By Rocky Mountain Voice Staff | Rocky Mountain Voice
The publisher of the Johnstown Breeze signs her emails with a Dalai Lama quote: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” But her recent message to the Weld County Republican Party was anything but kind.
At issue is Bangert’s response to an email that was sent with details to party members and media about the Weld County Hoedown on Oct. 6. Bangert simply replied:
“What time is the flag burning and the Mexican whipping?”
Weld County GOP Chairman Hunter Rivera called Bangert’s reply “deplorable and unacceptable” after it surfaced in a Facebook exchange with her husband, Breeze co-owner Matt Lubich. The email in question had been sent to more than 3,000 recipients—a routine community announcement about the Weld GOP Hoedown—before Bangert fired back with her now-infamous line.
Posting the email online, the Weld County Republican Party said Johnstown “deserve[s] better” than a paper whose publisher “mocks patriotism and attacks Hispanic Republicans,” and doubled down on its invitation for residents to attend the Oct. 25 Hoedown anyway.
Rivera said the remark was especially offensive given the number of Hispanic Republicans active in Weld County.
“This email does not reflect the views of many residents of Johnstown and Weld County regardless of their political views,” Rivera said.
The more than 100-year-old Johnstown Breeze was purchased by Bangert and Lubich in 1997.
Weld County Commissioner Scott James, a former Johnstown mayor, said he contacted Lubich after Rivera posted the email calling out the newspaper’s bias. Lubich responded online but didn’t say whether the Breeze planned to apologize to readers. He said only that Bangert had apologized to James in a separate email.
Bangert, however, made it clear there would be no public apology and asked James for more ethical consideration from the party than she offered as a main-stream media publisher.
“I trust that it will be posted as written and without editorial comment,” Bangert wrote. “I know (I said) I would respond in the newspaper next week. I feel that a direct reply to the people who actually saw my comment better serves the purpose. There will be no further comment on this matter.”
Bangert wrote, “It was inappropriate to ask when the flag burning and Mexican whippings were scheduled. I am sorry for any distress I may have caused.”
In an email obtained by the Rocky Mountain Voice, she said she would not say anything else about the situation because: “Any further comment would be a justification or be open to misinterpretation.”
Despite the private “lo siento,” neither Bangert nor the Breeze has made a public apology to Weld County Republicans or their readers—leaving open the question of whether she still views the Oct. 25 hoedown as a “flag burning and Mexican whipping.”
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