A district judge struck down a request Tuesday to halt Douglas County’s pending home-rule election amid a lawsuit accusing county officials of violating Colorado’s open meetings law to get the measure on the ballot.
Colorado state Rep. Bob Marshall, former Douglas County Commissioner Lora Thomas and county resident Julie Gooden filed the lawsuit against the current Board of Commissioners in April, alleging the board met more than a dozen times without issuing proper notification to the public.
They alleged the commissioners made the decision to move forward with the home-rule election in those meetings between January and March before holding an official, law-abiding meeting to “rubber stamp” the home-rule resolutions on March 25.
Under Colorado’s open meetings law, “meetings that are convened for the purpose of policy-making” — including when resolutions are adopted — “are declared to be public meetings open to the public” and “shall be held only after full and timely notice.”
However, Douglas County District Judge Robert Raymond Lung said he didn’t see evidence that the board violated open meetings law and ruled that issuing a preliminary injunction to stop the election would “sacrifice the public’s right to vote,” according to court documents released by county officials.
The meetings that Marshall, Thomas and Gooden claimed violated the law were limited to administrative or legal matters and didn’t discuss policymaking, Lung wrote in his Tuesday ruling.
“In a very real sense, the only decision that has been made is a decision to let the voters participate in an election,” Lung wrote.
The two resolutions passed by the county commissioners on March 25 launched a nearly year-long process to increase Douglas County’s independence from the state. Home-rule authority grants local governments in Colorado specific powers to run their own affairs and exempts them from certain state laws.
“The court recognized the lawsuit for what it truly was: a frivolous attempt to undermine our democracy, driven by petty political grievances and personal vendettas,” Douglas County Commissioner George Teal said in a news release.
However, the judge did not consider “multiple pieces of critical evidence” in blocking the preliminary injunction, Marshall, Thomas and Gooden said in a joint news release Wednesday morning. They will be introduced at trial, they said.
They said the county commissioners prevented the court from considering that evidence, but didn’t specify what that evidence was or how it was blocked.
“The Douglas County commissioners have, for the past five months, blatantly and willfully flouted this (open meetings) law, which was established to ensure transparency of government at every level,” they said in the news release. “Today’s ruling … in no way diminishes our resolve.”
Douglas County residents will vote on the first step of establishing home-rule — confirming a 21-member charter commission — in a June 24 special election. That commission will draw up the county’s home-rule charter, which will then make its way onto the November ballot.
If the charter is passed, Douglas County would join Weld and Pitkin counties as one of only three Colorado counties to possess home-rule authority. Denver and Broomfield both have home-rule powers because of their status as municipalities and operate as dual city-and-county governments.
Colorado’s government would maintain authority over statewide concerns, but proponents say Douglas County would have increased local control over issues like taxation, land use, zoning and governance structure.
The county has clashed multiple times with the state in recent years over issues of property tax valuations, state immigration laws and public health orders, like mask mandates.
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