Board of County Commissioners Business Meeting - Regular Meeting

All right, everybody, hey, let's come to order. Welcome to the Board of County Commissioners Business Meeting. It is a special business meeting. Today is Friday, August 28th, 2026, and we're starting up, it's right around, looks like 1035. If everyone could please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Turning to the county attorney for certification of the agenda.

Yes, sir. You have appropriate jurisdiction over the matters. My office has reviewed all my items on it.

Thank you, Councilor. Commissioners, any disclosures for items on this agenda today?

I have none, Mr. Chair, thank you.

No. All right, thank you, gentlemen. Nor have I any disclosures to make. Gentlemen, before we get into our regular agenda, we do have a request for an executive session from the county attorney, given the content we're dealing with today. You guys okay hearing from the county attorney on the justification for the executive session?

Sure. Yeah, I'm curious.

County attorney, please.

So we've had an administrative issue with posting, and I would like to explain that to the board and maybe offer some guidance on how we could proceed with a posting issue.

Oh, of course, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. I'll speak into the microphone.

We've had an issue with posting of an agenda item, and so I'd like to inform the board of that and talk about how we could best fix that.

All right, board, we do have a request from the county attorney to go into executive session for the purposes of receiving, sounds to me like legal advice for the purpose on the agenda. I mean, counselor, is that correct? What would be the citation for going into executive session?

That is correct. And the citation is 246402B for legal advice. Thank you, counselor.

Thank you, commissioner. And I'll second. Let's find out what's going on.

All right, so there is a first and a second to go into executive session. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. We're going to go ahead and recess at this time, go into executive session, and folks, we will return as quick as we can once we have received legal advice. We are in recess. Board, are we ready to go back into our special meeting? Yes, please. All right, folks, we've concluded a executive session for the purpose of receiving legal advice. Let's come to order. Okay. I do not wanna talk to those people on the phone near as much as I wanna do this. Board, we do have a recommendation based on advice that we heard from the county attorney during executive session. Any objections? Turning to the county attorney to hear his recommendation. County Attorney.

Regarding the second item on the agenda, item B, I believe there's additional information that the public would benefit from, and I would encourage us to continue that item until Monday at 8.30.

So therefore, I'm... Folks, knock it off. We'll take care of you. Knock it off. I'll instruct the attorney. Please, this is actually a business meeting. County Attorney, we have received feedback that perhaps I should encourage you to speak up, sir. I apologize. Can everybody hear me? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so there's additional information on item B, the second item on the agenda, and I think the public would benefit from having that information, and I would encourage the board to continue that item to 8.30 on Monday.

All right, thank you, Councilor Board. We do have a recommendation from the County Attorney to continue item 2B, resolution referring a ballot measure to preserve all Douglas County voters' rights to elect all members of the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners on the ballot for voter consideration, continuing that to Monday, August 31st, 2026, at 8.30 a.m.

So moved, Mr. Chair. I wish to speak in favor of the motion.

Thank you, Commissioner. I'll second it. All right. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Layton, speaking in favor of the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the additional information and executive session. I think it's wise to give the public an additional amount of time to review whatever information was not included. In the second item, item 2B, I think that'll give a fair, transparent, and clear opportunity for people to digest that before Monday as opposed to trying to have a vote today.

Very good. Further discussion?

None for me.

Obviously, based on what we heard in an executive session, there is legality that would suggest continuing as appropriate at this time. Therefore, I speak in favor of the motion. Further discussion? There's a motion and a second to continue item 2B to Monday, August 31st, 2026 in a special business meeting to be convened at 8.30 a.m. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, item 2B has been continued, so let's go ahead and turn our attention to item 2A, which is a resolution adopting, fixing the ballot title for the Douglas County BOCC expansion, three to five members, voter-initiated petition. Jeff Garcia, Douglas County attorney, presenting for staff. Councilor.

Thank you, Chair. So the clerk has received, as everyone knows, a petition to increase the size of the Board of County Commissioners. That petition was verified as having sufficient signatures. And there is a duty upon the county to fix a title for that ballot. During our meeting yesterday, it was asked that I bring back language to add a fiscal note to that as well as to edit the question on the second part to allow the choices to be a little more clear for the public. So I'd like to talk about what the duty is. I spoke about this on Tuesday during our regular business meeting when we were discussing procedures. But looking at CRS 3111-111, it prescribes two duties. Of course, the duty itself to adopt the title. But it says shell. So this is not an optional thing. This isn't something that you have at your discretion. This is something that you need to do. In addition to, it says it very clearly, in doing so, you need to reduce confusion. and make clear what the effect of our yes or no vote would do. CRS 3111103 provides definitions of what should be included in a ballot title. I think, so there's two parts, there's a title and a submission clause, but I think it's important that this definition exists as well as the last statute we talked about because what it doesn't say is that a ballot title is the petition title. Those are two separate things and there's a duty upon the government to make sure that the voters are aware of what they're voting for. So authority and guidance. I talked a little bit about what 31-111 does. I think it's important because we've had some community questions about, well, the fact that some other county hasn't done this or followed the guidance of that statute, then why are we? Well, no other county's adherence to that statute or use of that statute has any effect on us. I think the two statutes I just referred to are pretty clear that there is some work to be done, that it is not strictly a cut and paste. The court has said that there is broad discretion in title setting. from a state standpoint and fiscal notes are required on a initiated measure at the state level, it does give some guidance. Since 2015, there have been guidance regarding the use of fiscal notes on initiated measures. The state law on this is not a mandatory or a requirement upon us but rather guidance. The ballot language and granted that I did that somewhat quickly following the meeting yesterday, would be changed to add a fiscal note. That note would include a price, where the costs are coming from, clean up a little bit of language about what it means to be a resident commissioner, and a few other things. I'm going to discuss each of these topics in detail. So the green portion was highlighted here, and I apologize because it's hard to see the green portion, talks about what would be included in that initial estimate. So state law says a preliminary estimate of the maximum dollar amount of the change in state or local revenue or fiscal spending. So that would be the portion of the language there that we're talking about. That would be a number. How that's represented, whether you're talking about an annual cost, an average cost, the law does say it is an estimate, so it's an approximate cost. Do you want to do a range? There's likely costs that would occur in the first year that may not occur in subsequent years. There's also some statutory changes as far as salary, and then how you'd represent that in the number of years. In addition, the state law asks for a qualitative description of the economic impacts of the measure if implemented. So that is to say, okay, so what is the spending of money or this reduction in revenue actually gonna do? And so with that regard, I try to explain that it comes from the general fund and the general fund pays for a few things. I've previously tried to explain elements of government accounting to others and it's frequently that people don't know what the general fund is. They might think that that's just money set aside. It's not. The general fund pays for most everything that the county does. And then whether or not you use the word general fund or without raising taxes, I think it's important with regard to this measure and being clear and transparent that we're not actually raising taxes in this, but we're reducing services at these costs. And then with regard to clarification, I think the one that people were really getting stuck on were the district commissioner resident. So similar language was changed when Adams County did this. I, in fact, would take an additional step, and it's completely up to the board, if you'd want similar language about voters residing in the district versus voter residents. And that gets us to where we are as far as questions from the legal element.

All right, thank you, Councilor. Board, questions for the county attorney? Hearing none, Jeff, don't go far. I'm still right there. Very good. We may have more questions for you later. Let us proceed with staff presentation, please. Looks like Deputy County Manager Dan Avery presenting for staff.

