AURORA | City council members have proposed two bills to be heard Monday at a city council study session addressing a furtive effort ballot initiative that would greatly empower the office of mayor, ending the city’s council-manager form of government.
After months of pressure by reporters to comment on speculation, Mayor Mike Coffman admitted two weeks ago to 9News reporter Marshall Zelinger during a TV interview that he initiated the measure and was behind its push to make it to the November ballot. He declined at the time to detail his financial involvement in hiring lawyers, petition canvassers and others to garner about 12,000 voter signatures needed to force the question of a strong-mayor onto the ballot.
On July 25, petition sponsors were told they had collected 12,198 valid signatures out of a total of 20,409 signatures submitted to the clerk’s office, according to a city news release, 181 signatures above the required threshold.
Opponents of the measure last week sent a team of about six analysts to the city clerk’s office in what they say is an effort to remove at least enough valid signatures from the petitions submitted to sink the initiative.
One measure on the city council’s study session Monday night would outright oppose the measure, insisting that it was presented to voters by paid petition gatherers who “utilized deceptive practices to obtain signatures from the public.”
The proposed resolution, sponsored by Councilmember and mayoral candidate Juan Marcano, offers a bevy of arguments against the controversial measure.
The second measure scheduled for tonight’s city council meeting would ensure future ballot initiatives be held to the same so-called “single subject” requirements as state initiatives, referenda and city ordinances.
Critics of Coffman’s measure say it violates the so-called single subject requirement by combining enhanced term limits with the power of the mayor and structure of city government in the same measure.
As introduced to the public in May, the measure and campaign behind it were called Term Limits for Better Aurora. Critics say the measure addresses relatively little regarding city council term limits and focuses on the role and powers of the mayor.
The name of the campaign was apparently changed by someone associated with it in late July, now calling it Term Limits and Empowering the Mayor for a Better Aurora.
While supporters of so-called “strong-mayor” governments generally argue that folding the responsibilities of a city manager and mayor into a single position encourages leaner, more efficient city governments, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from across the region and on city council has been vocal in its opposition to the proposal, describing it as an attempt by Coffman to singularly direct the city.
“Citizens in Aurora, local business leaders and elected officials from both sides of the aisle are ready to fight Coffman’s power grab at every step, including by challenging the petition process which, we are strongly convinced, did not submit enough legal signatures,” Charlie Richardson, a former city official representing an advocacy group opposed to the amendment, said on July 27. “Many signers were misled to believe this was a term limits measure for city council, when in truth all the other language is an elaborate misdirection so that Mike Coffman can populate city government with some of the political friends he has accumulated over his 40 years in politics.”
Voters who believe their signatures were solicited improperly have until 5 p.m. Aug. 14 to submit a written protest to the clerk’s office.
A copy of any protest will be sent to the petition representatives, and a hearing will be scheduled between 10 and 20 days after the protest is mailed. Hearings will be open to the public, and the clerk will make her decision no later than 10 days after the end of the hearing, according to city clerk officials.
The city said in its press release that the “burden of proof is on the protestants to prove that the petition is insufficient.”
A protest form is available at auroragov.org/2023Elections and can be emailed to Aurora.Elections@auroragov.org or else mailed physically or dropped off in person at the City Clerk’s Office, First Floor, 15151 E. Alameda Parkway, Aurora, CO, 80012.
City spokesman Ryan Luby said the date when the clerk’s office makes its final determination of sufficiency would depend on the outcome of protests and any litigation that could arise from the process.
City council meets in study session tonight at 6:30 p.m. in a televised meeting.
You can view the Study Session tonight (Monday) on
Channel 8. Starts at 6:30 p.m.
We need to resist this type of consolidation of authority and support broad based city management. That makes certain we have appropriate checks and balances against extremism.
This proposed change increasing the power and authority of the city Mayor is unnecessary and proposed by the current Mayor. That should tell everyone this is not a grass roots effort,it is a self centered effort by Coffman.
Mike will end up wearing a dunce cap rather than a crown this November.