Aurora lawmakers considering bills Monday on gun control, domestic violence, homelessness and more

AURORA | Aurora’s City Council is slated Monday to vote on whether to continue allowing concealed weapons in City Hall and buy land for a new reservoir in Bailey. 

The council’s majority so far wants to partly exempt Aurora from a new state law banning possession of firearms in government buildings. If passed, the measure would allow council members, city staff and the public to continue bringing concealed weapons to council meetings and other proceedings at city hall, which increasingly have been marked by vitriol, infighting and outbursts with and among the public.

The city previously banned unconcealed, or “open carry” guns from city hall in 2015, and would continue to do so. 

Councilmember Curtis Gardner proposed this measure as a symbolic reaction against increasing state gun control laws and as a matter of what he sees as local control. 

The council unanimously approved the ordinance on first reading. 

To boost Aurora’s water supplies, the council will consider a resolution approving the purchase of 1,606 acres of the Badger Basin Ranch in Park County from Frank Wolthuis for $3,483,303. The land will be used to build the Wild Horse Reservoir. According to the project’s website, the reservoir “would store up to 93,000 acre-feet of water” and is “needed to improve Aurora Water’s system reliability and resiliency; help expand its potable reuse to meet future water needs; and provide water management flexibility during droughts or system emergencies.”

​​The deal includes well rights, and would allow the city to take possession of the land in September.

In their non-voting study session, council members and city staff will discuss a plan to move domestic violence cases out of Municipal Court and into local county and district courts, beginning in 2025. 

Mayor Pro Tem Dustin Zvonek previously argued that the shift would save tax dollars that could otherwise be spent prosecuting, adjudicating and providing public defenders in those cases, while also exploring the future privatization of the Aurora Public Defender Office.

Opponents see the move as the council’s latest attempt to gut Aurora’s public defender’s office. They also counter that there are not enough county judges to hear domestic violence cases, that the plan has not had sufficient public input, and that the issue should be tabled until a new judicial district is created and a new district attorney takes office, both in January.

Aurora was one of the first cities in the nation to independently try domestic violence cases in municipal courts as a way to speed up justice for victims, proponents say. Zvonek’s proposal comes after the passage of a new state law banning cities from dismantling their public defender units if they handle domestic violence cases in court.

Also in its study session, the council will discuss a resolution to reduce homelessness. The strategy pivots not just on providing temporary housing at its forthcoming “regional navigation center” on a hotel and convention center complex the city bought on Aurora’s northern border with Denver. It emphasizes mandatory addiction recovery, mental health treatment and job training programs that underscore the need for self-sufficiency. 

It would take a three-tier approach. The first would provide participants with day shelter, meals, showers, laundry, pet shelter, mail, coaching, and case management.

The second would provide semi-private sleeping arrangements, personal storage, more meal options, less crowded facilities, and a dedicated case manager to participants engaged in treatment and job training programs.

The third would provide private rooms, cleaning and laundry services for up to two years to participants who manage to get jobs and are willing to pay a program fee equal to 30% of their monthly income.

In executive session Monday afternoon, the council is slated to discuss, among other issues, the possible recruitment of a new city attorney to replace Dan Brotzman, who stepped down earlier this summer after more than four years in that position.

Brotzman made headlines in 2022 when the criminal division of his office was forced to review hundreds of cases involving police officers whose credibility had been formally questioned after prosecutors were found to have failed in their legal duty to notify defendants of those problems. Brotzman also allowed a closed-door meeting in which the council voted to end censure proceedings against Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, which an appeals court has since found violated Colorado’s Open Meetings Law. The case to release recordings of the closed meeting, is now before the Colorado Supreme Court on appeal by the city. 

Since Brotzman’s departure at the end of June, the 65-person staff Aurora City Attorney’s Office has been run by Jack Bajorek, as interim city attorney.

Brotzman has been the city attorney’s office liaison with the police and public safety departments, acting as advisor. Schulte made news after an incident in 2023 when he was choked by a criminal suspect while out on a ride-along with then Police Chief Art Acevedo.

Schulte is reportedly the sole internal candidate for the position. It is yet unclear if Schulte might replace Brotzman for the city’s top legal job, or whether the council will ask for an outside search.