Thank you, commissioners. Staff was directed to provide this fiscal impact information for the board's consideration today. As the board knows, decision making in this regard lies with current and future boards. And these decisions, budgetary decisions, are inherently subjective. and that there's no one right answer. So as such staff has presented or will present a range of potential costs, uh, and ongoing expenses that could result from the transition from three to five commissioners. Uh, most of these costs will be based on a staffing level analysis that staff will present, uh, in which we benchmark Douglas County against staffing levels at three peer counties who have already gone through this transition. You'll see more of that in my presentation. As Jeff noted, there are one-time costs and there are ongoing costs associated with this transition. In 2027, the county will incur costs associated with redistricting. In 2028, in all likelihood, there will be facility renovation costs. And then on an ongoing basis, there will be costs associated with commissioner salaries and any additional staff salaries that may be recommended by a future body. So the base scenario, is established by the commissioner's salary set in statute. The document on the left there is a publication from legislative council laying out statutory salaries for commissioners. We are assuming in this analysis that an incoming commissioner would elect family medical benefits. There's pro rata share of operations and maintenance costs associated with the commissioner's office. And then you can see the math there. resulting in a final tally. There are also one-time and capital expenditures to consider. As I noted, in 2027, the county, if voters select five commissioners elected by district, a redistricting commission would be established. That redistricting commission would meet throughout the year in public meetings meetings and work with staff to redistrict the county in compliance with state statute. That would be a very transparent process that would include public hearings in all three commissioner districts, the opportunity for citizens to engage with a website site in which they could submit their own maps. And as a result of that, there would be some redistricting software expense and meeting expense, as you can see there. THERE WOULD ALSO BE ONE-TIME EXPENSES IN 2028 FOR IT EQUIPMENT, PHONES, ALL THE THINGS THAT COMMISSIONERS MAKE USE OF, AND POTENTIAL FACILITY RENOVATIONS AS OUTLINED THERE. THE POTENTIAL FACILITY RENOVATIONS BEGIN WITH MINOR AMENDMENT OF EXISTING CUBICLES INTO HARDWALL OFFICE SPACES TO ACCOMMODATE THE ADDITIONAL COMMISSIONERS, UP THROUGH A more comprehensive reconfiguration of the south wall of the commissioner's office space and the Board of County Commissioners conference room to accommodate additional commissioners. And then a brief consideration of creation of in-district offices and what that might cost within existing county facilities. As I noted, staff conducted a staffing analysis benchmarking Douglas County against peer counties who have gone through this transition. You can see the three counties that we will use in this analysis there. Currently, Douglas County has four staff that are exclusively devoted to serving the board, and those are shown here. The county manager, myself, and two administrative staff. When we compare that to Arapahoe County, you see that there are two executive management staff, much like Douglas County, three administrative staff, and four management analysts. If we looked at that structure for Douglas County, we would seek to add one additional administrative staff and one additional management analyst staff for the total cost identified there. Looking at El Paso County, we conduct a similar analysis. In El Paso County, the Legislative and Government Affairs Office provides administrative support to the board, as outlined on their website. The other positions are fairly self-explanatory. And the resulting structure for Douglas County would result in an increase of six FTE. Arapahoe County comparison would result in an increase of two FTE. This one would be six, with the cost impacts shown here. In Adams County, they have a county manager, three deputy county managers, and a chief of staff. seven administrative positions, and three management analysts. So a more robust administrative structure. Comparing that to Douglas County would result in an addition of up to 11 FTE at a total cost of $1.8 million annually. So in conclusion, the range of possible staffing additions based on peer counties would be two to 11 additional employees at the costs identified on the slide. So putting all the pieces together, looking at the low-end cost estimate of ongoing costs and one-time costs, this is the low estimate that staff has created. It includes those redistricting costs I mentioned, the low end of one-time renovation costs, and only the addition of the commissioner salaries for a total cost through 2029 of $577,000. A mid-range estimate more equivalent to Arapahoe County's model would result in expenses incurred through 2029 of 1.35 million. This includes a more robust renovation of the commissioner's office space on the third floor and the two additional FTE consistent with Arapahoe County's model. The next configuration presumes the addition of six FTE, more along the lines of what exists in El Paso County, at a cost through 2029 of 1.9 million. And then an upper estimate, more along the lines of the staffing levels in Adams County, which would result in costs identified at just over 3 million through 2029. Putting all the options together, you see costs through 2029 identified here, broken out by both one-time and ongoing costs for your consideration. There is an appendix to this PowerPoint presentation that includes how we derive this math if there are questions, and we will certainly make that available on our website after this meeting.

All right, Dan, you ready to take questions from the board? Yes, sir. Board, questions for Dan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Dan, good job on this. This is what we asked for the other day is clean, clear, not misleading, transparent, give us an accurate evidence-based range for what the cost would be and to make sure to provide that clearly. And I think you've done that. So thank you. So what I'm looking at here then is $577,538 up to $3,086,322.

for costs that the county would incur through 2029. And then on an ongoing basis after that would be the bottom line. Okay, thank you.

Further questions for Dan, Commissioner?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Dan, for the presentation. The slide we're looking at here, that includes, you first gave us just the base pay salary for future commissioners. We don't get paid that now, but that's what commissioners are slated to get in that year. Is that included in here, or is this just purely the... Yeah, that's included.

Yes, that absolute base number is in the bottom left corner there. We've added... the one-time cost to that for your consideration here, but how you choose to present that in a resolution is certainly the board's discretion.

Okay. Well, thank you.

Okay. any further questions gents i'm i really appreciate uh this presentation dan and i appreciate the presentation counselor i mean i think uh i think we showed i think the work is shown um on on where you're coming from um so i don't think i have any questions right now good job thank you board any further questions back to the county attorney or or even dan

perhaps later, but not at this point.

Okay, okay, guys. Telling our county attorney and our deputy county manager, don't go far. Be ready to take further questions. Board, let's proceed with public comments at this time. I do have people who are signed up. Let's go ahead and start with Bob Marshall. Representative, you're no stranger to the board, but if you could please give us your name and tell us where you're from.

Yeah, Bob Marshall, I live in Highlands Ranch. So once again, I had to throw out all my thoughts because of stuff that's going on here, because I don't understand how you can't be honest with the people. you're rushing this through a half-assed measure. The reason you're putting that second resolution off is because you didn't properly notice it. And you could have told people that, but instead you're making up things. It wasn't properly noticed and we would have thrown it out on Monday. But that's going to the issue here. You are engaging in last second machinations in order to obstruct the will of the people. You're calling this a fiscal note? What is a fiscal note?

you're not allowed to impugn motives, Mr. Representative. You can't do it here either.

Representative, if we could please preserve decorum. Representative, if you could please acknowledge the chair you're being spoken to. If you could please acknowledge the chair you're being spoken to. Sir, there was an error. Time has not even started yet. I am keeping track on time on my wristwatch. Time has been stopped. Please, let's maintain decorum. A member of the board has pointed out the standards that you are required to follow when representing the people of your district in the state legislature. If you could please maintain decorum and speak to the subject.

Is this on? What we had as a subject is the other resolution was not properly noticed and that's why we're putting it off. That was not what was disclosed here by the county attorney or you all though when you came back. You call this a fiscal note. A fiscal note doesn't go in the ballot title. Pretty much everyone knows that. It goes separately. Those are political considerations to make political fights over. It should not go into the ballot title. This is just an effort to undermine the will of 23,000 citizens that signed for this. And you already had a prepared fiscal note. When we ran the county commissioner bill down there in the capital, we had a professional nonpartisan fiscal analysts do a fiscal note on the cost. There was no reason to put this dog and pony show together. You had an off the shelf number already by professional nonpartisan neutral staff out there to use. And most of those costs, are within your rubric, you could control. Only the salaries are set by the state. And I've mentioned when we did our commissioner bill, I said I would be fine to run an amendment instead of paying all the commissioners $160,000 a year, we could pay $595,000 a year and that would still be higher than the median salary in Douglas County. But the only people who ever testified against the bill were county commissioners who were gonna be personally impacted. And once again, we're seeing the same thing. So you can leave out of the fiscal note $19,000 laundered of tax money to go to Dubai, $17,000 for a Harvard class, and credit card bills nonstop for lunches. We don't even have an audit yet for this county that's required by the state, and yet you expect us to believe the numbers you give out now when you're delaying an audit so we can know what's going on. I mean, you're mocking the statement that you put up here of government of the people by the people for the people. You have a citizen petition and three of you are trying to override what they asked for in the last seconds. You've had six months. And in fact, these people only took 140 days of the 180 they could to get 23,000 signatures when they only needed 15,000. One and a half times the amount. 8% of the voters in the last Secretary of State election, they got 12%. And almost every other petition only needs five. This is a massive group of people that asked for this. And instead, we get it. You don't like it. You've all been on the record of not liking it. You've all opposed the bill in the legislature. But doing this in the last second, when you've had six months to put that resolution forward, and no other county's ever done that, and you say, well, that's just, we're doing it the right way. No, you're not. It's not being done in good faith. And it's this kind of conduct which has led this refusal to listen to the people No one asked for this extra ballot measure, just like no one came in here and was publicly asking for home rule. You have 23,000 publicly asking for that resolution. I say pass it with no changes.

