Is the Bach administration trying to dissuade reporters from filing open-records requests?

The mayor’s Communications Office, led by former TV news director Cindy Aubrey, has been sharing open-records requests filed by one media outlet with every news organization in town for about the past month.

It’s happened to The Gazette twice and to the Independent once so far.

“It smells of punitive action,” Al Tompkins, senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute for journalism in St. Petersburg, Fla., told the Indy.

Some City Council members can relate.

“I share your and Daniel’s frustration with the difficulty of getting information from the executive branch of the Colorado Springs city government.  As we work through this new form of government, Council members have occasionally been the last to know some information and, on more than one occasion, we find out something either in the media or when a media person calls us asking for a comment,” Councilman Bernie Herpin said in an email to the Independent’s J. Adrian Stanley and The Gazette.

Mayor Steve Bach, in case you’ve forgotten, pledged transparency when he was running for office.

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