A relatively quiet Election Day saw Aurora voters stick with the incumbents in city races and side with statewide voters in saying no to new education taxes, and yes to a hefty tax on recreational pot.
As is typical for off-year elections like this one — with no statewide offices being contested and no presidential election to stoke excitement — turnout was low.
City council will see the same faces when it meets next, with incumbents Barb Cleland and Brad Pierce keeping their at-large seats along with Ward I Sally Mounier and Ward II Renie Peterson.
That means the council’s direction on issues from tax incentives to light rail parking to photo-red light cameras will likely remain the same.
Incumbents in Aurora’s two school districts also fared well. And Aurora residents mirrored those across the state on two Colorado ballot questions.
At-large Councilman Pierce said he wants to focus on the city’s transportation issues with I-225 as well as improving Aurora’s reputation in other cities as he enters his third term on city council. At-large Councilwoman Cleland said she wants to focus on Aurora becoming a destination city through its efforts at DIA and projects such as the Gaylord hotel. “I’d like to focus on providing jobs for our citizens so they don’t have to travel Downtown,” she said. Cleland was elected as an at-large council member in 2009 and previously served on Aurora City Council between 1983 and 2003.
Angela Lawson, a first-time candidate for a city council at-large seat, said she ran a good race despite losing to current incumbents.
“I didn’t have a lot of support like the other constituents. I pretty much ran this campaign on my own.” she said. “To get the votes that I did, and to run the campaign by myself, I think that’s pretty significant.” Lawson said she plans to run again when a council seat opens up, but she hopes current incumbents will focus on bringing new businesses to Aurora.
Ward I incumbent Sally Mounier, who was appointed to city council in 2012, said she will focus on creating an immigrant center for Ward I residents. “That’s going to be one of my goals over the next four years,” she said. She said she will also be working to help small businesses in the Aurora Arts District and on improving home ownership rates. “I’ve got 62 percent tenant-occupied in my ward and I would like to lower that,” she said.
Ward II Incumbent Renie Peterson, who has served on city council since 2005, said she will use her next term to focus on bringing more tourism to her ward as well as the expansion of Buckley Air Force Base. Bernard Celestin, who lost to Peterson, said he was disappointed with the low voter turnout. “I blame myself because maybe I should have knocked on more doors,” he said. “My goal for the next campaign, if there is one, is to make sure I do a better job in educating people about the importance of making sure the right person gets in office.”
Marsha Berzins of Ward III ran unopposed in the November election and was elected by default.
New APS board; no upsets in Cherry Creek
Incumbents ruled in local school board elections, but first-time candidates for a number of open board seats mean that change is coming to both the Aurora Public Schools and Cherry Creek School districts.
Incumbent and current Board Vice President Randy Perlis beat challenger Brian Arnold in the race for the District D Director position on the Cherry Creek School District Board of Education. Perlis drew more than 58 percent of the vote. At APS, incumbent and current Board President JulieMarie Shepherd handily won one of four at-large spots on the board.
But those victories came along with a crop of new faces for both school districts. At Cherry Creek, longtime district volunteer and former banker Karen Fisher ran unopposed for Cherry Creek’s District E Director position. Fisher will replace current board member Jennifer Churchfield, who is term limited.
At APS, three newcomers — Amber Drevon, Eric Nelson and Barbara Yamrick — will join Shepherd on the board. The margins in the APS race were far from overwhelming. In Arapahoe County, Barbara Yamrick eked out a victory over Jasper Armstrong with a margin of less than 400 votes. In Adams County, Yamrick beat Armstrong by less than 100 votes.
Both of the returning incumbents saw their victories as validations. For Perlis, who started on the Cherry Creek board in 2007, the re-election is a sign that the district is moving in the right direction.
“I take from that the same thing we got from 3A and 3B, that most of the people are pretty happy with what’s happening in Cherry Creek,” said Perlis, referring to the successful passage of $150 million worth of mill and bond issues last year. “Our biggest goal is to become the first large district to be accredited with distinction, closing those achievement gaps and to be the district of choice.”
Shepherd saw a similar mark of approval in her re-election. Though the district has struggled historically with low test scores and high achievement gaps, Shepherd said the voter support was a sign the APS has taken important steps in the past four years. That includes hiring Superintendent Rico Munn earlier this year and implementing a wide range of programs designed to boost achievement.
“The bottom line is that our focus as a board has to be accelerating student achievement,” Shepherd said. “We just got a new superintendent with that charge. We have to hold Rico accountable to that, all the while … continuing to engage the community.”
Shepherd will return to work with three new members of the APS board, all with a wide range of experience. Barbara Yamrick, a former APS board member, also served on the RTD board of directors and works as a substitute teacher in the district. Eric Nelson owns a private insurance company and consulting firm in Aurora and is an adjunct faculty member at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Denver. Amber Drevon is an APS parent and a billing manager at United Martial Arts Center, where she also teaches taekwondo.
“I’m really curious to nail down the reasons for the achievement gaps,” Drevon said. “We think it’s the language learners or the financial situations. I’m curious to dig deep and see what other issues there are.”
