Edgewater Echo was sent the letter below written by Edgewater residents who are part of a group called “Coalition for an Equitable Edgewater.” The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Edgewater Collective or the Edgewater Echo.
To: City of Edgewater Leadership
From: Coalition for an Equitable Edgewater
We hope this email finds you well ahead of your upcoming city council meeting. We at CEE (Coalition for an Equitable Edgewater) are a group of concerned community activists, citizens, and parties with an interest in our local government. We formed in 2023, and as taxpaying citizens who are served by your City, we are distressed to learn of a chain of misconduct within your police department- which was made clear in several city council meetings last fall and winter. I personally have been a resident for coming up on my 33rd year here in town. I’ve never taken an interest in local gov until this issue came across and I got involved.
We insist on transparency and accountability- absent hefty CCJRA and CORA fees from the police department which make obtaining matters of public interest impossible.
We wonder why your city council, mayor, Chief, and manager continue to shirk responsibility for the lack of accountability and transparency. After numerous council meetings and even private conversations, the responsibility to initiate a probe into the police department is always “someone else’s job”. The responsibility always gets shirked and the onus is on someone else. Is that the way to treat taxpayers? When will one of you on council or leadership finally say:
“Ya know what, this is the millionth time we’ve heard from the public about the police in Edgewater. Maybe instead of shirking responsibility and kicking the can and acting like our hands are tied, we’re gonna actually initiate a probe into the people we trust to protect and serve???”
Do we, as Edgewater not deserve that? Or do you plan to have more excuses? Each of you council members should be asking, if not you, then WHO. WHO will advocate for the interests of your constituents? Who will break the chain of shirking responsibility and turning a blind eye to corruption? Who will have enough common sense to understand that it’s very obvious that the police department can’t be trusted to investigate themselves (and find themselves clear of wrongdoing)? When will you take a common sense approach of evaluating the quality of your staff and giving us the accountability we deserve?
Is quantity more important than quality? I was watching the last meeting live and it is clear that the agency is understaffed. So you are sending a message that you’d rather retain problem cops on payroll rather than weed out the problems and have an equitable workplace full of great cops who give Edgewater a good name? Rather keep rotten apples in the barrel to keep the barrel full instead of having a modest handful of perfect apples? When Morrison police shut down a few years back they relinquished control temporarily to jefferson county sheriffs in addition to the patrol staff they had.
As I enter my 33rd year of living in this town, I seriously question why issues like this have persisted or have come to such a head with complete lack of action and silence from the city leadership. In my years of living here, I can’t even tell you a time when me or a neighbor ever considered a recall election into leadership but I find myself humiliated to continue reading story after story and speaking with person after person about the goings on in our small town. A recall might be what’s needed to get strong and decisive leadership in office.
Hopefully we are able to collaborate and you can address and implement something to address the allegations? Or even host a community forum for us to express the urgency- as was proposed in the meeting last September. It’s important because this type of behavior from you is why we lose faith in police. If you have a forum no cops there- we are uninterested in lip service and excuses. We are interested in hearing how you’ll hold them accountable. You’ll probably continue to do nothing, investigate yourselves and call it a day. Please prove us wrong.
See the attached new stories below regarding the concerns:
https://kdvr.com/news/problem-solvers/edgewater-cop-accused-of-hit-and-run-lying-to-investigators/
I hope the Coalition for Equitable Edgewater representatives attend the next City Council meeting to reinforce the need for transparency and accountability.