inventive accusation on the part of Veronica Medina. You will find no such statement by me in any public record, nor in private conversation, because I do not need to lie to legitimize my positions.
Unfortunately, the Pagosa Springs SUN decided to amplify Commissioner Medina’s mock defense against statements that she was threatening people.
The only problem is that I don’t know who to attribute these phantom statements to, as she was responding to something that was never actually expressed, not by me or anyone else who made a public comment in the September 3 meeting.
Second, I also believe she never actually asked anyone to threaten or retaliate against others on her behalf, either. I believe they volunteered.
It is, therefore, humorous that there is no retaliation or reprisal happening, according to Ms. Medina, who states we live in America and it is our right to petition our government, while Thursday’s SUN article attributes quotations to me that do not exist, and implies I stated that Veronica threatened people, in my public comment at a September 3 meeting.
The SUN article — which put words into actual quotation marks as if directly quoting me — reported that I said there were “hundreds of signatures” for the ballot petition process at the beginning of my public statement. These words were never stated by me. The SUN editor, Randi Pierce, agreed to retract this online, after I told her I had a video recording of my statement. I also requested a front page retraction in next week’s print edition, but have yet to hear back from Ms. Pierce.
From the Thursday, September 5 SUN:
News that the recall petition would not be submitted for signature verification came during Tuesday’s meeting of the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) in an exchange between audience member Rachel Suh and County Attorney Todd Weaver.
During that meeting’s public comment on the commissioners’ consideration of vacant land for a county administration building, the recall petition and the “hundreds of signatures” of people who agree there is an ethical issue were brought up by Suh.
Suh also suggested that others may not have been able to sign the petitions for fear of “retaliation” from “Veronica’s friends,” calling the matter “eye-opening.”
Although some of the individually-quoted phrases were in my statement to the commissioners, SUN editor Randi Pierce took them out of context and arranged them in a manner that made me appear to make statements I never made. I’m happy to provide an actual recording of my comments, for anyone to verify.
I found this false attribution fascinating as Todd Weaver, the County Attorney, tried to shut down my comment based on its content concerning ethics issues related to the purchase of X Hwy 160 (which the SUN correctly stated) and when I told him that was unconstitutional, he then tried to state I was campaigning for the recall petition and needed to be stopped. This is when I stated the petition had been withdrawn. In fact, I had stopped collecting signatures as a volunteer canvasser on Friday, and County Clerk and Recorder Kristy Archuleta had already been informed by the petition’s official representative that the petitions would not be submitted for validation of signatures.
A person campaigning illegally can be removed from a BOCC meeting. A person discussing a political issue may not have their rights violated.
After Commissioner Maez and the County Attorney Weaver were openly discussing shuttering the entire meeting in the middle of my public comment, Commissioner Brown indicated I should get 30 more seconds to speak, not my full three minutes, which in my view violated laws on retaliation against members of the public for addressing grievances with government officials. It seems to me the SUN editor tried to attribute statements to me that would give credence to Weaver’s position that I was campaigning (which would have been against the law) and thus deserved to be silenced, despite the fact that the statements as reported by the SUN never came out of my mouth.
Readers may see a theme emerging here, where Commissioner Veronica Medina and the SUN created a story which attributes statements to me that never existed, responding to phantom discussions and excusing violations of rights with invented fantasy.
Not surprising to me, the SUN reported a lengthy interview with Commissioner Medina, but did not choose to interview me. They have this right. They, as the Free Press, have the freedom to choose whom to associate with and whom to interview and whose message they want to amplify. They are not obligated to report the truth. The news media has a First Amendment right to lie to the public, to mislead the public, and to make insinuations that may not represent the complete facts.
This is called “spin”.
It is incumbent upon Daily Post readers to find out the truth, to understand the facts, and to choose their news sources. As the County and newspaper work hand in hand to try to silence dissent through attributions of statements that never factually occurred, readers must excuse the cynic in me that sees the reprisal for exactly what it is meant to be.
Rachel Suh lives in Pagosa Springs, and is a Certified SCRUM Master and Strategic Consultant working in facilitation, mentoring, training, and coaching. She has a passionate hobby of Political Activism.