Democratic lawmakers from Boulder County are questioning how public a public meeting really is if an oil-and-gas company controls who can speak.

They further called out Crestone Peak Resources for “bullying” the public at an Oct. 18 meeting.

A Crestone spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for a comment Tuesday afternoon. (We’ll update this story if we hear back.)

State Sens. Matt Jones and Steve Fenberg, along with Reps. Mike Foote, Jonathan Singer and Edie Hooton, sent a letter to Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission director Matt LePore dated Monday and obtained by Colorado Politics.

“COGCC should investigate the suppression of free speech rights, and the bullying and intimidation of the general public and people living within the Comprehensive Drilling Plan’s affected area,” the lawmakers wrote.

The company is proposing as many as 216 wells in eastern Boulder County, but the public meetings it held two weeks ago either were by invitation only, and that initially excluded one Foote and Jones, who taped their encounter at one meeting, in which they were not invited to.

As the lawmakers and angry public applied pressure, the company said it would hold a telephone-only public meeting to collect more public input – while avoiding a confrontation with activists.

The Boulder County Attorney’s Office sent a letter to state regulators more than a week before the Oct. 18 meeting objecting to Crestone’s handling of the public hearings.

The meeting two weeks ago was limited to people who live within a half mile of six proposed drilling sites in a 12-square-mile area. The company handed out printed tickets to get in the meeting.

“If this company can’t handle running a public meeting, how are they going to handle explosive materials?” Jones, the Senate Democrats’ appointed leader on environmental issues, told Colorado Politics, referring to a fatal home explosion in Firestone in April that was linked a leaky pipeline.

Here is the letter from the six lawmakers:

Dear Director LaPore,

We strongly urge the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) reject the Crestone Peak Resources (Crestone) Comprehensive Drilling Plan (CDP) and deny associated drilling permits. Further, COGCC should investigate the suppression of free speech rights, and the bullying and intimidation of the general public and people living within the Comprehensive Drilling Plan’s affected area. Finally, since they would not identify themselves, COGCC should require Crestone to disclose the names and the company of the private guards who were blocking citizens from entering and participating in a Wednesday, October 18th public meeting.

The meetings Crestone have held so far not what one would consider a “public meeting” – in fact, they excluded the public by design. Not only was the Wednesday, October 18th meeting by invitation only, by private security was hired to intimidate and restrict access to the general public and to those who would be directly impacted by the proposed oil and gas operations. The “telephonic town halls” held so far are not public meetings – they are phone calls where speakers can be silenced if the host does not like what they are hearing. This is especially true in the invitation only, exclusionary, highly scripted format for telephone town-halls like the one Crestone organized for Thursday, October 19, including selecting questions to answer from its website comment page and asking callers what their question is before being allowed to make a comment or ask a question.

Public meetings should allow all members of the public, including those surface owners and others that are impacted by the activity, to participate and make their voices heard. We would point out that people outside the CDP areas will still deal with direct impacts such as major traffic congestion, pollution, and nonstop operation noise that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Crestone directly violated, and will continue to violate, COGCC Rule 216 d. if they don’t hold a real in-person meeting that is open to the public. Further, excluding tax payers outside CDP undermines Rule 216 a and d. 3.

a. Purpose. Comprehensive Drilling Plans are intended to identify foreseeable oil and gas activities in a defined geographic area, facilitate discussions about potential impacts, and identify measures to minimize adverse impacts to public health, safety, welfare, and the environment, including wildlife resources, from such activities.

d. Procedure”(2) The operator(s) shall invite the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife, local governmental designee(s), and all surface owners to participate in the development of the Comprehensive Drilling Plan. In many cases, participation by these agencies and individuals will facilitate identification of potential impacts and development of conditions of approval to minimize adverse impacts.”

“(3) The operator(s), the Director, and participants involved in the Comprehensive Drilling Plan process shall review the proposal, identify information needs, discuss operations and potential impacts, and establish measures to minimize adverse impacts resulting from oil and gas development activities covered by the Plan.” Crestone was required by the COGCC to hold two public meetings in the “CDP Pre-Hearing Application Process and Timeline.”

Crestone’s Wednesday, October 18th meeting and Thursday, October 19th telephone town hall were not true public meetings. Rather, they were private invitation-only events where people were left feeling intimidated, bullied, helpless and angry.

Private meeting: The first event was an invitation only, at a private venue with heavy security, both private security who would not identify themselves or for whom they worked and the Sheriff’s Office. People were screened by the private security guards, who then asked attendees for their paper invitation or if their name was on the list. Two members of the Colorado General Assembly, State Senator Matt Jones of Longmont and State Representative Mike Foote of Lafayette, personally experienced this treatment. They were stopped by two people who acted like private security, but when asked would not say if they were. While waiting, we were chastised by one of the unidentified private security guards and told that we had needed to call Crestone by noon that day to receive permission to enter the “public” meeting. Eventually, after some back and forth, we were finally allowed in.

We have been notified that a citizen who lives in the CDP area that she and another landowner just outside the area were threatened with arrest by private security because they were on a no-admit list. The person living in the CDP was sitting in her car in the parking lot with a friend. The private security person approached the car and asked their names. Upon hearing the CDP landowner’s name, the private security person said she had to leave the church lot premises and threatened her with arrest if she did not, to which she complied. The person living just outside the CDP tried to enter the venue and when asked her name was told by private security to leave the premises. She also complied. Both women believe they were blacklisted. These two women were among the many members of the general public in Boulder County who were denied entry to a so-called public meeting.

Private Telephonic Town Hall: A “telephone town hall” is not a public meeting. Especially when they are e only, heavily scripted, and excluded and cherry-picked questions. Public meetings are just that – in-person meetings where people can present their point of view directly to those involved in a decision. We were told by a property owner in the CDP that only people who received a letter were invited to sign up for the Thursday, October 19th telephone town hall, then they were called for the conference call. They were not given a number to call-in, nor were they provided a number to call if they were dropped from the call. Callers were screened by name, address and by what question they were going to ask. Once on the call, they were immediately put on mute. Approximately 10 questions were allowed to be asked, with Crestone staff selecting about half the questions from what was said to be comments on the Crestone web site. At least one caller was cut off mid-sentence on a follow-up question. Once cut off, she could not hear the conversation for several minutes. The call was halted at one hour. People were left in the “queue” and were not allowed to participate. One of the people left in the queue was the same woman landowner who lives in the CDP who was made to leave the private meeting with the threat of arrest the night before.

The bottom line is Crestone Peak Resources is willfully flaunting a COGCC rule and direction to limit public feedback from all citizens who would be impacted by their oil and gas operations. They systematically excluded most the public by design. We strongly recommend that reject the Crestone Peak Resources (Crestone) Comprehensive Drilling Plan and deny associated drilling permits.