Urgent: Former Fort Collins City Clerk issues warning to voters about Charter Amendments 2B, 2C, 2D
Dear PFC Subscribers:
Anissa Hollingshead, our former Fort Collins City Clerk, recently expressed her grave concerns to Fort Collins city council, staff and voters about three charter amendments on our ballot that will negatively impact voters’ direct-democratic power of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall.
Ms. Hollingshead is strongly urging voters to do their research on all three charter amendments (2B, 2C, 2D), which in her expert opinion, will place severe limitations on voters’ rights that are guaranteed under the Constitution.
On her website, which she created to urgently inform voters, Ms. Hollingshead details the problems with these inexplicably rushed charter amendments:
The changes make it harder for voters to execute a successful petition process - this includes for a recall, referendum, or initiative. Particularly egregiously, the ability to ever subject the office of mayor to a recall is virtually eliminated by timing changes.
The ballot language for all three Charter amendment ballot questions (2B, 2C, and 2D) contains significant inaccuracies, and fails to provide clear information to voters to make decisions.
The changes are focused on helping the City process petitions more easily, including taking more time, rather than on helping voters use these processes.
Multiple aspects of the petition process are taken from the voters and given instead to the City to control and oversee without input or oversight from voters.
Technical and administrative errors throughout the proposed language leave incomplete language changes with impacts both big and small. Relatedly, these same sorts of issue also resulted in deficient noticing of the ballot questions under state law and even a failure to adopt the correct ordinance as Council had amended it and intended to pass for one of the questions.
Ms. Hollingshead goes on to say:
Ballots with these questions are already out, but limited information has been provided to voters about them and less about what they will actually do. Most concerning, the information that was provided to City Council when they placed these on the ballot is misleading or just plainly inaccurate in several instances.
Several administrative and technical issues also plagued the preparation and adoption of this proposed language. These changes were rushed, not thoroughly vetted for unintended consequences or accuracy, improperly noticed under state law, and done without public outreach or involvement. Full consideration of the impact of these changes on Fort Collins voters was missing in the process, which focused instead on making handling these processes easier for City staff.
Voters have been left to figure out for themselves what these questions say, with vague assertions by the City these changes are 'inconsequential clean up.' In addition, the actual language placed on the ballot for the questions is incomplete and in places inaccurate. Nothing in the information on the ballot or provided by the City illustrates the actual impact of these proposed changes to these three petition processes representing key rights for voters.
Any changes voters approve now will need further amendment, at additional expense to City taxpayers, and will create interim circumstances where the rights guaranteed to Fort Collins voters by the Colorado Constitution to exercise recall, initiative and referendum processes are significantly curbed.
Barring other legal intervention by the City itself or others who are impacted (i.e. Fort Collins voters), the recourse for voters is to vote against City Ballot Questions 2B, 2C, and 2D at the November 5 election coordinated with Larimer County. Those ballots have already been mailed out to registered Fort Collins voters.
See Ms. Hollingshead’s website to learn more about the consequences to voters if Questions 2B, 2C, and 2D pass:
Please share this important information with your network of family, friends and neighbors.
Thank you, Fort Collins.
