AURORA | Aurora’s City Council took the first step Monday toward cracking down on deceptive petition-drive practices, allowing a bill to move forward that criminalizes dishonesty from signature gatherers.
The bill is a clear swipe at the current campaign to empower Aurora’s mayor by asking voters to change the city’s charter. That ballot initiative is requiring canvassers to go out into the community and collect signatures from Aurora voters.
While the majority of the “strong mayor” amendment language has to do with restructuring the city’s government around the mayor, multiple people who interacted with canvassers said they downplayed that part of the item, instead highlighting on only a few lines that modify term limits.
The city clerk’s office has yet to announce whether the amendment has drawn enough signatures to make the November ballot. City spokesman Ryan Luby said the final section of the petition was submitted June 26, and that the clerk has 30 days to complete the initial verification process.
Councilmember Curtis Gardner emerged as an outspoken critic of the campaign, which representatives of the petition have said was organized behind the scenes by Aurora’s current mayor, Mike Coffman. Coffman has refused to comment on his involvement.
On Monday, it was Gardner who brought forward the proposal that would make it explicitly illegal to mislead someone into signing a petition like the one circulated by supporters of the strong-mayor item.
“Recently, in our city, we had a group collecting signatures for a possible ballot item that in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of many others, was using deceptive practices and omissions,” Gardner said. “It’s unfortunate that I think we have to tell people they can’t deceive residents in Aurora when collecting signatures, but here we are.”
Any signatures found to have been gathered under false pretenses would be invalidated and not counted toward the total needed for an item to make the ballot, according to the proposal.
Assistant City Attorney Jack Bajorek told the council that an investigation would be initiated by police if a member of the public complained, and that the people responsible for spreading inaccurate information may receive a municipal court summons. The charge would be a misdemeanor.
No council member opposed the item moving forward from Monday’s study session. Earlier this year, suspicion and concern over the campaign became a rare point of unity for council progressives and conservatives, most of whom banded together to oppose the amendment at a news conference, which Coffman did not attend.
Council members Alison Coombs and Juan Marcano both said they thought the bill needed to hold the employers of canvassers responsible as well, since they are responsible for training.
“My concern is that the folks that are gathering the signatures aren’t always well-informed,” Coombs said. “My concern would be that the individual signature gatherers, rather than the people who are hiring them, and informing them, (and) training them on what to present to the public are the ones who are going to be tried in court.”
She and Councilmember Crystal Murillo also expressed concern over language included in the amendment text shown to people who signed the petition that summarized the item. The text described the measure primarily as addressing term limits before it mentioned the changes to the structure of Aurora’s government.
City Clerk Kadee Rodriguez said the item summary was written by the sponsors of the item and approved by her office and the city attorney’s office. Bajorek said the city is limited in terms of how much it can edit summary language submitted by sponsors, as long as the summary describes the item in its entirety.
“There’s nothing that allows Kadee or the city attorney to use their own judgment as to what is the most important thing or the overarching purpose of the proposal,” he said.
Gardner said he would also be bringing forward an item limiting proposed charter amendments to a single subject, which could help prevent similar controversies over item summaries in the future.
Monday’s proposal will have to be voted on twice before it can become law.
54-124 (b) of the city code reproduced on the city clerk’s webpage puts the lie to what Mr. Bajorek states. The summary is to be prepared by the clerk, not the sponsor. The summary is to be true and impartial and not likely to create prejudice for or against the item, not, as Mr. Bajorek claims merely to describe the item in its entirety if that entirety clearly mischaracterizes the item. Mr. Bajorek is carrying water for the mayor who is behind this, rather than representing the city as a whole, which is his oath. The mayor is not the city, the council as a whole and the citizens as a whole are the city. For those intersted the city code section reads as follows: A summary of the proposed initiated measure or of the ordinance that is the subject of a referendum petition shall be printed following the warning on each page of a petition section. The summary shall be true and impartial and shall not be an argument, or likely to create prejudice, either for or against the measure. The summary shall be prepared by the city clerk.
It is very obvious that many people were fooled when people who are getting paid gave them the
false impression that this petition was all about term limits. We are hoping if they did get enough
signatures, that someone will be able to take them to task (court) due to the failure to tell the
truth about what the petition was about.
It’s really unfortunate that our Mayor, Mike Coffman, has refused repeated requests for
clarification.