Representative, we have been generous with your time. If you could please wrap your comments. Thank you very much for your comments, Representative. Next speaker I have signed up is Angela Thomas.

Commissioners, Angela Thomas, Castle Rock. I'm here on behalf of the thousands of Douglas County citizens who lawfully exercised their right to place the three to five initiative before the voters. More than 150 volunteers gave over 2,000 hours gathering 23,040 signatures. The clerk verified 20,434 against a requirement of 15,087, nearly an 89% validation rate. The people did their job. Yet, you are adding language to our ballot question that those petition signers never saw and never agreed to. Language that I might add remarkably echoes the opposition campaign formed to defeat this measure. Your draft title also includes an average annual cost. I've watched what you've done here. I looked at Bob's fiscal note on the bill. We told people $500,000. We didn't hide that at any point in time about how much this would cost. And now you're proposing a competing measure of your own. Taken together, it's difficult to see that this is anything other than an attempt to stack the deck against the citizen initiative. You have every right to oppose our measure. You have every right to campaign against it. But the power of your office should not give you a special advantage over the citizens you represent. And what happens if both those measures pass? What happens if voters approve five commissioners elected by district under our initiative and five elected at large under yours? Which expression of the voters' will controls? That was never supposed to be your decision. It isn't mine either. It belongs to the voters. 20,434 validated petition signers did what the law required. Now you do your part. Do not confuse their choice. Give them a fair and neutral ballot title and let the people decide.

Madam, if I could ask you to please wrap up your comments. Thank you, Angela. We appreciate your comments. Christian Schindler, please.

Good evening. Good morning. My name's Christian Schilder. I'm the candidate for House District 39. People do strange things. when they're scared. My father, whenever he was growing up, he had eight siblings with a single mother. They used to dig in the KFC trash cans for food because they didn't know if they had dinner that night. What I did when I was scared that our democracy was getting into this polarized positioning I decided to turn my career over on its head, going from civil engineering to running for office, to try and correct it, to bridge that gap for our political divide. What you're doing because you're scared is you're putting your thumb on the scale for the people who have voted for this measure, who have signed, who have gathered and put in time, countless hours. It's not right. You should not be trying to make this the partisan issue that you think it is. If you look at those numbers, you have many unaffiliated people. You have many Republicans and you have many Democrats signing this measure to try and correct what you guys are doing and your mistakes and expanding this board to buy district voting. Right now we see it in our current county commissioners where the county commissioner of Highlands Ranch is hosting their first town hall in Franktown. Not anywhere remotely in their area. Your first town hall was in Franktown. Not anywhere.

Christian, I've done dozens of town halls in Hatton's Ranch, including as a county commissioner.

Yeah, yeah. Can we keep this on the subject at hand, please? Please keep to the subject.

When you have commissioners, not representing their people of their community. That's the issue. And that's what this measure was supposed to be on. And right now you're putting your thumb on the scale, trying to make this a partisan issue when it's not. It's simply what the people are wanting to see. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Appreciate your comments. Mary B. Wilson, please.

Mr. Chair, the fiscal note from Representative Marshall's bill has been raised several times. The implication of it, the $700,000, where that comes from is Adams County. Adams County's actually already gone to five, so that $700,000 was on top of current Adams County cost. It doesn't contemplate Douglas or other counties, only Adams.

Well, thank you, Commissioner. Tell you what, very good point. Let's go ahead and try to get through public comment. And I appreciate hearing that, but these are kind of the kind of things that we can have as part of our deliberation. But thank you very much for sharing that with us.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I will remain quiet. Just motives should not be impugned, as is the rule, and it should be kept to the subject at hand.

Roger that, understood, Commissioner, and let's see if we can keep everybody on task in accordance with that. Ms. Wilson, please.

Yes, very well said. I humbly ask if you guys talk over me that I get my time back. And because I really don't have much to say other than I looked at past comments about this. Something that came up, this has been 30 years since the public, the voting have come forth with an ask, with something to be on the ballot. and they should be respected and the language that they signed and approved should be on the ballot. You guys should not be putting the thumbs on the scales. You guys should not be adding additional confusing ballot measures that you can't even present today. and put that on the ballot. What is your job here? Your job here is to represent the people. It is not to represent yourselves. If the people say we want to have this on the ballot, put it on the ballot. If the people say we don't want you to put the thumb on the scales of this, we don't want you to have doxing threats put out about us, to change the language, any of that sort of thing, to add miscellaneous ballot measures addition to this in hopes to confuse people. What is your job here? Your job is to represent the people. Your job is not to represent the three of you. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Ms. Wilson. It's good to see you again, by the way. Darren Caldwell. That's okay, ma'am. Come on up. Please do correct my pronunciation by stating your name and tell us where you're from.

Dawn Caldwell, Highlands Ranch. So I agree with everybody so far that has presented and also oppose the change in this title. Three days ago the issues committee in opposition was formed and the title and mission of that opposition committee is very striking to the input that you all have added. In yesterday's working session, Commissioner Van Winkle was very specific in asking Attorney Garcia not to have sloganeering. Sloganeering is defined as repeating slogans and ideas, which when you look at the opposition committee looks pretty much like they're sloganing. The State Attorney Garcia also said that he would follow the state rules as much as possible. The state rules require for titles to go in front of a titling board. The titling board requires individuals serving who have a conflict of interest to not participate in the process. The titling board also requires titles to be brief, titles Sorry. Sorry, the titles have to be approved by the titling board. I would suggest that Angela Thomas, who ran the petition, had met with Sherry Davis, who is the county clerk and recorder, who, for all intents and purposes, would be the county title board, the bipartisan board that would review it, and there was agreement that the petition was fine as is, that there was no fiscal impact needed. So the petition was approved as being brief, clear, and single subject, and not needing a fiscal impact, and yet here we are. completely changing the title. I would also suggest, as my time is out, that you did not notice the actual cost.

Ma'am, if you could please wrap up your comments shortly.

I am, it's my very last thing. You didn't actually notice the cost that you want in this resolution. You did not give 24-hour notice of that. And so I would suggest that you cannot approve it today.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am. Very much appreciated. Next, I have Bill Jack. No? Very well then, thank you, sir. Next I have, you might have to correct me on this pronunciation, Kim Turnage? Ma'am, please do correct my pronunciation. Tell us where you're from.

Good morning, my name is Kim Turnage. I'm from Highlands Ranch. The fiscal analysis that has been presented this morning is incomplete. There are several questions that should be answered by that. Adams County has 25% more citizens than Douglas County. El Paso County is more than twice the population of Douglas County. So they are not apples to apples when we're comparing the costs and the number of staff that they need to run those counties. What has also not been asked is how long have those counties had five commissioners? I know for sure that Adams County moved to five commissioners in 2013. What were their cost increases in the first two years? What were their staffing increases in the first two years? We should not be looking at their levels today and talking about how that impacts us in two years. Secondly, The effort of thousands of hours of volunteer labor is being overridden today by this board. In the past week, you have engaged in elaborate political theater or true incompetence just today, whether the administrative error that caused you not to properly notice, was a mistake or part of the theater, whether the administrative error that caused all of us to have to go outside and re-sign up to do public comment was a mistake or political theater, we either have incompetence or political theater. That's not representation. That's not government of the people, by the people, for the people. This is further evidence that more than 20,000 residents of this county are right when they signed that petition. We need five county commissioners.

Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Next, I have Julie Ort, please. And Julie, you're no stranger to the board, but when you come forward, please do once again restate your name and tell us where you're from, ma'am.

Thank you. My name is Julie Ort and I live in Highlands Ranch. The 3 to 5 initiative has been a citizen-driven, non-partisan upswell of support for transparent, accountable government. This resolution and last-minute maneuvering by our commissioners and their staff to add language on the ballot about the cost of adding two commissioners has been revealing in two particular ways. in the way the commissioners are interfering with the separate duties of our duly elected county clerk, Sherry Davis, as a co-equal branch of our county government. This meddling by the commissioner in the clerk's business is clear overreach. It is also curious that the commissioners are demanding the cost for two new commissioners be disclosed when they clearly never bothered to disclose the cost of the home rule ballot initiative which was $750,000 that cost Douglas County voters for them to rush the ballot measure. A cost, by the way, that far exceeds what the cost of the two commissioner salaries will be in a year. But if we're going to play games, let's set some rules. If you are going to force the annual costs of two new commissioners on the ballot because of your alleged deep concern for the voters, let an independent audited third party provide the figure. Also list the nearly $750 million annual budget the county oversees and list what percentage this new cost would be of that actual budget, which is less than 1%. Allow our duly elected county clerk to have the final say in the language on this ballot measure. It is really disturbing to me that we are 70 days from an election and our county clerk has had to show up now twice to these meetings when she should be focusing on, she should be here because we do care that she's watching, but why you're doing this last minute is just really puts more doubt into our elections and I think that's your intent. And again, Douglas County residents from all parties have made it clear they don't trust you. Build in some guardrails on your power.

Thank you, ma'am, we appreciate your comments. Caroline Upton, please. Ma'am, please give us your name again and tell us where you're from.

Caroline Upton, Castle Rock. So when I was collecting signatures, I found no one that could not understand the initiative or the intent. And everyone understood that salaries would be paid. Citizens signed this petition because with the population growth of our county, we deserve more representation. We want more elected decision makers representing us. When they make decisions with our tax dollars, Last year, the Board of Commissioners put an initiative on the ballot asking citizens to approve a Home Rule Charter. There was no mention of cost to taxpayers. Are we expected to believe that this concern is on behalf of the taxpayers? Or is it really about confusing the citizens to obtain a no vote? And just so it's clear, the current three commissioners have not been fiscally conservative with our tax dollars. There are four recent expenditures that stand out. Flexidential data center tax rebate, 19 million over 35 years. Huge subsidy netting 16 jobs. Zebulon Regional Sports Complex, $100 million, had very weak public support. Legal costs over the open meetings law violations. You spent tens of thousands of dollars and you have ongoing $700 an hour legal fees. This was for defending illegal secrecy, not a public benefit. The Home Rule Charter special election process was significant election and administration costs. It was planned largely in closed meetings that were ruled unlawful. So please do validate our concerns today that are warranted based on your past behavior.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Jennifer Pinagar. Ma'am, if you could restate your name and tell us where you're from.

Jennifer Penninger, Castle Rock. Look at Abraham Lincoln's words you put up there behind yourselves. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. I wonder how you reconcile those words with the actions you are taking here today. This ballot initiative was something brought forth by the people of Douglas County. Over 20,000 of us signed the petition to put this measure on the ballot. And now, against the will of the people, you want to change it. Is that democracy? Is that honest representation? No need to answer. We can see for ourselves that it is not. We all are growing increasingly unhappy with the, quote, leadership you all have shown and how you have spent our hard-earned money. You put home rule on the ballot without asking us, costing over $700,000 of our money. We all knew it was a power grab, just like we all know that this is another desperate attempt to cling to money and power. Subverting the will of we the people is not up for debate. Our democracy is not yours to discard. You can close the comment sections. You can change the wording, then waste our money with another lawsuit you'll lose. You can dox everyone who signed this petition, but you cannot stop the people from voting for this and then voting all of you out. No matter how much money your rich real estate friends throw at this, the voice of the people will not be silenced. John Adams, one of the founding fathers, once said, quote, a settled plan to deprive the people of all the benefits, blessings, and ends of the contract, to subvert the fundamentals of the Constitution, to deprive them of all share in making and executing laws, will justify a revolution, unquote. Thank you for allowing me to speak, King George.

Thank you, ma'am, and thank you for the appellation. Appreciate that. We appreciate your comments. Emily Syed, please. Again, there you go, ma'am. Yeah, please feel free to correct my pronunciation by giving us your name and where you're from.

Yeah, my name is Emily Suyat. I'm from Parker. Suyat, Sue, like the girl's name, yacht, like the boat. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm opposed to this resolution. Commissioner Layden, part of your reasoning for the extra words on the ballot were that in this county, dollars matter. That was your quote from yesterday. elaborated on that today saying that you wanted to be transparent. And I find this to be disingenuous, so let me explain why. Home Rule didn't have any fiscal note. You didn't even conduct an analysis that was presented to the public. It was very much like, trust us, it will save us money. As others have mentioned, you are financing the Zebulon Megasports Complex to the tune of 100 million and the $19 million tax break to a data center. But the example that says it all is when last November, George Thiel bought a $17,000 ticket to Dubai on the taxpayer dime. Back then, an economy ticket cost $1,000 to Dubai. So how on earth did you spend $17,000? It's really hard to do, so let me explain. Commissioner Thiel bought a luxury ticket, first class in Polaris.

I realize this probably looks like I'm defending myself, but can we get to the point, please? Can you please speak to the matter at hand? If you could please speak to the matter before us.

I'm doing exactly that. I'm building my case here, and I'd like my time back. Even with a luxury ticket, this tops out at $8,000. The luxury ticket includes aromatherapy, slippers, ice cream sundae, unlimited alcohol, and then you made your ticket refundable. That's how you got to $17,000. Did you refund any part of it? Did you put it in your pocket? Did you take along a friend? We don't know. You're not turning over the documents, even though your ticket was purchased with taxpayer funds. Then Ellie Reynolds reimbursed the county for this trip with funds she received from the county. Does this sound like a fiscally conservative county? Commissioners VanWinkle and Layden, you are complicit in this, so forgive me if I don't believe your claims about being concerned about dollars in Douglas County.

Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate your comments. Next up, Rachel Lesser, please. And ma'am, please give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

Hi, I'm Rachel Lesser. I am a Sterling Ranch resident. I attended yesterday's meeting and walked away frankly confused. What I thought was going to be a straightforward process has turned into a mess. It feels like you guys are intentionally making this a confusing, difficult process, one that's going to be hard for the average citizen voter to understand. It shouldn't have to be this way and it doesn't have to be this way. When more than 20,000 voters signed this petition, they understood exactly what they were signing. It was simple, language was clear. By adding an entire preamble to the top of our ballot initiative, one that introduces tax issues, general fund language written in legalese, you are conflating separate issues and confusing voters. It is exactly the opposite of what Commissioner Van Winkle yesterday said when he suggested correcting grammar to make things more simple. All of this makes me wonder why you're doing this. It feels partisan and it really shouldn't be. This is a non-partisan initiative signed by people of every political party with Republican signatories almost as much as the Democratic signatories. This petition, It addresses good governance for a growing county. Honestly, adding these steps, these new processes, these inserted preambles, it's making the board look like you're manipulating this process, and it makes you look shady. Let me explain why. By inserting yourselves into this process, it creates a clear conflict of interest. An ethical board will refer this task to the office of clerk and recorder to finalize. Instead, you are inserting yourselves into a ballot initiative that directly affects your own offices. That's a conflict of interest and a breach of faith with 20,000 of your own constituents. So I urge you to reconsider of putting this ballot initiative on the ballot as is with no added language and please do the right thing. I'm sorry, this is my last sentence. Please do the right thing. Honor your constituents and your voters and the residents of Douglas County and put this where it belongs with the clerk and recorder. Thank you very much.

Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate your comments. Next up, Mark Chester. Sir, if you could please come forward, give us your name, and tell us where you're from.

My handwriting is terrible, but it's Mark Custer, like the general, and I'm from Highlands Ranch. I'm a lifelong conservative, registered Republican, and a 2026 delegate to the Douglas County and state assemblies. As far as the... You know, I speak in favor of the... title of the thing, because it does need a fiscal note, though, that really should be, all this should be done just like the state does it with a separate LCS that writes a blue book that has all that kind of information in it. Should be clean and simple, like the language on the ballot. And my other comments are basically against your five, at large proposal. And ever since 2025, you guys and your shenanigans have been working hard to turn this county blue with all your crazy stuff I think you should be listening to Heating Michael Brown and his comments, and you should all be listening to the Rush to Reason show on 560 KLZ on Tuesdays. You need to know how to sell liberty and sell Republican values, not demand it. And that's my comments.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Custer. I appreciate your comments. Next one, I have, I'm gonna say DJ Harris. But ma'am, come on forward, give us your name, tell us where you're from. Please, by all means, correct the record as to your name.

Good morning, gentlemen. It's Christine Harris. I've been a resident of Douglas County for 23 years. I live in Castle Pines. I echo what everyone said about messing with the language of our ballot. To quote a county commissioner I heard just a little while ago, knock it off. What are you afraid of by leaving the language as it was written with the help of our city clerk the way it is? Quit messing around with us, with the language, with our democratic processes. Grow up, behave, and let the issue stand as it was written. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am, we appreciate your comments. Fascinating that the Caspine City Clerk helped with the writing, interesting. Maggie Beaveridge, please. Ma'am, once again, please give us your name, tell us where you're from.

Good morning, I'm Maggie Beveridge, and I live in Franktown. I represent the League of Women Voters of Arapahoe and Douglas Counties. The League of Women Voters is a nonprofit organization that is strictly nonpartisan. The League takes positions on selected issues that it believes are in the best interests of the county citizens based on studies conducted and the consensus of its members. The League of Women Voters supports voter-initiated measures, this voter-initiated measure, because it provides a broader citizen representation in a rapidly growing county. We are strong proponents of public participation in all levels of local government. We are also strong proponents of transparency in government. The 23,040 citizens who signed this petition and the 20,434 certified signatures came from citizens who acted in good faith to advocate for the issue presented to them. The title of the petition is an integral part of the document and thus of their understanding of what they were signing. Any ballot? That title must be clear, concise, and written to accurately reflect the intentions of the petition signers, all of whom are citizens of this county. No language should be added or altered in this ballot title that might change the signer's understanding of what they were advocating for when they signed the petition. The August 27th, 2026 directive from the county commissioners to the county legal Department to grammatically adjust the language in the petition's title must not alter the common understanding of the petition's intent. The plain English meaning of the petition must remain the same after any grammatical alteration as it was before. Any financial information related to the petition must be realistic and explained in detail. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Kim Carroll, please.

Good morning, my name is Kim Carroll and I've lived in Parker for close to 20 years. Citizen engagement is the heartbeat of effective local government. I know that to be true because it says it on your website. Several months ago, about 80 of your constituents, and I've now learned more than that even, decided that we wanted to engage. We followed all the rules. set out by the Secretary of State and our county clerk. We all took an online class to be allowed to carry a petition. We put on our purple T-shirts, we grabbed a clipboard, and set out to get others engaged in this thing called local government. We had more than 23,000 Douglas County taxpayers sign a petition based on very specific wording. Wording that was okay by the duly elected county clerk. 23,000 signatures that agreed the words they read should be on a ballot. And now today, weeks after you knew we made the ballot and days before the ballot is to be printed, in comes the BOCC and mansplains everything and changes the language that we, that the people, young, old, woman, man, Republican, Democrat, unaffiliated, all signed. I have points of concern beyond the obvious obstruction with we the people. Why are you adding the fiscal note to this in this way? We never shied away from the cost but we are honest that it is a fraction of a percent of the over $700 million budget. Your language does not indicate that and it is not statutorily required. This language was not on the Home Rule Initiative and that cost the taxpayers close to $700,000. Why is the language that it does not raise taxes buried in the middle? If we are putting fiscal information, let's have that front and center. My biggest issue is with the modifiers of the general fund. Based on the issue committee formed on August 25th with the state entitled Public Safety Funding Over Politician Pay, whose purpose it is. I'm getting there. Whose purpose it is to oppose efforts to add new county commissioners. This seems like purposely biased language. If you want the language to be neutral and biased, just say it costs this much and it doesn't raise taxes.

It would be very appreciated. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. That is everyone I had signed up to speak. Let's move along and bring it back to the board for deliberation of the resolution before us. We could take additional public comments if you guys would like to. Anyone else would like to speak, please? Let's go number one and number two. Come on forward. Ma'am, come on forward, give us your name and tell us where you're from.

Hi there. My name is Nicole Martin, and I'm from Parker, Colorado. And I would just like to take a moment and thank you guys for taking the time to really, especially the county manager, assistant county manager, to put together what it's actually going to take to support not only five county commissioners, but the support staff that will help them do their job effectively. One thing, Douglas County really is the light on the hill when it comes to conservatism and when it comes to fiscal responsibility. And I'm not necessarily against five, and I know I've heard a lot, I know a lot of people put a lot of time in, this 23,000 people, but there are probably 300,000 plus that didn't, that are not able to be here today. And so I would just, the only way you all can do your jobs effectively is if you have the right equipment, the right facilities, and the right support staff to be able to serve everyone that you're required to serve. This is not an eight to five job and I do not think your job should be cut back down to 95,000. Thank you for taking the time to hear everyone here. No matter what you do, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. But thank you guys for your time.

All right, ma'am. Thank you for your comments. We do appreciate it. And ma'am, give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

I'm Amity Wicks from Highlands Ranch and I just, I'm listening to all these comments. I have a couple of thoughts. One, I think it's really interesting that one of the justifications for not changing any language at all is that every single person who signed it knew what they were signing. I find that ridiculous because I've been around a lot of petitions and I've watched a lot of people sign them. Hardly anyone takes the time actually to read them. I do. And if it doesn't have any of the other information that's desired to be included here, people won't know that when they're signing. Usually they take the word for the person who's handing them this thing and say, this is what this is, and they go, oh, okay, great, thanks, and they walk away. So to use that as a justification to not give clarity to what this actually means when people actually go to vote for it is... I think laughable. I wonder why they don't want additional information for absolute clarity because people really should have a full picture of what the ramifications are for any ballot measure from any origin source. And so I wanna know how this is gonna affect my bottom line, how it's gonna affect our county's bottom line, and having that fuller picture right there as someone's going to vote I think is very helpful. So I'm definitely in favor of additional clarity however it comes because I think that actually does a service to our electorate. And I think we need actually more transparency. I think there's a lot, so many people here are complaining about transparency. This is it. We're giving people more information about the choice they're about to make. So to remove that information is doing exactly the opposite. So I am in favor of adding clarifying language to this ballot measure, thank you.

