There is an interesting side note to the article about trouble in the Rocky Mountain District of the United Pentecostal Church.
As I was looking into the situation, I discovered a cached version of the opinion article to Sweetwater Now from Jeff Ramaj on Wayback, which showed that there was one, probably two, people attempting to have it removed. A man had visited their office the same day that it posted, asking that it be removed. After this, an attorney contacted them, also asking that it be removed. Since someone had already been to the office (and, to me, while there he must have changed his mind about having it removed as it still exists today), they requested that the attorney have their client appear in person. They did not comply. Because of this, the paper posted a video of the man who visited the office, asking for the public to clarify who it was. Below is what the paper wrote.
UPDATE — According to Attorney Danielle M. Mathey, the letter we received was sent by someone who accessed her client’s tablet computer, she asked that the letter be removed. We asked that she have her client come to our office and identify himself via photo ID, as just prior to her call, a man identifying himself as the person who sent the letter to the editor to SweetwaterNOW visited our office asking that it be taken down.
Since she refused the request for an in-person identification, we have no choice but to publish the video of the man who came to our office in hopes that the community will be able to identify him to confirm the sender’s identity.
The video indeed showed that it was the actual author, Jeff Ramaj, who had visited the office. In a discussion on the newspaper’s Facebook Page, Ramaj explained, “It is unfortunate that letters such as this have to be written it is however sometimes neccessary in order to get peoples attention after seding this in to sweetwaternow i realized the wrong letter had posted this one was meant only for the district the other letter was meant to demonstrate our resolve in continuing the fight against an unjust situation.” In response to a woman who mentioned the subject of separation of church and state and that she didn’t see this as a Rock Spring problem, he replied, “We watched lives diminish here a once prosperous church now gone”. One woman with UPC ties tagged pastor Keith Riley and his wife, Tanua, acknowledged it. At the time of this discussion, Ramaj shared that they were “hoping to bring this to a close soon.”
It appears the original letter that Ramaj wanted posted was never submitted. The situation also seems to indicate that another party unsuccessfully attempted to have the article removed via the attorney. It makes no sense to me that Ramaj would have gone to an attorney, either before or after he visited the paper, since he was the one who sent it, the article has remained available all these months, and these events happened the same day it was posted. It also seems very suspect to me that an attorney would refuse to have her client appear in person at the newspaper’s office. Note that according to the paper’s statement, Mathey didn’t seem to indicate that her client was the author of the letter, but rather that she stated it was her client’s tablet computer that was used to send it. Also, if Ramaj had hired the attorney, and since he had visited the paper, it would be ridiculous to refuse another appearance. Because of all this, it does appear that someone else, who obviously did not wish to be identified, hired the attorney in an effort to have it removed.
UPCI Rocky Mountain District Trouble
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