"The citizens of Denver want to know how their dollars are being spent" regarding the gathering of police intelligence, said Mark Sass, a member of the All Nations Alliance, a social justice organization.

Specifically, Sass told a rather surprised Mares that the group wants to know how much money the Police Department has spent collecting intelligence information on citizens whose only crime was to express free speech.

Mares told the group that he would seriously consider beginning an audit of the Police Department.

"I think you are raising valid concerns," he told the small crowd, which included alliance members and others who are subjects of police spy files.

"I think what you're asking for is reasonable, and we should be able to get access," Mares said.

He said he would give them an answer within two days.

The existence of the 3,200 individual and 208 group spy files became known in March when the American Civil Liberties Union received two pages of a spy file from a criminal defense attorney working on a case in Golden.

On March 28, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the city and county of Denver, challenging the Police Department's custom of spying on peaceful protesters, maintaining the files and sharing the files with other law enforcement agencies.

Such actions, the suit claims, chill the practice of free speech.

Asked where he stood on the spy files, Mares, who is running for mayor, said he had to be careful not to discuss his platform during city time as auditor.

However, he said: "It baffles me how you could have a policy sitting in a drawer that is not being put into place. When you hire people, you have to hire people that are really going to manage."

Mares was referring to the content of depositions taken from Denver police officials, who have testified in recent months that since the inception of the intelligence unit in 1954, the department has never had a protocol in place for its officers to follow.

Officials from the city attorney's office could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman with the Police Department declined to comment.

In addition to the cost of the gathering of the files, Sass told Mares that citizens needed to know how much the city has spent so far on the lawsuit.

The issue is important because the very existence of Denver's spy files can damage people's lives, said Mark Cohen, an alliance member.

"Those files contain false information and defamatory characterizations of many of these individuals and groups," Cohen said.

To make matters worse, Cohen said, the department has shared that information with other law enforcement agencies.

Despite that, he said, "to date, there has been virtually no accountability from the city or the Police Department."

The alliance suspects that millions of dollars have been wasted by the intelligence unit in the gathering, maintenance and dissemination of the files, Cohen said.

On behalf of the alliance, Cohen also requested that:

The Public Safety Review Commission conduct an investigation into the matter and hold public hearings.

The city identify and discipline the officers involved in the spy files.

The city release all spy files, including photographs and videotapes.

Denver order the Police Department to stop all surveillance of anyone expressing their constitutional right to free speech.