Sweeney laughs when asked if he and his paper are in Poundstone's pocket. "Freda is an interesting character," he says. "I know her well. I like her a lot. She's a very good friend and a very bad enemy. She's someone who does not read newspapers. She does what she feels is right and lets the chips fall where they may." And, no, he says, she does not make editorial policy.
But if Poundstone did read The Villager before the last election, she would have been pleased. Sweeney wrote what he called "a resounding endorsement" for Hull's candidacy. And his paper skewered Poticha and her supporters at every available opportunity. Sweeney also printed and delivered two free pre-election issues of his paper to every home in Greenwood Village.
Of the councilmembers who ran for re-election, only Johnson, Underhill and Tim McManus made the cut. Five new members came on board. Hull was elected mayor. And the Super K subsidy was soundly defeated. It was a clear victory for Carol Johnson--and, indirectly, for Poundstone.
The suspicion that Poundstone was the force behind the election was solidified for city staffers by a comment Poundstone allegedly made in council chambers the same night the new council was sworn in, says Hull. Poundstone, according to Hull and others, none of whom actually heard the remark firsthand, reportedly said to city staffers, "See what I've done for you? I got you a new council and mayor."
The rumor, says Hull, resulted in havoc for him at his first meeting with the city staff. "They said, `We were told that Freda Poundstone suggests strongly what you do, and we're all concerned about that,'" he says. Hull says he assured them that he was his own man.
But the lingering ghost of Freda Poundstone isn't the only political specter the beleaguered mayor has had to deal with. He and the city received another round of bad publicity just last week, when city manager Dinah Lewis resigned. "All I will say on the record," Lewis says, "is that I and the city agreed that I was leaving to pursue other business interests." Her resignation, which is effective February 1, could end up costing the city as much as $60,000 in severance pay and search fees.
Sources close to city hall say Lewis resigned after being told that six councilmembers who'd attended a "get-together" the Sunday after the election at new councilman Charlie Hazlehurst's home had taken a straw poll, and that they intended to vote her out--or, at the very least, to make her life difficult.
"[Lewis] was asked to tender her resignation," says the wife of a former councilman. "She's part of the old guard. She wants to preserve open spaces. I think the powers that be have a different agenda for the city, so she's got to go." Johnson is rumored to have engineered Lewis's departure, a charge she denies despite her past problems with Lewis. "I kept as far away from that as possible," says Johnson. "I really was not a part of that dialogue at all."
Hull suggests Lewis left to get out of the political fray. "I think that Dinah wanted to get away from all this," he says. "The council did not take a vote to unload her."
And the mayor says he doubts rumors that the new council wanted Lewis to leave because they saw her as an impediment to secret plans for massive, future annexations. "Maybe I'm too naive," says the town's new chief executive, who adds that despite the rampant paranoia that surrounds him in city hall, he is not convinced that his office is equipped with listening devices. "But I don't think there's any hidden agendas right now."
end of part 2
