Georgetown gives boot to controversial mayor

'Good did not win,' former stripper says after landslide loss

Charlie Brennan, News Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 3, 2002

GEORGETOWN -- Mayor Koleen Brooks, the former exotic dancer whose brief but noisy tenure in office triggered an avalanche of headlines, was stripped of power Tuesday by voters in this historic mining town.

"Good did not win out over the bad," Brooks said when she first learned the voters had turned her out by an almost 2-to-1 ratio.

Though she was recalled, Brooks is unlikely to be forgotten.

Already, she is vowing to run for mayor again next year.

"I'm not going to go away," she said. "I'm in this for the long haul."

Brooks, once a topless dancer at Shotgun Willies in Glendale, was the target of a recall held just one year to the day after she won elective office for the first time by a scant 31-vote margin.

The results were far more decisive Tuesday.

By a tally of 339 to 176, Georgetown's voters decided that enough was enough.

Brooks, 37, will remain mayor -- her actual title, under the antiquated town charter is "police judge" -- for six more days.

The one year remaining on Brooks' two-year term will be completed by Lynn Granger, the 38-year-old wife of Clear Creek County Judge Russell Granger, who will be sworn in Tuesday.

Granger was the lone candidate to replace Brooks as mayor in this town of about 1,100 people just 40 miles west of Denver.

"I think the whole town is going to feel relief tomorrow," said Granger, who was the guest of honor for a packed gathering at the Raven Hill restaurant.

Her hopes for the town's immediate future were modest.

"I don't want anybody to have any regret about voting me in," said Granger. "I would like to see Georgetown have one of the best summers ever for the local businesses."

The mayoral battle was not the only item on Tuesday's ballot, which drew 518 of the town's registered voters to the polls, a 61 percent turnout -- far higher than the number of electors who put Brooks in office.

Priscilla Ludwig, a longtime resident who cast her vote late in the day, may have spoken for many of the electorate.

"There's been too much bickering," she said, explaining her vote against Brooks. "It's pathetic. I'm for starting all over again."

Voters also retained town Selectmen Christine Bradley, Coralue Anderson, Kathleen Hoeft and Brooke Buckley.

They had all been targeted for potential recall due to their passage in December of a controversial rezoning ordinance, which many in town felt was too restrictive.

The rezoning ordinance was also on the ballot for possible repeal, but it was turned down by voters.

Buckley has known Brooks since she and Brooks were in third grade. Buckley voted for Brooks last April, but voted for her removal on Tuesday. When results were in, she had more to say about Brooks' departure than the fact that Buckley held on to her position on the board of selectmen.

"My hope is that Koleen will now just leave the town alone and let it be," said Buckley.

Brooks heard the news at The Victorian Lady, a restaurant she had hoped would be the site of a victory party.

Instead of a raucous celebration, the Brooks festivities featured a few members of the Denver media and her lawyer.

Although she is already talking about a 2003 mayoral run, Brooks also said, "What I really want to do now is get my life back. I need to make a living."

But Brooks has other headaches on the near horizon.

She is due in Clear Creek County Court on April 11 on charges that she faked an attack on herself last month.

Reasons for Brooks's recall offered on town ballots Tuesday included that she had allegedly exhibited dishonesty, intimidated and humiliated town staff members and had failed to recognize the limits of her authority.

During her short time in office, Brooks had earned headlines in newspapers as far away as the Times of London -- but not for any acts of governance. Instead, it was her antics outside Town Hall that earned her notoriety and drew the attention of television producers from Los Angeles to New York.

It started last May, a little over a month after her election, when she allegedly bared her breasts in Dexter's Tavern, a local eatery. Brooks steadfastly denied the allegation, even though the town's assistant director of public works vowed in writing to the town board of selectmen that he saw it happen.

Brooks had also feuded openly with the town's three-man police force. Trying to get one of the officers fired was just part of it. Brooks was also alleged to have discussed plans to hurt or kill that same officer. He was never harmed and a Colorado Bureau of Investigation probe into that allegation resulted in no charges.

More recently, Brooks claimed that on the night of Feb. 16, she was assaulted by an unidentified man while walking home from her salon.

The CBI looked into that report, and after finding that physical evidence didn't support her account to officials, she was charged with tampering with evidence, a felony, and making a false report, which is a misdemeanor.

Tuesday night, she said, "That case the least of my worries, right now."

As interviews started to wind down Tuesday night, Brooks didn't appear too upset about turning over the gavel to Granger.

"OK, can I go to the bar now?" she asked.