Christopher “Denver Metro Audits” Cordova (DMA) walked out of his allotted time during the public feedback period o the Englewood City Council Meeting Monday night in dramatic fashion after only reading a few seconds of prepared comment.
Cordova had previously been at the center of changes made to the City Council meetings after he and fellow first amendment auditor Regan Benson continued to disrupt the public feedback period at the meetings with personal attacks on city council members, the police and public commenters.
Benson was ejected from the previous meeting by the Council, which was set to discuss changes to the public feedback session, after making excessive outbursts to stand and applaud or those speaking out against the changes. Cordova followed her out of the meeting. Applauding during the period is a violation of a city statute and state law.
The changes limit the public feedback period to 90 minutes, with two minutes per speaker, no personal attacks on anyone, a new dedicated media area for media run cameras, and priority given to new speakers at the meeting. Tuesday’s city council meeting displayed a wider angle on the live feed as the speakers approached the dais and a new video screen on the front of the dais.
Cordova, making his first speaking appearance since the changes, began reading from an article written by council member Steve Ward in the Englewood City Magazine addressing first amendment auditors.
The auditor seemed to studder as he read, “I live in the city of Denver. I’m going to read some of the article written by Steve Ward in the Englewood City Magazine. ‘Recently, our city council meetings have seen disruptive public comments from an out of town first amendment auditor… including contingent… including contentious statements inde… indicative of personal beliefs. Sorry, having a difficult time here. (Long Pause) I’m sorry, I can’t continue.”
The auditor then turned away from the podium, walked to his backpack and left the city council chamber without further comment.
It is unclear if this was a planned piece of performance art as a demonstration by Cordova, who has had no previous problems speaking in dozens of previous appearances at city council meetings, or if he was truly having problems speaking.
Cordova had previously released a 28-minute produced video to his YouTube channel featuring his dramatic verbal assault on a police officer following Benson’s ejection from the previous Englewood City Council meeting.
This is a developing news story.
