Lakewood voters firmly reject Charter changes, impound initiative

LAKEWOOD – Voters rejected two proposed special-election related changes in the City Charter and a citizen-initiated ballot question that would have required police to impound vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers. All three fell by relatively large margins in Tuesday’s election.

The largest defeat went to Ballot Question 300, which fell by a 27.5 percent margin with 31,562 votes against and 17,921 in favor.

The proposal, a citizen initiated ordinance originated by Jeffco resident Dan Hayes, was roundly criticized by City Council, Lakewood Police officials and Coloradans for Safe Communities, a local group that headed the effort to defeat the impound initiative.

“We are thrilled by the outcome of this election.  We built a strong coalition of business groups, law enforcement, organized labor, faith leaders, community organizations, and elected officials who opposed Ballot Question 300,” said Heather Atkinson, campaign manager for Coloradans for Safe Communities. “Through hard work and hundreds of hours of volunteer time, we were able to talk with thousands voters about the destructive impacts Ballot Question 300 could have had on the City of Lakewood.”

Coloradans for Safe Communities is a coalition of Lakewood business groups, community members, organized labor, public safety advocates, faith leaders and elected officials.

Ballot Question 300 would have required police to impound vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers, force require the owners of impounded vehicles to post a $2,500 bond that would have been surrendered if the same vehicle was seized for the same reason within a year. It also called for a $200 impoundment fee as well as impound bonds that could cost as much as $400 a year.

A provision of the proposal would allow an officer who determined through a records search that a driver had a valid license but was not carrying it to be issued a summons giving them 10 days to furnish police with the actual license within 10 days or the vehicle would have been subject to seizure and impoundment.

Current LPD policy requires impoundment in cases of emergency, at the request of the vehicle’s owner, when the vehicle is evidence in a case or was used in the commission of a crime certain parking violations, in cases in which the driver is arrested and when a vehicle is believed to be stolen or is inoperable and poses a danger to other traffic.

Atkinson credited “the strong collaborative campaign effort and the broad impact to all drivers” for the defeat of the impound initiative.

City Council was among the critics of the proposal and used their resolution-making powers to go on record against the impound initiative in mid-October after Police Department officials raised a number of concerns about the costs of Ballot Question 300, including monetary costs and the cost of police time.

City Council’s two proposed City Charter changes, which would have doubled the time the Clerk’s Office has to prepare for special elections, fell nearly as hard. Council put the issues on the ballot after City Clerk Margy Greer said her staff struggles to meet the 90-day Charter-imposed deadlines for scheduling special elections on citizen-initiated referendums and initiatives.

Council originally had considered a proposal that would have required all issues initiated by citizens to a coordinated November ballot.

The original proposal could have kept referendum proposals from the voters for as long as 18 months and could take even longer to get initiatives to a vote, but would have given City Council the power to call special elections at their discretion.

Council decided in July to limit the proposed Charter changes, and instead backed two proposals that would have allowed the City Clerk up to 180 days, instead of the current 90 days, to set and conduct elections forced by citizen petitions. The proposal resulted from Greer’s concern over the cost of conducting such elections.

A special election, Greer said, could cost the city nearly a quarter-million dollars more than the approximately $30,000 it pays to participate in annual countywide coordinated elections, Greer told City Council.

Mayor Bob Murphy said in July the costs represent  “a problem that really should be fixed, and certainly the clerk (should be) given more time.”

Initiatives propose new, citizen-conceived ordinances that City Council has not or will not bring to public hearing. Referendums seek to overturn previous City Council actions. Both require Council to either adopt the proposals as presented or send them to voters for a final decision.

“There is really no perfect solution,” Murphy added.

Only Ward 1 Councilwoman Vicki Stack stood against making any changes, and she urged Council to leave the Charter intact and look at other ways to solve the staffing problems.

“Why are we changing a Charter when it is an internal problem that needs to be fixed,” Stack asked before casting the lone opposition vote when Council decided 10-1 to send the 180-day extension to voters in November.

The only citizen-initiated special election in the city’s history was the 2007 “Switch for the Ditch” election that overturned a controversial Council-approved land swap.

Voters handily rejected both changes – Ballot Questions 2A and 2B – by margins of 7.5 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively.

The countywide voter turnout for Tuesday’s Mid-Term elections was a whopping 74.73 percent, according to County Clerk Pam Anderson, who said 223,228 of Jeffco’s 298,711 eligible voters cast ballots.