Mayoral race in Colorado turns into a messy affair

SCRIPPS HOWARD
BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- Clark Griep says he had an affair eight years ago with Broomfield Mayor Karen Stuart, whom he is trying to unseat Nov. 1.
Stuart emphatically denies the affair and accuses Griep of starting rumors, which she calls dirty politics.
"Oh for heaven's sakes," Stuart said last week when asked about Griep's comments. "I'm sorry that Clark is being so untruthful. I think it is a desperate attempt for him to get some attention."
Griep and Stuart, both 54, acknowledged that rumors have been circulating about them since the campaign began.
"It's true," Griep said when asked by the Rocky Mountain News to respond to a council member's statement that Griep had told her he had an affair with Stuart.
Griep, a councilman who serves as mayor in Stuart's absence, said telling council members about his relationship with Stuart was one of the conditions placed on him by his wife, Joan, after he told her about the affair earlier this year.
Confrontation
According to Griep, Stuart "accosted" him in a parking lot after a Feb. 3 public meeting during which he announced his intention to run for mayor.
He said Stuart accused him and his campaign supporters of spreading a rumor that she was having an affair with another councilman.
"She threatened me," Griep said. "She said, 'If you can't stop the rumors that are floating around, then I'll tell your wife about me and you.'"
Griep said he told his wife about Stuart that night, and she ordered him out of the house.
"He told me, point-blank, the truth," Joan Griep said. "I can't tell you what we've been through."
When asked about Stuart's denial of the affair and accusing her husband of playing politics, Joan Griep said, "Why anyone in this town would think he would come home and tell me something like that, which would change the course of our 30-year relationship forever, just to get ahead, makes no sense."
The Grieps have been married for 26 years.
Together, they have invested more than $35,000 of their own money in the campaign.
Stuart and Griep serve with nine other members on Broomfield's City Council in jobs that are largely voluntary.
The council historically has not been a contentious body.