A Gilbert resident who filed an ethics complaint in July against two Gilbert Town Council members has filed two more this week, though she said she would have preferred not to do so.
But Maureen Hoppe said council members have ignored her emails and requests for just a meeting and an apology and that the town’s new ethics policy, which took effect Aug. 20, requires her to do so now if she is to get any action at all.
Hoppe has asked for an apology for Council Member Jim Torgeson’s comment from the dais Sept. 19 that he refuses “to get in the mud with a pig anymore” — a comment Hoppe said refers to her.
“Being uneducated about sexism does not give Councilmember Torgeson a free pass to stereotypical gender comments,” Hoppe wrote in a text message to the Gilbert Independent. “Demeaning and derogatory comments against women are not acceptable in any realm, especially by an elected official, conducting official business. Councilmember Torgeson may feel that it is OK to be disrespectful of women, but in the public realm it should never occur nor be tolerated.”
Torgeson said he was only referring to a common adage, rather than calling Hoppe a pig, but he was addressing Hoppe’s original complaint against him at the time.
“I didn't call her that,” he said. “I'm talking about the (ethics-complaint) process, and I'm sorry she feels that way. It's not about her. I wouldn't call her that. It's not even a word that would've crossed my mind to use with her. She's not a pig. Let's say it: she's not a pig. I'm sorry she feels that way, but I didn't even intend for her to interpret that as about her at all.”
In July, Hoppe complained that Torgeson and Council Member Bobbi Buchli had misinformed the public about issues related to council and failed to correct the misinformation, leading to a campaign of harassment against her when she pointed the issues out in social-media group postings.
An independent investigator on the complaint separated it into two reports, one on Torgeson and one on Buchli, and while he found that neither first-term council member violated council ethics, he did recommend that Torgeson be cautioned about the duties and special responsibilities of an elected public official.
Council voted to dismiss the complaint and two others at the Sept. 19 meeting. It also let two more die administratively without consideration. A sixth complaint was referred for investigation despite Town Attorney Christopher Payne’s recommendation that it not be considered, and a seventh remains under investigation.
First complaint
Hoppe’s first new complaint, filed Oct. 17, accuses Torgeson of lying and making various disparaging comments about her from the dais, including calling her a pig. She said she wrote to council Oct. 9 and 10 seeking a meeting as a result.
In the Oct. 10 email, she requested an apology at the upcoming Oct. 24 council meeting for calling her a pig at the Sept. 19 meeting. She also requested separate face-to-face meetings, moderated by a third party, with Buchli and Torgeson to discuss what she called false statements they made from the dais on her ethics complaint.
In the case of Torgeson, she also wanted to discuss the recommendations made by the investigator, as well as his “slanderous insults.”
Torgeson said he is simply declining to meet with her as he feels it unwise for him to do so given what she has filed about him.
But Hoppe believes it is what the council wants under its new ethics policy.
“I am trying to work with council to address my grievances in such a way as to avoid the ‘circus’ of events that has been happening so far,” she wrote in her email to council. “I feel that my efforts are consistent with the sort of communication that you all stated that you wanted at the last council meeting while speaking on the dais.”
But she noted her attempts to communicate with council had been ineffective so far.
“My hope (is) that adhering to your public statements and new policies will work in (lieu) of filing additional ethics complaints,” she wrote.
Her Oct. 9 email asked for the same things and also expressed a desire to avoid filing an ethics complaint.
Handling previous complaints
However, in that email, she also slammed the process under which her complaint was handled as “so unfair and so one-sided that it was clear that my complaint was going to be swept under the rug.”
“I question how many of you read the cover pages of my complaint and who read the findings,” she wrote. “Council Member Torgeson repeatedly stated that he didn’t even read my complaint, but he had a lot to say about how bad and how wrong it was.”
She also said the process violated town policies. She noted that she was told she was not allowed to address council on her complaints, but that two other complainants were allowed to do so.
At the meeting, residents Brandon Ryff and Ryan Handelsman successfully argued during public comment that their complaint against Mayor Brigette Peterson should warrant investigation, despite Payne’s recommendation that it not be. Payne argued that another person had brought the same complaint, and an investigator had dismissed it.
She also wrote that Council Member Chuck Bongiovanni “tried to relitigate his complaint (against Peterson) for over 10 minutes. His comments were not about the findings about the investigation. He used his position to argue his complaint. I was not given the same opportunity.”
She also wrote that she did not believe her investigation was handled fairly as the investigator identified things Buchli and Torgeson had done wrong but then "inappropriately” excused their behavior because they were new council members.
“Excusing the misconduct of the council members was not the prerogative of the investigator,” she wrote. “The council should have had that responsibility.”
She noted that Buchli and Torgeson were allowed to vote on the complaints against them, which violated policy. The complaints that were dismissed were done so in one vote with the complaints bundled together.
In the text to the Gilbert Independent, Hoppe said the finding that Torgeson should be reminded of the special duties and responsibilities of a council member did not seem to have an effect on his behavior at the Sept. 19 meeting.
“That statement should include misogynistic statements towards citizens,” she wrote. “It appears that he has not learned anything from previous ethics complaint findings.”
Second complaint
Hoppe’s second complaint was filed Oct. 19 after seeing a news report on her first complaint.
In the second complaint, she accused Torgeson of providing information about her first complaint and coordinating interviews with local media for the purpose of manipulating the public narrative pertaining to the circumstances surrounding that complaint.
She compared what happened to what was included in Bongiovanni’s complaint against Peterson, in which he complained that she had leaked her own complaint to the media before council members had a chance to review it.
“(Bongiovanni) said that leaking information ‘to the press in the dark of night and not by regular channels was wrong’ and that someone would ‘have to leak it and then actually write the news story’ for release of information to be unethical,” she wrote in her complaint. “It appears (that) Councilman Torgeson did just that.”
However, Torgeson said he was distributing it after the complaint had been sent out to all council members and that he had a right to do so.
“My whole thing is I'd rather say, ‘Here's the complaint against me, judge for yourself,’” he said. “I'm not trying to hide it. I'm not being anything but the most transparent person in the world.”
New complaint process
While Hoppe’s July complaint was handled under a previous ethics policy under which Payne referred it to an independent investigator, her complaints this week will come under a new policy adopted in June and taking effect Aug. 20.
The policy was developed by a council subcommittee of Scott Anderson, Torgeson and Vice Mayor Kathy Tilque with council members expressing a desire that it stop the frequent use of the ethics policy as a weapon against political opponents.
The new policy requires that complaints be filed within 30 days of events about which the complaint is made. It also requires mediation first.
The time clock from the policy prompted Hoppe to go ahead and file new complaints, calling filing under the new process “challenging” and adding she had filed several public-records requests related to her complaint but has been told it will take several weeks to fill them.
“As I stated, it is not my preference to file this complaint, but the process seems to require me to do so,” she wrote in her second complaint. “Please let me know if there are other options with which to proceed. I would rather resolve these issues (in) an efficient and cost-effective manner.”
Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X. We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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