Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission on Tuesday decided to move forward and authorize an investigation into a 2022 complaint against Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters.

The commission asked its executive director, Dino Ioannides, to investigate and also appointed Commissioner Sarah Mercer as the hearing officer. 

The commission authorized the probe into the second of two ethics complaints filed by Anne Landman, a Grand Junction resident. Landman filed the first of two ethics complaints against Peters in August 2021, alleging Peters accepted plane rides and other gifts in excess of the state gift limit of $65 from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who espouses unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. 

The commission had decided, on a 3-2 vote, to hold off on moving forward with the complaint back in February at the request of Peters’ attorney, Scott Gessler, who pointed out that Peters was facing a separate grand jury investigation into some of the same issues contained in the complaint. The commission voted to wait until the grand jury, empaneled by Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, came back with a decision in that separate case. That grand jury announced 10 charges against Peters last week.

Peters denies all allegations, both for the ethics complaints, separate campaign finance complaints, and the grand jury charges. She also said she will continue to campaign for Secretary of State in the November 2022 election. 

The second complaint, which the commission acted on, relates to a criminal legal defense fund Peters set up. The complaint alleges the fund does not follow a commission advisory opinion on legal funds. That opinion states donations must be publicly disclosed, that the fund cannot accept donations from lobbyists, and that donors must certify they have no business pending with the Clerk’s office. 

A campaign finance complaint on the same issue is being heard by the Office of Administrative Courts this week. 

The commission also held a hearing Tuesday on a complaint that a Custer County commissioner violated the state ethics law when he voted for overtime pay for his wife, a county employee. 

Custer County Commissioner Tom Flower argued in favor of the pay in an Aug. 28 2020 meeting, which was intended to compensate the county’s three public health employees, who are paid hourly, for overtime work during the COVID-19 pandemic its early months.

Cindi Flower, according to documents submitted by Custer County Attorney Clint Smith, received the bulk of the $2,300 allotted for that overtime pay. 

The complaint was filed in December 2020 by Jim McMahon, a Westcliffe resident, on behalf of dozens of Custer County residents. The complaint initially asked the ethics commission to look at how the county commissioners handled the COVID-19 pandemic, but the commission dismissed that part of the complaint, saying that matter is not under its jurisdiction.

During Tuesday’s hearing, commissioners asked Flower if he could have recused himself from votes on pay involving his wife, and he responded that he could have. Smith, the county attorney, at one point objected to McMahon having an attorney advising him during the hearing. However, McMahon said that person was not an attorney. Flower also revealed that commissioners never received ethics training from the ethics commission staff.

The commission watched a video from the Aug. 28, 2020 meeting in which the overtime compensation was voted on, showing Flower not only advocated for the vote but also dismissed a request from another commissioner that the issue go to an another public body, which wasn’t identified, for review. 

This is a conflict of interest matter, and the vote raised questions about transparency, McMahon told the commission.

At the time of the vote, the public did not know who was getting the money or how much, and for what kind of work, he said. The county paid for the overtime, with an expectation of being reimbursed by the state Department of Local Affairs, which would use federal CARES Act dollars for that purpose.

Flower told the commission the three employees had to document the hours they spent working on COVID-19 issues.  

After an executive session, the commissioners said they would issue a written ruling.

The commissioners no longer vote on complaints, based on a court decision, according to Ioannides. That’s also been cited as the reason for the rulemaking changes. 

The ethics commission also decided Tuesday to seek more public comment on the rulemaking issue. Last month, the commission heard from several organizations and government transparency advocates who complained that how the rules would change is not clear. They noted that, instead of providing a standard “redline” version that shows the exact changes, the commission provided a comparative table that only shows which rule was being changed.