ToadBook

On April 26, 2025 Councilor E. DeSmet wrote to the current Clerk Admin. It's a long email full of hyperbole -

KNOW THIS: Councilor E Desmet is running around having meetings and making decisions about the expenditure of funds.

Remember, this is illegal. The Council must make these decisions, in public.

KNOW THIS: Grants often have requirements about expenditures. It's not possible to just decide to spend a grant any old way.

KNOW THIS: Is it done yet? Why Not? It's easy to blame the mayor but has the Council voted on this? Has the Council read this grant and explored options? Has the Council looked at the budget for these funds?

One small good piece of news! This email was NOT sent to the whole council. No rolling quorum. No hint about future votes. Shocker that!

This author requested a copy of emails from and to several people. It looks like E. Desmet requested info from Ms. Martinez and then sent it on to another person (Quinton Webb is an Officer at BFPD)

BUT WAIT!

Does anyone remember the news article about E. Desmet and the open meetings act? The local rag requested phone records and E. Desmet said ‘oh no, I never use my personal phone’

E Desmet doesn’t have a phone provided by the Village of Bosque Farms.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out the truth here. You are smart readers!

M. Zamora’s response:

He has still included someone from Peralta. Overlooking that -

Short. Succinct. Offered a better date for himself. And ended with a positive Thank you,

Most importantly - No Councilors or Mayor included so no reason to worry about violating open meeting acts! No hints, no clues to how he might vote, no clues to other Councilors.

High Five! M. Zamora.

DID YOU KNOW?

Councilors are NOT supposed to do business with other governments?

The power Councilors have comes from sitting in a Council as a group of four, five including the Mayor.

Mayors of other municipalities should not do business with Councilors. That means Peralta's Mayor should NOT invite councilors to a public meeting for their input on EMT services.

One More! Look at this email! Carefully!

Ignore the spelling errors. Everyone is allowed a bad day once.

This was back in June! Yet it's STILL Importantly.

He says he’s been asking for an EMS workshop for 6 months. Sounds good right?

Yet at one point during the past 6 months there was EMS service and the Council chased the EMT person off. In a meeting.

So has he been asking for a workshop on this for six months?

And let’s look at this – He was only informed of a meeting LAST NIGHT (which would be June 8th) that Peralta was going to cancel EMS Services for us.

So has he been asking for a workshop on this for six months?

From his first meeting he attended? He asked for this? That would be supposedly when he started as Councilor. None of it really hits the truth button does it?

One more little point – what J. Bruhn doesn’t tell you is that he stood up at a meeting in Peralta on June 8th and spoke about how he understood and supported Peralta’s decision to cancel our MOU.

How is he representing us?

One day he’s going after the Volunteer for EMT for Bosque Farms and the next week (give or take) he’s saying ‘This is a matter of life and death.’

One night he says ‘oh yes, Peralta Council – cancel our MOU and we support this decision’ and the next he says ‘This is a matter of life and death’.

Does this make sense?

Who is he representing? Maybe it’s Peralta he’s representing.

Well in spite of the DO NOT REPLY ALL at the top of the email – this email addresses THREE other Councilors.

This is called a rolling quorum. It is in violation of the open meetings act.

In fact, if you have attended meetings with the Village Attorney – The one they hired to represent the Village and advice the Council on how to best run Village business – She said DO NOT INCLUDE ALL THE COUNCILORS on your emails.

(Maybe that is why they got rid of her? They didn't like what she was saying?)

All she got was push back by two new Councilors saying “well it’s ok, we just can’t make decisions” and again the Attorney said – BEST PRACTICE is to not do it.

And this email is an example of why--

First- J. Bruhn is transmitting to other councilors that he’s working to schedule a meeting he deems important. He’s telling them who he has invited and in many ways indicating how he wants them to vote.

In what way you ask? How? - why invite Peralta if they are terminating the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) unless you are interested in exploring options with them. - Why invited Valencia County unless you are interested in exploring options with them.

In other words this email can be read by other Councilors to say ‘Hold Firm, we will have a meeting and the ONLY time to do it is June 18 at 9am.’

This email can be read by other Councilors to say ‘I want to do something with Peralta and even though the vote will be public, I’m telling you how I’m going to vote”.

There are THREE things wrong with this email but let’s just address this one!

DEMANDING

Is this appropriate? Is this an appropriate way to address anyone?

This email is to a Mayor, the Clerk/Administrator, three other councilors and part time person tasked with helping in a variety of ways.

Is this how you would speak to your co-workers? Is this how you would speak to your employees?

What has anyone on this list done that demands you speak or write to them so rudely?

Is it appropriate to DEMAND something when you are just a councilor?

The way this works is you are one of four votes. (One of five if there is a tie).

The Council takes care of the budget and votes on final decisions of hiring/firing.

The Mayor takes care of the daily Village business and sets up meetings and runs the agenda.

So since when did Councilor J. Bruhn get asked to set up a meeting with other agencies?

• Hint - Ask at the Village for the vote on this item- Did the Council vote to have Councilor Bruhn set up a meeting with other agencies? Is there an agenda item that the Mayor asked for this help?