Saying she was taking the high road, Jan Doran today announced that she has decided to recuse herself from hearing a conflict-of-interest complaint against Mayor Lionel Rivera, a political ally.

Doran, one of three members of the city's Independent Ethics Commission, which will review the complaint against Rivera again on Friday, had come under fire for refusing to recuse herself from the controversial investigation despite her political ties to the mayor.

Doran's about-face follows an editorial Monday in The Gazette calling for Doran to recuse herself if she cared about the mayor and Colorado Springs.

"While I am confident that I could make an unbiased recommendation, I am sincerely concerned that if a perception of bias exists, that could harm both the maker and the receiver on a complaint, as well as the community," she said, reading from a prepared statement at today's City Council meeting.

Doran, who declined to comment afterward, addressed the council before council members voted unanimously to renew her term on the commission.

Only the mayor was absent from today's council meeting.

A watchdog group that had been critical of Doran's initial decision to review the complaint against Rivera said Doran made the right decision.

"We applaud Ms. Doran for taking the high road, as should be expected in every instance from any ethics commissioner, by withdrawing herself from hearing the pending complaint against Mayor Rivera based on her ties to his electoral campaigns," Chantell Taylor, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, said in an e-mail.

"As we said from the outset, the appearance of impropriety would taint any decision by the Commission," Taylor said. "The public deserves an ethics review of its Mayor that is free of any possible bias." 

Doran said she made the decision to recuse herself after "much introspection." She also said she has "always" worked to uphold the public process.

"My utmost desire is for it to go forward without any cloud," she said. "I do not want to compromise the process in any way. I believe this is taking the high road."

Doran, a past president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations, actively campaigned for the mayor's unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2006, then again in 2007, when he was re-elected mayor. Doran said she served on his re-election campaign committee.

Doran has said she disclosed her relationship to the mayor to City Attorney Patricia Kelly, who told her she didn't have to recuse herself from reviewing the complaint.
"I disclosed to the city attorney what my position was with the mayor's campaign, both his congressional and his last mayoral campaign, and I asked her opinion, and she said it did not compromise my position," she said last week.