All right. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate it. Looks like we do have one additional public speaker at this stage of the game. Ma'am, please do. You're no stranger to the board, but please do give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

Thank you. I am Dana Bonham, and I live here in Castle Rock. And I'm helping someone move, so I put on my best moving clothes. I apologize for my presentation here. I heard a lot of comments about we the people wanted three to five commissioners. And I just want to say I'm part of the people that don't want five commissioners. So three is enough to do the job. I don't want to spend more money as a citizen of Castle Rock on more commissioners. It's been clear about what the cost will be. And for people who want to shine a light on Douglas County and Douglas County come out of the shadows, I would think the transparency in this ballot initiative would be just what they want. So tell us how much it's going to cost. Make it clear what this is going to cost every single citizen of Castle Rock. We're all strapped right now. We don't want higher taxes. We don't want to pay more money. Yet this is gonna come out of our general fund where public safety and all of those crucial services are going to be affected and I think people need to know that. So we shouldn't be afraid of the transparency in this ballot measure and we should welcome transparency, thank you.

All right, thank you ma'am, appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else who would like to make public comment at this time? All right, I'm bringing it back to the board for consideration of this resolution. Before we get going, I do want to address, I did hear a number of comments talking about how this seems to be hasty. I gotta tell you guys, on Tuesday following our business meeting, Angela Thomas came up and asked me to move with all possible haste. I'm not saying we're perfect, but we are trying to, and Angela, I take it you were one of the petitioners on this. I know you were a leader in the movement. I was trying to do what I look at as a fellow petitioner, because I ran one of these myself, along with Mary Wilson, who was a petitioner, to change the charter of Castle Rock several years ago. So I've got a lot of respect for the people who worked to bring this before us. I was trying to move hastily. If it looks sloppy, I apologize. I'll be the one to take this and say it's my fault. But this is what moving with all possible haste looks like. We will try to do our very best. We will try to be accurate. I assure you, if it wasn't for the accuracy, we would not have continued item 2B. We would have just tried to push it through and hope nobody noticed. We're trying to do it right, but we are trying to do it rapidly and make sure that we are in accordance with the request Angela made to me of moving with all possible haste. So with that said, I do need to start us off with a question for the county attorney. County attorney, it was part of your presentation. I ask you to return to the slide. We did hear from a number of people saying that we're not the appropriate titling board under Colorado State law. May I please ask you to... Just display the actual statute that brings us here today.

Yes, sir. So the county portion of the revised statutes require that we use the municipal section for ballot initiatives. This is the municipal section. And 3111.111 states that the legislative body, which for our county is the Board of County Commissioners, set the title.

All right, I hope that clarifies and helps out folks who had called that into question. Thank you very much. Board, I turn to you for deliberations on this resolution. Let's begin with any opening comments and then we can start parsing out because per the presentation, we do have a number of things to actually look at here in order to set this title. Opening comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, just the basic principle that transparency, voters deserve full economic transparency at the ballot box. A reference several times today is that we should put things in a blue book. The blue book is a reference to the state blue book, which is very informative and gets mailed along with the ballots to all the households a couple weeks before the ballots. We actually, at the county level, since this is a county initiative, this will not be included in the blue book. I believe there will be a blue book this November, but this measure won't be part of it. So I think just the base principle that voters deserve full economic transparency at the ballot box, I think we could argue for the need to include some sort of fiscal transparency, but it's not actually just that principle. It's CRS 14106, which is here before me. And if you read through the state statute, and specifically I'm at 140-106 here, omitting the cost of creating two brand new constitutional offices complete with their salaries, the payer benefits, administrative staffing, creates, constitutes, after reading through 140-106, a material omission that misleads voters into believing the structural expansion is cost-free or leaves it out of the question entirely. So providing an objective range that must be, and I encourage that to the fullest extent, must be grounded in county budget data ensures factual transparency. I don't want to guess at a speculative figure. I want to look at the numbers before us, and therefore, actually, if I could get displayed on the... Oh, that's our duties as the title in state law. That's 31. If we could go actually to the budget slide that shows the... It shows fiscal impact range. If there's, it's the green one. Has one-time cost.

Slide 24, I believe, is the one you're looking at, Commissioner. Yes, sir.

So this does leave us in a bit of a quandary as to how to proceed to best inform the voters, especially in lack of a Blue Book inclusion. The lowest number, and just going through this, the lowest number there assumes that we'll hire two new constitutional officers but not give them any staff or any benefit. Well, they'll have the healthcare benefits, but they won't have staff. dedicated to them, as is the case for the three of us. So that's the very low end. I actually don't view that as realistic, although mathematically could be done if we get two new commissioners and we just say, sorry, you don't get staff, you don't get any of the extra things that go along with being a commissioner. You just get your base pay and that's it. So I don't view the low one as realistic. Also, the high in there is based off of, I believe, is it Adams County? Their structure of government after they switched to five commissioners in the 2012 election. It was actually 2014 that that happened. I don't think we would go as big as Adams County did following their election in 2012. We do have inflation since that time, that's not calculated in these numbers. But if I could direct the board, at least as a starting point for the conversation, to kind of focus largely on those two middle numbers, throw out the bottom, which isn't realistic, throw out the top, could be done, but I don't think we as a county would grow at the same rate that Adams County did. So I think we largely focus on those two middle numbers and try to give the voters the best, and maybe we don't even pick a number, maybe we pick a range that we are confident. We know the low, we know the high, and we try to pick something realistic. in between there so that voters have full economic transparency at the ballot box.

All right, Commissioner Layton, opening comments on the subject? Of course, we did already have an idea put forward by our colleague. Speak to either, please.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the citizens for coming today. We certainly appreciate the democratic process. I was a government and political science major in college and value our constitutional republic and the ability of citizens to share their views with us. I find it remarkable that in a place where we're allowing and welcoming transparent public comment that we're being accused of not having transparent and public comment. But that aside, I'm going to turn to Commissioner Van Winkle's comments. I think it's really legally supportable and reasonable to throw out anything that might be unreasonable or an extreme, based on the expertise of Mr. Avery, who's, I believe, been with the county for, how long have you been here, Dan? 10, 15 years? 20 years, we celebrated your 20, two decades. believe you have the expertise to marshal the appropriate information with regard to cost. So I do like the notion of throwing out the low number and the high number, even though it might be supportable by the analysis, and keep the range as 1.35 to 1.9. And as a general matter, of course, appreciate the clear and transparent government expenditure with regard to this measure. 20,000 is a big number, but that's only 5% of our total population. I have been serving this county for eight years now. I know those I represent, and I know that they would really like to know what this is gonna cost them, and I think we heard some testimony from an individual that said a couple of things. about wanting more information. So I think errors of commission are better than errors of omission. Let's provide the fair and reasonable range that's supported by the expert. Thank you.

All right, I'll go right into it then. All right, so we dropped the lowest number, we dropped the highest number, so therefore, and then you're suggesting, Commissioner, a range that would read 1.3 million, essentially, to 1.9 million in the, where we saw, and, Councilor, you did have a slide that had the insert cost estimate kinda highlighted, so we would insert there. Are you sure, I mean, Because here's the deal. We're going to have, I am certain we are going to have Angela Thomas, and Angela, if I put words in your mouth, I will let you yell at me later. I am certain we will have her and her fellow leaders, supporters of this initiative who want to say, no, it's just 500,000. and are you sure we don't want a range where we acknowledge what she's going to be bringing to the debate i'm pretty sure and have it be 500 000 to 1.9 million i agree though yeah the three million i mean there are legal means for everyone each one of us to still be in office in uh january 2029 But none of that is certain. The three of us may be gone by that time, but I can't see us doing three million. I mean, I can't see staffing up in that way. So I am a-okay dropping the three million, and I am very much in favor of doing a range there. Are you sure, guys? We just don't wanna take the 500,000 in acknowledgement of what the proponents, the number that the proponents are gonna be using.

