So often in life we seek answers beyond what we are capable of finding on our own. Whether it is a family issue or one in the workplace, we often seek independent parties that are removed from some particular circumstance to get an unbiased opinion. These queries often bring solutions we wouldn’t have discovered on our own or among our own family or business associates. This is why Grand Juries and Jury’s in general are made up of individuals who only agree to be fair minded and look at the facts to come up with solutions.
In the near future, in our town, we will be seeking citizens who are dedicated to finding fair solutions to the problems of creating a home rule charter. Like a jury, we should seek independent community members that will commit to working together to wade through the many options available and reach a good solution. To do so they will have the help of the State of Colorado and an experienced attorney. They will review documents that other communities have used and will weigh the successes and failures within those documents. Then, they will make their recommendations and we, as citizens, will vote on whether or not to accept their recommendations. That is how the system should and must work.
In this process, the Town has tried to stack the deck in favor of the Mayor and Trustees along with their trusted friends. The reason this is unfair is because they have a prejudice as to what a town should be, how it should behave and publicly have stated that the home rule process is not necessary. In other words they don’t want change. It should be evident by their actions that they are the wrong people to oversee any potential change to town operations, since they have opposed any change.
Hopefully in the months ahead there will be several open meeting discussions with the candidates. These will afford you an opportunity to meet with candidates and ask questions. We hope you will attend these meetings and support your candidate of choice.
Home Rule will not solve every problem that may come before a town. What it can do is establish a new operating agreement for the town. These are important decisions and will require you to make hard choices. Candidates should be committed to change and open to new ideas, yet have the desire to create a town government that will allow us to be a community that works together for the betterment of our community.
