A
Vindication for Tim Leigh!
Raphael
Sassower
The allegations made the front page; the details of the
accusation were the talk of the town. One can argue that Tim lost his council
membership this year because of this cloud of suspicion, one that wouldn’t go
away in time for the election. Oh, yes, some people made sure this cloud stayed
over his head—more precisely, over his integrity—so that it would cast such an
ugly shadow that to vote for him would be to vote for the wrong guy.
When the vindication came today at council’s meeting
(7/8/13) no one cheered. In fact, no one even bothered to call the
fellow…except for his son-in-law that saw it on Facebook—really, this is how an
accused learns of his fate?—and John Hazelhurst who wanted a quote for his
blog—not for a front-page piece…maybe if Tim died he would be as kind to him as
he was to Judy Noyse, maybe not. She, too, was a councilmember years ago. I
guess we can’t expect proper etiquette from a bunch of local politicians, but
should we?
It was local politicians at various levels and positions
who were glad that Tim was a loudmouth when it came to CSU; yes, they were glad
he asked the hard questions, and they could hide behind him and observe from a
safe distance how the mighty CEO, Jerry Forte, would retaliate (“the best
defense is offense,” as the cliché goes). They were right; Tim was a target, a
big one with get-the-anti-vote efforts, an ethics investigation, and even a
lawsuit. Really? Just for asking questions?
I teach my UCCS students to ask questions; I implore them
to question me, the texts we are reading, their colleagues, and their families.
They eventually get the value of this excersize. And here is Tim, trying to ask
questions as a board member, and being rebuffed. When he doesn’t relent, he’s
being accused of ethical misconduct, really? So, I asked him what it (the
ethics inquiry) was about. And once he told me, I laughed…it was about an
expense report, and whether or not he meant to be helpful in setting someone up
from North Dakota with Neumann …really? We are talking about $400 that took
$17,000 of legal fees to explain away.
Now Tim is a successful businessman (meaning he’s rich enough to pay for
his own travel), and would he be that foolish knowing he’s picked a fight with
Forte, the most powerful man in town?
So, the question isn’t about Tim’s motives or his actual
expenses—now that he is cleared of all misconduct, but about Forte and what
he’s up to—what is his agenda? First, who’s he working for? Second, who
supervises him? Third, what are his qualifications (I asked once for his resume
and couldn’t get it)? Fourth, how is he serving our community? Obviously the
so-called strong mayor and the nine councilmembers can’t reign him in, let
alone get an answer from him about Neumann. Fifth, isn’t it time to have a
change of leadership (even if anyone can make an argument that he’s qualified
to run a $1.2 billion operation)?
As for Tim, please join me in recognizing him as someone
who probably was a gadfly—an honorific label assumed by Socrates in ancient
Greece—when one was needed to wake up, if not simply to get the attention of, a
sleepy town too complacent to realize it needed to be needled. Was he your
classical statesman? Absolutely not. But as the philosopher Gunther Andres years
ago stated (about the dropping of atomic bombs on civilians in Japan) that one
cannot be expected to behave normally under abnormal circumstances. Tim got it
in the context of our city, and his outrage was on behalf of all of us. And for
that, we should be grateful.
