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Information for Fort Collins voters to understand the actual impact of these Charter amendments
What's the big deal?
What's the big deal?
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.
Voters shouldn't have to be a city clerk or elections expert to understand what these proposed amendments do, but it's hard to break this huge amount of content down into quick bites that explain all the issues that are present.
Details matter a lot in these processes. These pages try to give a high level overview to allow voters to understand why this is a big deal and then also provide the detail to back that up for those who want to dig into those details.
As concisely yet comprehensively as possible, voters in Fort Collins should take another look at these three ballot questions because:
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.
As a long time election administrator, I believe firmly every aspect of election administration needs to center on the voter. The shortest answer to why these changes are problematic is that they fail to keep that voter-centric focus and voters are negatively impacted as a result.
Proposed Ballot Questions
Proposed Ballot Questions
Start here to learn more about the Charter amendments on the 2024 ballot in Fort Collins and see the actual current and proposed language. Then learn more of the details about how they were adopted and what the unintended consequences of these questions will be in actual administration. This information is found in several different locations on the City's website, and is brought together here to make it easier for voters to see the actual language for themselves.
Details of each Ballot Question include full links to:
the Ordinance adopting the ballot question and proposed Charter language
the actual ballot language for each question
the proposed new Charter language associated with each of the three articles of the City Charter proposed to be changed with these three questions.
Also posted is the full current language of each of these Charter articles.
Question 2B: Elections
Question 2B: Elections
Question 2D: Initiative & Ref.
Question 2D: Initiative & Ref.
Issues with Proposed Changes
Issues with Proposed Changes
City Council Consideration of these Changes
City Council Consideration of these Changes
Find links to the three Election Code Committee meetings that included any kind of discussion of these amendments, as well as the two Council meetings where they were adopted on first and second reading. These links include all of the information publicly presented to City Council members about these changes as part of their agenda materials, as well as the videos and minutes of those meetings where available.
Election Code Committee Meetings
Election Code Committee Meetings
March 27, 2024 Meeting
This was the first meeting of the committee since January of 2023, and the first time discussing the potential for 2024 ballot questions for Charter Amendments. Only the potential for amendments in various topics was discussed at this meeting.
April 24, 2024 Meeting
This meeting reviewed some initial red lined versions of the three Charter articles being considered for amendment.
(No minutes or meeting video are posted for this meeting on the City's meeting portal. The draft minutes are linked from the 5/29 meeting materials.)
May 29, 2024 Meeting
This meeting also reviewed red lined versions of the three Charter articles being considered for amendment. No final language was presented for the amendments or the ballot questions themselves
(No minutes are posted on the portal - draft minutes are linked from the 9/11 meeting.)
City Council Meetings
City Council Meetings
July 2, 2024 City Council Meeting
At this meeting, the City Council adopted Ordinance nos. 94, 95 and 96 on first reading. Ordinance No. 96 was amended by the Council to change the proposed language within Article X of the Charter relating to initiative petition timelines.
(The link for the minutes for this meeting on the City meeting portal isn't working, so the draft minutes from the 8/20/27 meeting packet when they were approved are linked instead.)
July 16, 2024 City Council Meeting
Ordinance nos. 94, 95 and 96 were adopted on second reading on the consent agenda.
The amendments made to Ord. No. 96 on first reading weren't included in the ordinance presented and adopted at this meeting.
Ord. No. 94 is marked as amended on first reading on the agenda, however no changes were made publicly at first reading of that ordinance and nothing seems to actually be changed.
Rushed Consideration
Rushed Consideration
90 days after the potential for Charter amendments in 2024 was first discussed in a public meeting, the actual language for those changes was published publicly for the first time on Thursday, June 27. That was also presumably the first time the City Council saw the actual language. They were adopted on first reading 5 days later at the July 2, 2024 Council Meeting. The ordinances and ballot questions were fully approved by the Council, without changes or discussion, on second reading at the July 16, 2024 Council Meeting, and did not include amendments made by the Council on first reading to one of Charter articles.
These changes include substantial changes to three Articles (sections) of the City Charter. There are 14 Charter articles in total, with one being a glossary of definitions and one being transitional provisions that only applied when the Charter was first adopted. That means these are changes to 25% of the charter made with this level of consideration by the City Council and no outreach to the public.
Adequate time for review of final language is essential to ensure Council members, City staff, and the public have an opportunity to understand what the language is doing, including identifying any unintended effects, of which there appear to be many in these questions. Changing the City's Charter should not be a rushed process done right before deadline. That's how errors are made and issues created that require clean up later. That clean up is costly and the unintended impacts of language can be severe, as they are in this instance.
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