Drevon also said her priorities on the board would be impacted by the resounding defeat of Amendment 66, a constitutional measure that would have pumped millions of dollars’ worth of additional funding into the district.
“I think now that Amendment 66 failed, all of the school boards are going to have to start looking at finance closely,” Drevon said.
Yamrick said her priorities in coming back to the board will boil down to the budget and teacher education.
“I want to take a deep look at the budget,” Yamrick said. “I want to see how many teachers we have, how many teachers we need, and how else the money might be spent.”
Voting changes please everyone, but tax measure dealt differing fates
Statewide, just 34 percent of registered voters cast ballots this time around, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. That’s compared to better than 70 percent last year.
Arapahoe County election officials said they received a huge chunk of ballots late on Election Day and were still counting the following morning. When all the ballots are cast, officials said they expect Arapahoe County to have about a 40-percent turnout.
Early returns show about 33 percent of registered voters cast their ballot in Adams County. Last year both counties had about 70 percent turnout.
While turnout was low compared to last year, it was actually better statewide than the last off-year election in 2011. That year, just 32 percent of registered Colorado voters cast their ballot.
In Arapahoe County, turnout will likely be up a few percentage points from 2011 to 2013, with about 40 percent this year compared to 29 percent in 2011. In Adams County, turnout was up from 25 percent in 2011 to 34 percent this time.
This year’s election marked the first since state lawmakers early this year passed a law that allows voters to register on Election Day. Last year, the deadline was Oct. 9, about a month before the election.
Local election officials say the change hasn’t been an issue.
In Adams County, Clerk and Recorder Karen Long said just 22 people registered to vote Monday and through midday Tuesday.
“It’s really inconsequential to me,” she said.
In Arapahoe County, Clerk and Recorder Matt Crane said Tuesday more than 2,300 voters took advantage of the extended registration period and registered between early October and Election Day. On election Day alone, Crane said 102 people registered.
The registrations didn;t cause any troubles, Crane said.
“It’s a longer transaction that slows down the process a little bit but we aren’t having problems,” he said.
Crane said that during a general election, when thousands more people head to the polls, same-day registration could lead to further delays.
“There’s no question that someone going to register to vote on Election Day is going to slow down the process,” he said.
Local voters seemed to mirror statewide voters this time around, soundly rejecting a tax hike to fund public education, while embracing a new tax on recreational marijuana.
On the education front, voters from Aurora and the rest of Colorado overwhelmingly rejected a $950 million tax increase that would have boosted funding for public schools.
Amendment 66, also known as the Tax Increase for Education Initiative, failed by significant margins in Arapahoe and Adams counties.
In Adams County, voters shot down Amendment 66 by more than 65 percent. In Arapahoe County, more than 67 percent of votes were against the measure.
Those 2-to-1 margins were similar to the statewide results, which showed 65 percent of voters reject ing the tax.
The constitutional amendment would have increased state funding for the Aurora Public Schools district from $262 million to $325 million. Funding for the Cherry Creek School District would have gone from $336 million to $371 million.
Local education officials insisted the amendment’s defeat wouldn’t impact the districts’ commitment to students.
The APS Board of Education did officially support the constitutional amendment, pointing to the millions of dollars’ worth of budget cuts that have impacted the district consistently for the past several years. Though APS and Cherry Creek have successfully passed mill and bond issues since 2008, both districts have felt the impact of funding shortages.
Amendment 66 would have drawn nearly $1 billion in tax increases to boost state funding for public schools by about 16.6 percent. The amendment would have ramped up annual state spending on public K-12 schools from about $5.5 billion under the current law to more than $6.4 billion. For those with an income of $75,000 or less, the law would have increased the tax rate by about 5 percent. For those who make more than $75,000, that increase would have been closer to 5.9 percent.
While voters shot down that education measure, they soundly supported a tax on marijuana.
Again by an almost 2-to-1 margin, voters across the state said yes to Proposition AA, which smacks legal grass with a 10-percent sales tax and a 15-percent excise tax.
Statewide, voters said yes to the tax 65 percent to 34 percent.
Locally, Arapahoe County said the same thing, with 65 percent saying yes and 34 saying no. In Adams County, the measure passed 60 percent to 39 percent.
Supporters of the measure said they see it as the second-step of last year’s Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana for adults in Colorado.
Joe Megyesy, a spokesman for the Committee for Responsible Regulation, which backed the tax, said now that local governments will see revenues from marijuana sales, he expects them to see that legalizing marijuana beats the alternative.
“It will change the image of marijuana in the state and will also send a loud message to the whole world that a system of taxation and regulation is far more preferable to prohibition,” he said.
Denver lawyer Rob Corry, one of the measure’s chief opponents, said opponents were surprised when the first numbers came in and showed voters overwhelmingly backed the measure.
Corry credited the yes on AA campaign for framing the measure as a tax on just a small minority of people, that being marijuana users.
Corry said opponents might go back to voters in a few years with a measure aimed at reducing the tax.