Well, Mr. Chair, I just don't view that as realistic, so I don't view that as being truthful with the voters. $500,000, that's pure, I mean, those two new commissioners would be treated incredibly different than commissioners currently and the other three commissioners, or all three commissioners, or all five. it would be very difficult to add two constitutional offices to the county at that price tag. So I think while the range could be 577 to 3.1 million, I think we try to narrow it in for something the most realistic possible while keeping it a range that acknowledges Things can change and decisions can be made later. One question I do have that I've been contemplating here is that slide has both ongoing costs and one-time costs. So I think when it comes, we wanna be as brief as possible. One, I don't want to touch much of the language that has been put forth. Keep that as the clear question before the voters. But when it comes to phrasing it, we do have a decision to make. Do we do something like an estimated one-time startup expense of X and estimated annual expenses ongoing of Y? Or do we almost just omit the one-time expenses, which is truthful, that there will be one-time expenses, but focus on essentially the out years, which the fiscal note from the state legislature That didn't do anything like that. It actually didn't take county expenses in whatsoever. It was purely the cost of elections and the immediate first year costs. So I think we need to determine what's best for the voters if they want to know one time costs and ongoing costs. or if we try to just keep it as brief as possible and talk about the ongoing costs, which I think realistically is probably between 800 and 1.4 million, something like that.

Yeah, I guess I would turn to staff and ask what is the most accurate and concise description of that reasonable range?

Dan Avery for staff. I think that there are a number of variables within the one-time costs. What's presented here is one option for renovation costs. I think either phrasing is accurate, and I defer to the board on how best to present that information in a way that is both concise and clear.

Dan, I'm gonna ask you to restate that again. It sounds like I'm being encouraged to ask you to speak a little louder, please.

I apologize, Commissioner. I was noting that the one-time cost includes a number of variables, as I noted, from a minor renovation of the Commissioner's office space to something more substantial. So there is some variability there. And then the one-time costs are obviously, the ongoing costs are dependent on overall staffing levels so i think characterizing the ballot language either way is certainly within your purview and and accurate as to fiscal impacts, but I'll let you determine what is most clear.

Here's my idea, is no, I don't think the voters need us necessarily to go into the level of detail, what is one-time cost, what is ongoing cost. I really feel like with this work that we've done, we can come up with something, but that's where I go, let's go 500,000 as our lowest range. Because we know, you know, no need to adopt the full 95,000 as the one-time cost. That ongoing, I think that ongoing, I'm pretty comfortable with that ongoing cost. And so it does accept what the ongoing cost is that we know because we can look in our own finances and establish what that is. As far as the one-time costs, The two of us will be here to make those decisions. And so I think we could probably pare that down. But that's where I go. I really think we need to set this base estimate at 500,000 because we've heard the leadership of the proponents of this measure. That's the number they're going to use. So that's why I like using it. But then let's turn back to your reasoning, Commissioner, of going with that 1.9 million. And I gotta be honest, guys, I wrote down two million. just to keep it simple for the residents. I don't know. But guys, I'm willing to hear more from you on this one. I am leaning towards... Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on, folks. I'm sorry, folks. We gave you an opportunity to speak to us. Please, we're deliberating. We're moving through this. Commissioner.

Mr. Chair, thank you. And I see our county manager is also here with his microphone on. But I am leaning towards, so there is no blue book for this measure. It's been mentioned several times that there should be. We could consider that at a future date. I'm not sure if we should or not. That question's not for today. The question for today is one time plus ongoing expenses or just ongoing expenses? And I think in the interest of maximum brevity to try to keep it as concise as possible for the ballot, I think I would want to focus on the permanent, ongoing fiscal impacts, essentially 2028 and beyond, for the voter. Just make it as concise as possible. And maybe we do consider a way to inform voters. We can't be in the state blue book, but I don't know. That's not a discussion for today, I suppose. So this will... We do have security here, I believe.

Hang on, guys, let the commissioners deliberate.

Outbursts or not.

County manager, if our friend from Highlands Ranch continues to have an issue, can I ask a staff member to ask him to maintain order? Commissioner, please continue.

I think that was my thought on the subject, that I'm leaning towards And I'm not sure, I'd love to hear from both of you about the one-time cost, if we include that at all, or if, I feel like we're not giving voters full information without those one-time costs, but at the same time, it really is those ongoing costs that we've seen from the other three counties presented today that I think is the most important information for a voter to have.

Yeah, I'm not persuaded that the typical reasonable way to manage this is throughout the high and the low even though both of them could be uh arguably reasonable based upon the evidence presented by staff i think the most the tightest the most concise and the most accurate is to throw out the high and the low and keep the focus on the middle range which is according to statute we have to be reasonable and i think those are extremely reasonable based upon the history of this county and the way that we've budgeted And maybe I'll turn to our county manager who's been with us for three plus decades and started out in budget. Any disagreement with that? Do you have a recommendation in terms of numbers?

Well, it's a matter of policy, but you're asking my opinion. I think it's important to keep in mind that this decision will be made by a board in the future. And so your only fixed cost is gonna be your salaries. And everything above that is an exercise of subjective decision making, whether it's capital or ongoing. So it's, to me, I mean, I'm just giving my opinion. Dirty here, right?

Hang on, hang on. Let's keep going.

To me, it's your base would want to be the bare minimum. And so as you've heard the debate, and I'm not part of the debate, there's arguments to do more. So staff, we wanted to capture the core bare minimum because what happens in the future, we don't know. There are ranges. And so if the question is just my opinion for what it's worth, and that's what you asked, I would include the bare minimum. Because that is a possible outcome. Everything else is subjective.

And that's not. I appreciate that. So what is a reasonable outcome based upon your history here?

think for the low range it is entirely a subjective exercise when you what we tried to do in the middle of the night last night is identify ranges of of how different organizations have answered these questions and they answer it differently so we're very lean and mean as as we witnessed with the posting today and that's on me that mistake You know, we've had commissioners, other counties have commissioners that have had a very common model of saying, we want one staff member assigned to each of us. Right now, we don't do that. We've had some commissioners, you know, talk about with five, do you do regional offices? There's places in the county that do that. So, I mean, in terms of what my, if you're asking me my guess, I think... Probably when I look at the data, I see more reasonable those middle ranges. That second one, which is the Arapahoe County model, would be my guess as to the range. But it's hard to say because it's made in decisions. I'd also say the next 30 years, or 30 years, the next 30 months is going to be a time, in my opinion, of unprecedented change. technology changes with agentic AI. And I think it's going to be unlike anything we've seen. And I don't know what that looks like. Partly why we're lean at four is because with retirements and other things, we're able to use that technology. So all these factors, to me, what we wanted to do is just capture there's a range. We tried to base it on in other counties, but it's a very dynamic change, so it's a tough call. Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

So jumping in then, what I'm hearing from you guys is you still wanna drop the lower estimate here, you still wanna get rid of the upper estimate. We are talking about acknowledging as the lower estimate the ongoing cost, And then I do think it would be appropriate to have the combined one-time and ongoing accounted for in the upper value. So here's my other thing, guys. I do not want to put a number on this ballot that ends in 472 or 322 or 356. I do not want us to get that granular in a ballot question before our people, because somebody's gonna say, no, you're wrong, you didn't carry the two. And they're probably right. So how about, would you guys be amiable then, ongoing cost in our plus two FTE is 760,000. How about we make that number for our lower estimate 750,000? And then our number on the upper end, I would say just $2 million. So that would be a range of $750,000 to $2 million in the template we were shown by the county attorney where it said insert cost estimate here. Thoughts, gentlemen? We probably want to get through this today.

Well, sir, that is, let's see.

Guys, let us talk about it. We did hear from you. Everyone was given their opportunity. Let us talk about this. Sir.

