An effort to honor a local labor leader at Monday’s meeting of the Denver City Council stoked simmering disagreements over how prominent a role unions should play in city governance.
Three council members excluded themselves from the vote on the proclamation recognizing Leslie Moody, president of the Denver Area Labor Federation.
Councilman Paul Lopez, who has strong ties to labor groups, pushed the proclamation.
The proclamation passed, 8-0, but council members Charlie Brown, Marcia Johnson and Jeanne Faatz weren’t in the room when the vote was cast even though they attended the rest of the council meeting.
Johnson and Faatz wouldn’t comment on their absence, but Brown said later that he decided to take himself out of the room during the proclamation on purpose. He said he had warned Lopez that the proclamation was divisive.
“We need to be careful and separate City Hall from the union hall,” Brown said. He added, “I think it’s so blatantly political.”
He likened the move to what would happen if a conservative pushed a proclamation honoring conservative talk radio host Mike Rosen “for all he does for the taxpayers of the city.”
Lopez acknowledged that the proclamation hadn’t been universally embraced by his colleagues and that Brown and Faatz had asked him not to push it.
“I respect their opinion,” Lopez said. “But there should be no controversy about the need for a living wage or access to health care or affordable housing.”
Council President Michael Hancock and councilwoman Carol Boigon were absent for the entire meeting.
Usually proclamations are feel-good measures that draw universal support. But in December, Brown chastised Councilmen Chris Nevitt and Doug Linkhart for talking about labor strife when a proclamation was issued to National Hirschfeld, which has been in business for 100 years.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
