La Junta City Council Votes to Investigate Alleged Misconduct by Council Member

Description: After a 4-2 Vote to Pursue an Investigation During Monday's La Junta City Council Meeting, La Junta Attorney Phil Malouff Notified Council he Would Seek an Outside Attorney to Conduct the Investigation into Councilman Ed Vela's Alleged Misconduct.

La Junta City Council Votes to Investigate Alleged Misconduct by Council Member

During governing body comments at a regular public meeting of the La Junta City Council, allegations against Council Member Ed Vela were discussed. 

Councilman Paul Velasquez spoke of two letters received by Council via email on April 14, 2023, at 4:11 pm.

After brief discussion, Velasquez read the letters, "Synchronicity Dance Productions was invited to La Junta City Council to talk about their upcoming production during the meeting held on 2/21/23. The Dancers needed to change into their costumes and used an office next to the chamber room. Several Dancers were undressing to get into their costumes. There were at least 4 to 5 female dancers in addition to myself and the director. I was standing at the door to make sure no one walked in while they were dressing. Someone knocked on the door, thinking it might be another dancer, I opened it and saw that it was Ed Vela. I immediately advised (him) the girls are dressing and he can not enter. He did not seem deterred in the slightest and advised that he needed tissue while looking past me into the room. I closed the door ASAP. After grabbing the tissue, I opened the door as little as possible and passed the tissue as fast as I could and saw that he did not make any attempt to advert his eyes. I was surprised that he still wanted the tissue after I made it clear that the girls were changing. I thought that his behavior was odd, and I did not appreciate the fact that he still attempted to look in after he was aware that the girls were dressing. I did not feel that this is normal or acceptable behavior from a grown man, let alone a man on our city council." - Amy Salazar, Citizen of La Junta.

"During the afternoon on Sunday, March 26th, Ed Vela and his wife came to the Koshare Museum where I work. After asking a few things about the trading post, he asked if I remembered when my dancers came to the city building to talk about our upcoming show during the city council meeting. I told him yes. He began asking several questions about when my dancers were changing in the office. He asked me if all the dancers were in my office. I told him only a few were. He asked if David Eckhart was in the office. I told him no. He told me the dancers were just putting costumes over their clothes, and I told him no, they had to change out of their street clothes and into their costumes. He asked if I remembered when he asked for tissues and how the door was open barely a crack. I told him I don't know about that, and I don't think so. He then, very pointedly told me yes you do know. I didn't respond. He and his wife then proceeded to look around the museum and trading post for some time as they left he loudly stated that he should leave something in the donation, or I will tell my mom. I felt very much like he was insinuating something, I felt uncomfortable with him being at my place of work and felt like he was trying to press me to change my story about what had happened the day of the council meeting. His comment as he was leaving felt like it was meant to intimidate." - Sarah Mahoney

Vela was given opportunity to respond, "All this is a big lie. The purpose of my going back to the... Paula's Office. Well, first of all the Mayor invited these kids down here to perform, supposedly. But no body ever performs here because there's no room. What happened was they all huddled into Mrs. Johannes' Office, and that's a small space. There's got to be atleast ten people in there, I guess. They should have gone in the utility board room. I ask the Mayor, please in the future have those people go back to the back. We gotta be responsible if we're the invitees. If we're the inviters to these kids to go back there."

After an interruption for clarification, Vela responded, "I'm not taking questions Elaine, so don't interrupt me, just keep your mouth shut."

Order was called and Vela continued, "What happened was, this tissue box here, the same box, it took me 25 seconds to go from my chair, around the corner because this door was locked, Rick was on vacation. It took me 25 seconds to go back there and knock on the door and ask for a kleenex. Some body opened the door about that much, the width of a kleenex box, and that's exactly what happened. The door was opened, I asked for a kleenex, they closed the door, it was only open about the length of this. They opened it and they said okay, and they grabbed the box of kleenex, opened it again this much, handed me the box of kleenex and I came back and I set it over here, and that's exactly 25 seconds. I did not have time, nor did I have any interest in seeing anybody dress or undress, because that is not what happened."

"Because of the medications that I take per day, sometimes I'll have a clear mucus running down my nose, and those medications are the result of my military service. And I don't have any interest in going to see some kids, who just opened the door like that. People are thinking in your mind perhaps, that I opened the door wide because everybody was dressing, no that isn't the case..."

After Vela's response and discussion, council voted 4-2 (1 abstaining) to pursue an investigation.

La Junta City Attorney Phil Malouff notified council that he would seek an attorney to conduct the investigation into Vela's alleged misconduct. 

After the meeting was adjourned, Vela posted a comment on the City Council Facebook Livestream Video, "Blame the Mayor and the Mayor Pro-Tem."

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