The mystery of Bob Yates' recusal from CU South Annexation the other night has been solved: Yates just emailed to say the "prior work" he did with the law school warrants a recusal.
"I do this out of an abundance of caution and to avoid any appearance of impropriety."
"I do this out of an abundance of caution and to avoid any appearance of impropriety."
This holds true for "upcoming council decisions" as well, Yates wrote, meaning (presumably) the annexation vote itself.
2 Planning Board members were switched out for subs (former members) bc of their affiliations with CU.
Lupita Montoya is a researcher and former assistant prof at CU; Lisa Smith also appears to be faculty at CU Denver.
Lupita Montoya is a researcher and former assistant prof at CU; Lisa Smith also appears to be faculty at CU Denver.
I was not aware of Yates' connections to CU, though he says "prior work." It looks like from here that it's maybe not so prior: He perhaps taught a class in Spring 2021 as an adjunct? (Help me out, I'm not versed in academia) lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profi…
And he is/was an organizer with CU's Conference on World Affairs.
His recusal and this announcement seemed (to me) to come out of nowhere. He's never raised this as an issue. But maybe it wasn't, until now.
His recusal and this announcement seemed (to me) to come out of nowhere. He's never raised this as an issue. But maybe it wasn't, until now.
All previous CU South votes have been about flood mitigation. We're just getting to annexation votes now.
Which kinda makes it odd that he would have taken an adjunct teaching job this spring when he knew this vote was coming up...?
Which kinda makes it odd that he would have taken an adjunct teaching job this spring when he knew this vote was coming up...?
Unless he thought his previous adjunct work (2018) would disqualify him, so might as well take another...? Just speculating at this point; more info may be forthcoming.
The point of "speculating" here is to think of all the questions that need asked for full reporting. Feel free to add your own!
More perspectives = better
More perspectives = better
More thoughts: I'm not sure what Lisa Smith's position with CU is, but I wonder if it makes sense for Yates to recuse himself in that he is most certainly not living off the $$ from teaching one semester as an adjunct.
Hard(er) to make an argument that his judgement is impacted by his future employment prospects when he's not living off this job.
But perhaps Smith wasn't either. More info to find!
But perhaps Smith wasn't either. More info to find!
To restate: All we know now is that Yates is recusing himself for past work with CU, where has taught two classes as an adjunct (2018 and 2021).
Email attached. Stay tuned.
Email attached. Stay tuned.
@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you.
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