Decision on ballot question expected within week

Dan Hayes organized a petition drive to require Lakewood police to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers.

LAKEWOOD – A hearing officer hopes to issue a ruling within a week on the validity of petitions supporting a citizen-initiated ordinance that would require that police seize the vehicles of every unlicensed driver they stop.

Lakewood resident Sigrid Higdon earlier this month challenged the petitions, which were approved by City Clerk Margy Greer before they were circulated. During Friday’s hearing Greer said she approves the form, but not the content, of such petitions.

If the petitions survive Higdon’s challenge, the proposed ordinance would go to City Council, which would decide whether to adopt the ordinance as presented or send it to voters Nov. 3.

The 11-member City Council was expected to decide whether to send the issue to the ballot box earlier this month, but the protest intervened. An Aug. 31 special meeting has been tentatively scheduled for council to hear the matter if the hearing officer, attorney John E. Hayes, does not throw out the petitions.

In addition to requiring that cars driven by unlicensed drivers be impounded, the initiative also would require owners of seized vehicles to post a $2,500 bond that would be surrendered to the city if police catch another unlicensed driver at the wheel of the vehicle within a year. It also would impose a $200 impoundment fee.

Higdon’s protest, which is supported by Colorado Common Cause and Coloradans for Safe Communities, questions the validity of a number of signatures on the petitions filed to put the issue before City Council as well as the form of the petitions.  The Colorado Association of Chiefs of police and County Sheriffs of Colorado oppose the impoundment initiative.

The protest, filed by attorney Mark Grueskin, claims a number of signatures on the petitions are invalid because the people who gathered them failed to provide “an actual residential address” and more than 2,000 signatures are invalid for other reasons. The protest also claims the petitions did not meet the city’s requirement that a warning to voters and the title of the ordinance appear on every page of the petitions and that the warning’s wording strays from the required language.

Similar petitions targeting unlicensed drivers in Denver and Aurora also are awaiting hearings on their validity, said Daniel Hayes, a north Jeffco resident who organized the petition drives in the three cities.

“Getting unlicensed drivers off the road is a big deal because if one hits you, you have to have enough insurance to cover any injuries to your car, because they’re not going to have any,” Hayes said.

Hayes enlisted two Lakewood residents to be the “Petitioner’s Committee” in order to get the issue on the city’s ballot.

In Denver, the address one of the petition committee members provided is under challenge and the Aurora petitions were thrown out after a protest similar to that filed in Lakewood.

Coloradans for Safe Communities also was involved in the Aurora challenge.

“This is a measure that we think has a lot of unintended consequences,” said Carolyn Siegel of CSC. “We just think it’s way too broad.”

Siegel said the proposal would weigh heaviest on people who simply forgot their licenses and the already-strained budgets of police departments.

“We actually think the police are pretty well-run and should have the discretion to do an impound in situations where they deem it appropriate rather than having their hands tied.”

In a written statement, Higdon questioned the process followed in the petition drive.

“I filed the protest because I am very concerned that petition circulators misled voters to support a flawed policy through a very flawed process,” Higdon said in the statement.