Simmering tensions between some Aspen City Council members and a community activist boiled over at Tuesday’s council work session when GrassRoots TV, unbeknownst to council members, showed up to record the public meeting.

It turns out that the public access camera crew was there at the request — and at the financial backing — of Marilyn Marks, who has been requesting for the last year that the council pay GrassRoots to broadcast its work sessions, which are not formal meetings, but often are the venue for important policy discussions and decisions.

Marks, who said filming and rebroadcasting work sessions twice on local channels costs $300, came on the local political scene last summer to lead citizens angered by Ordinance 30, which imposed historic preservation rules on properties 30 years old or more.

She has been active lately on the Burlingame issue and has been calling for greater accountability on the city’s part to explain the numbers for the affordable housing project, which is now estimated to require a $362,000-per-unit subsidy.

Tuesday’s published agenda included a policy discussion on the affordable housing financing bond that city voters will need to pass in order to complete Burlingame and a discussion of a consultant’s study on building permit activity in Aspen, which could be used later down the road to revive the concept of regulating scrape-and-replace building permits. It ended up that the council spent most of its time talking about housing partnerships on another parcel, and when the time came for the building permit discussion, the meeting had been going on for three hours and most of the public had left.

At the outset of the meeting, council members noticed the camera crew setting up.

“Why are there cameras here?” asked Councilman Jack Johnson.

Johnson, Councilman Steve Skadron and Mayor Mick Ireland then became incensed at what they perceived to be a sneaky ploy by Marks. Their displeasure was enhanced by the fact that at Monday night’s council meeting, when Marks made the request that the council record all work sessions, the council said they would decide on the proposal at a later meeting.

“I have found that there is an intention on your part to misconstrue what I say,” Johnson said. “I think your attempt to record this meeting after our discussion last night is nothing other than an attempt to catch me up and misconstrue or misquote me.”

Marks said she had been requesting for weeks that the work session be taped and that the camera crew should hardly have been a surprise.

Mayor Mick Ireland said the work session taping reeked of “the 24/7 political campaign,” and that he expected to see sound bites spliced together in a future campaign ad designed to make him look stupid.

“I don’t feel this is right,” Ireland said. “It’s hot politics-Fox News-Jeremiah Wright. My old pastor will be getting phone calls soon.”

Ireland made accusations of unnamed persons running undercover political campaigns targeted at unseating certain council members in the May 2009 elections. He said he has seen e-mails being circulated that ask for cash contributions, but promise the donors names would not be disclosed.

“It’s a serious attack on the character of this community,” Ireland said of any clandestine campaigns.

While Ireland, Johnson and Skadron have voiced support in the past for taping work sessions, their position was that Marks’ move to tape the work sessions was an attempt to force their hand and usurp the deliberative process the council would go through before approving the practice and expense of taping and broadcasting work sessions.

Councilman Dwayne Romero, who stayed very quiet during the dressing down of Marks, said at the end of the debate that “we all know politics is a blood sport.”

Romero thanked GrassRoots for the work that it does and mentioned that in light of the current controversy over Burlingame, “this is not a high spot for us.”

“I hope we can keep emotion away from good reasoning,” Romero said.

Marks said she requested weeks ago that the work session be taped, but received no response. She maintains that she is only seeking to allow a broader base of citizens a chance to follow city government.

“I’m just attempting to do whatever I can to enhance accessibility,” she said, noting that she has paid to broadcast many other work sessions without controversy.

After the meeting, Marks attributed the council’s outburst to frustration, but she called the attacks on her offensive and unprofessional.

She said she has “no interest” in running for office.

“My DNA makes me unqualified,” Marks said, citing an entrepreneurial background. “I operate better as a free agent.”

curtis@aspendailynews.com