Loveland mayor candidate's meme comes back to haunt him

A crass political meme Mayor Pro Tem John Fogle sent over email a year ago has resurfaced, along with revelations that fellow council members had asked him to step down from his leadership post.

The email exchange and what followed brings up questions about both representation and transparency among the Loveland City Council.

Fogle, a candidate for Loveland mayor in November's nonpartisan election, sent the meme, showing former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump shaking hands, with the caption: "Actual photo of Donald Trump grabbing a p---y,"  to four other council members on Oct. 17, 2016. 

It resurfaced Monday when former Loveland City Council candidate Howard Dotson forwarded the email to Loveland City Council to ensure members of the public could see it for the first time, obtained through what he called "opposition research."

"This is not the kind of email that should be shared by anyone seeking to serve as the mayor of Loveland," Dotson's email stated. "At a time when we need to find common ground and work together across the aisle, this does not help."

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Fogle, a registered Republican, said in an interview that he apologized a year ago for the email sent privately, which he called a "dumb indiscretion" that he sent to his fellow Republican council members.

He said he got caught up in forwarding emails during the campaign with a friend and that everyone makes mistake, and he is not immune.

Fogle had originally sent the email to then-councilman Hugh McKean and council members Don Overcash, Troy Krenning and Dave Clark, exchanged via their personal email accounts. At least two of the council members responded to the group email, scolding Fogle for the content.

Krenning initiated correspondence about the meme on the council's public server to discuss the issue with all council members, including those not initially part of the private email thread, asking Fogle to step down from his role as mayor pro tem and inquiring whether fellow council members would be interested in discussing the issue further in a closed-door meeting. Krenning said this week that he had also asked Fogle to resign.

But "all of those requests were ignored or rejected," Krenning said.

Those emails were marked private and not available in the city's publicly viewable email system. Krenning asked City Attorney Clay Douglas to release the emails this week.

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Douglas did not return a request for comment about releasing the emails, and assistant city attorney Alicia Calderon said her office would conduct a review of the emails sent after Krenning's request before making a determination about release.

This is not the first time questions have come up about the Loveland City Council's email policies under the direction of Douglas, with several council members acknowledging an increase in emails withheld from public view.

Government documents are presumed to be public, with some narrowly defined exceptions, and just because government leaders agree to make information confidential doesn't legally make a public record private, according to a Colorado Court of Appeals ruling in Daniels v. City of Commerce City.

Emails obtained by the Coloradoan show that in Krenning's initial response to Fogle, he wrote, "... you sent a terribly stupid, obscene and vulgar email to me and other members of the city council using private email addresses. I'm not sure what your intentions were or why you sent this email which contained sexually explicit language and racially charged innuendo against Obama."

Krenning addressed why he ultimately decided against bringing the issue up in a public forum, writing, "I realized it would only be fair and right to allow you an opportunity to take action voluntarily without making a public spectacle which has the potential to reflect poorly on the entire council, staff and community."

He also said in an interview that at a time when national and local elections were so heated and polarized, he didn't want it to appear that he was making a show for political purposes.

Fogle, however, refused to step down, despite a similar request from Overcash shared over the private email thread.

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Overcash worried that the email, sent to his business account, would impact his professional international work, he said in an interview, and he asked in the email response that he not receive "any emails that contain what most would consider 'sexually/gender offensive.'  If in doubt, please do not send."

He added that while Loveland residents voted to elect Fogle to the City Council, the other council members elected him to the position of mayor pro tem, and therefore, Overcash believed Fogle should step down voluntarily.

"It is a matter of trust and I no longer trust your judgement in serving in that role as it also carries additional weight in the eyes of the community. I wanted to be upfront with you regarding my opinion so that you know where I stand," he wrote.

Though Fogle responded by apologizing to the council members and offering to make a public apology, especially since "Troy has chosen to place this in the public light," he did not receive support for a public apology.

Because it did not seem he had the support for pushing the issue forward, Krenning said, he dropped it.

Although some people worried that bringing the emails forward publicly would have hurt then-councilman McKean's campaign bid for House District 51, McKean refutes that notion, saying an email sent by another council member would not have affected his own election.

Today, Fogle he believes another council member is just using the email to support his opponent in the November election.

"If we're starting out dragging out mud, it's going to get way worse than this," Fogle said of the campaign.

And while he said he's aimed to keep his campaign positive, he's "well-prepared" to go the other way if needed.

Though people have complained about the meme's message about women and race, Fogle contends that it was about neither.

"That was a shot at Obama; it had nothing to do with degrading women," he said. "Unfortunately, that was a time when Trump was getting beat up about degrading women."

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As for race, Fogle said: "I don't know what the message had to do with race. I didn't have any problems with a black president."

But for Fogle's opponent for mayor, Jacki Marsh, a registered Democrat, the message was offensive.

And it's frustrating, Marsh said, knowing that Fogle has Democrats on council backing him, including current Mayor Cecil Gutierrez and Councilwoman Leah Johnson, despite their knowledge of the message he sent.

"Everybody can like or not like Trump, or everybody can like or not like Obama," Marsh said. 

But the meme used a term, referencing women, that Marsh said is a kind of insult akin to "you run like a girl, or you throw like a girl," and is saying that "President Obama is essentially weak like a woman."

The discussion should have been public a year ago, Marsh adds, and that's one of the reasons she's running.

"There is a whole secrecy thing, and I think they get around meeting laws and full disclosure in public by doing conference calls is what I've been told. ... One might call the other. ... They invite two people at a time to bring them up to speed on some topic," she said.

And that's something she feels she sees evidence of first-hand when speaking during public comment.

"I don't know the inner workings, but it sure seems like they've made up their minds before something comes before council," she said.

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Colorado's open meetings law defines a meeting as “any kind of gathering, convened to discuss public business, in person, by telephone, electronically, or by other means of communication" of three or more officials of an elected body.

For a gathering to be considered an open meeting, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that “there must be a demonstrated link between the meeting and the policy-making powers of the government entity holding or attending the meeting."

"Transparency is a way overused word, and it doesn’t mean anything to people anymore, but I do believe it’s a government borne by the people and shouldn’t do anything they wouldn’t do in broad daylight in the middle of the sidewalk," Marsh said.

Fogle's other opponent for mayor, a registered Republican and former council member Larry Heckel said he, too, felt the issue should have been discussed publicly.

While Heckel said he didn't see the image himself, he heard about it, and he called it "indecency" on the part of a council member.

"It's kind of crazy to say stuff like that and you can't hide stuff like that from the public when you're in that kind of position," he said.

Reporter Saja Hindi covers local politics and public safety. You can follow her on Twitter @BySajaHindi or emial her at shindi@coloradoan.com.