That is certainly an estimate that I think is realistic, both the low end and the high end. Given what we learned about our own county, given what we learned about the other counties with five commissioners, So the low end, well, I don't, 7.6, 7.50, I don't, I think if we did anything at 7.60, it would be the low end, and we could just make that even. The high end, I think two million may still be a bit high. Of course, three million would be the Adams County model of five commissioners. I think that's, we could do that and defend it, but I also don't think that is as realistic as a 1.9 million, something like that. So I think given the facts before us today, I'd do a 760 on the low end, and then I think maybe high end is a separate discussion. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, because if we're just doing ongoing costs, which I'm leaning towards, It doesn't fully inform the voter, but it is maximum brevity while giving them some more information than they currently have. So, I mean, if you really wanna do around numbers that we could, that is easily defensible, it'd be 800 to 1.2 million. Actually, sorry, 1.3. But I think 760 to 1.3 million is accurate. will be what the future would look like under five commissioners in Douglas County. It would be somewhere in there. 760, 1.3. Okay.

Commissioner, what's your thoughts?

You know, obviously there's three of us here. I really haven't changed in my view, but obviously you guys can make a decision that is different than where I'm at. We've asked our staff to be hyper-specific and work extremely hard to give us accurate numbers. So I like a specific number because they have it and they've done the math. They've crunched the numbers. I have no reason to believe that 1,353,472 isn't reasonable because I know that Dan and Doug literally did the math on that. I don't disagree that in some rare scenario we could have an incredibly low number like 577. I think that's possible. I don't think that's reasonable and I don't think that's realistic. I also don't see the three million as realistic either. I think that would be, that's also possible, future boards could go that high. To me, the most reasonable and legally defensible numbers are the two in the middle. And keep it accurate because it's defended by the work of our staff. So that's where I'm at, but obviously you two can weigh in and can make a decision on this.

Okay, all righty. Okay, so I said $758,000 as my second preferring for the lower end. Kevin here at $760,000. Abe used to like the 1.3. If I'm doing really bad Greeley Public School math, a place in the middle there could be a $1 million minimum. What do we think about that?

I mean, that's lower than the reasonable number, but if that's the consensus of the board and we have staff support, that's defensible and I'll agree to that. Kevin, what do you think to that?

You said low end one million?

That's where I'm hearing none of us are at the same number. So I'm throwing that out as a lower end number that we could defend. And yet it is a nice round number for the electorate to contemplate.

I think that's actually incredibly realistic. However, I think to give us extra leeway, I mean, you look at what El Paso and Adams and Arapahoe done, that's, I mean, that would actually be at the low end, I think. But I think to give us maximum latitude, we do find a number below, I think one, we should do a range.

I concur, I'm with you on that. I haven't heard us disagree with doing a range. I'm just trying to get us to establish what that low end number should be. and we're willing to stand by, because then we're gonna, once we say yes to a number, then we're gonna move to the high end estimate.

I would propose that we stick to, we use the term, we use maximum brevity, we use the term ongoing estimated, and while I think one million is realistic, I think we just, give ourselves and future boards a little wiggle room to be extra conservative and do 800,000. Or if you wanna be incredibly tight budgeted, then 760,000 as the low end.

All right, we don't need unanimity, but.

I'm just looking at the slide right there. I think seven, we look at, we ignore one-time costs. Voters should be informed about that, but we don't want to bog the language down too much. We want maximum brevity. We focus on ongoing estimated. Now, actually, that's, Ms. Counselor, I have a question for you.

Yes, sir. Can you hear me?

I keep going back and forth in my mind one-time costs versus ongoing estimated costs. My gut thinks we should focus for just the title on ongoing estimated costs into the future, but is there a legal perspective that we should look at here to include both, or would it be wise? Ongoing estimated is something I see quite often in titles.

You know, the term used in the state statute is preliminary estimate of maximum dollar amount of the change in state or local government revenue and a fiscal year spending.

And fiscal year spending. Wait, say that again. Read that one more time. Sure, counselor.

A preliminary estimate of the maximum dollar amount of the change in state and local government revenue and fiscal year spending. And I'm looking at 140-105.5. i have to have that right here before me um but it says maximum it doesn't even contemplate a minimum it says maximum i think that the goal of this is is to provide fact right to be factually true in the statement so i do think that a range would be appropriate because it would be a range could be factually true okay well thank you counselor i do believe that's helpful um

And I think that directs me to focus on those numbers on the screen. 760,000 to 1.32 million. Purely the ongoing estimated. and we hope voters will somehow find out that there will be one-time expenses. And that's just basic stuff like we'll have to have a redistricting commission, we'll have to onboard people, we'll have to get staff, because while AI is playing a key role, I can't imagine a state representative not having a legislative aid or a commissioner, not having an assistant to help, at least with scheduling and things like that. So I'm tempted to put ongoing estimated costs at $760,000 to 1.32 million. And that's, I think, incredibly conservative given what we've seen from other counties.

All right, I got, we're back at 760,000. as the low end of the estimate, I'm probably okay with that. I can be okay with that. Commissioner, strong objections?

No, if you two are both there, I think I heard a good argument for why that makes sense, and we're erring on the low side.

So, Councilor, I think the amendment, essentially, that I'm proposing is changing average, which suggests, to me, that's more of a historical calculation. Ongoing estimated is common finance terminology under how we do our gap principles and how businesses do it. I think it accurately signals expanding the board is not a one-time capital outlay. In fact, we're ignoring the one-time costs, but a permanent reoccurring baseline. that citizens will expect if the measure were to pass. So I think change average to ongoing estimated and a second amendment would be to include 760,000 to 1.32 million. Make the numbers round but accurate within, well, 2,000 some dollars. And actually going on the low.

I think that's low. Commissioner, what do you think? Now we're focusing on the higher end of this estimate. $1.3 million is preferred. What are your thoughts?

I agree with Commissioner Van Winkle's analysis. I think he's thought through this really carefully, and to me that makes sense. I think we are leaving out the one-time costs. And frankly, if we included them, the number would be higher, but err on the side of the lower estimate. So I support that.

I mean, with the, all right, well, I think we're eliminating the one-time cost, which I think could be real, but with the idea that we changed the language that was preferred by the county attorney to ongoing estimated cost instead of average annual cost, I mean, I think that's defensible with our methodology of throwing out the high end and the low end. All right, I'm okay with that.

Well, Mr. Chair, I'm not sure if motions are required. Essentially, it would be an amendment.

Well, hang on, guys. We're a little early for a motion, I think. We're still on step one of the language that was offered to us to be... to be discussed. So let's, I think we have an estimated cost that we're in agreement we can have. So at an average, at an ongoing estimated cost of $760,000 to $1.3 million, I think we are set and solid there.

Yeah, maybe it would help the board and if it pleases the chair, I noticed that staff is taking notes of the modifications. You've heard us have consensus around the modification. My suggestion is that we have a final version presented to us following deliberations and then a motion on that final adopted measure.

You know, I'm also taking notes too, fellas, and I can show you my notes. I promise we'll all have something good for us by the time, and I'm sure with the support of staff, it'll be great.

Mr. Chair, I didn't mean to confuse things by suggesting a motion. I was referring to, should we do a motion for... The initial said average annual. If we change average annual to ongoing estimated, should we have a motion specific to that or we just continue to take notes and have a motion on the amended version at the end? I believe voting on the amended end version would be perfectly proper.

Well, I'm okay with changing the language that we were preferred by staff as recommended to at an ongoing estimated cost of. Then I think we've worked out that we're all three comfortable with $760,000 to $1.3 million. I think we're all.

We round down in the one case, we round up in the other case. a few extra dollars of range.

I'm telling you, man, you're killing me. You're killing me. You really, we're gonna, see, okay, so I'm a voter. I'm George Thiel, the fat guy that lives at 931 Eagle Stone Drive. And I'm saying, because by golly, they needed to make that extra $20,000 on the ballot.

That's fine.

All right? Okay, 1.3 mil. Fellas, are we set? Now we can do a motion, it's okay. But it would be for us. We don't have finished product for staff yet.

Yeah, I think a finished product motion would be proper. I don't know, it'd be too many splitting of hairs to do each word on the motions, but.

Yeah, I think you're correct there. Okay, so fellas, let's move forward. All right, so the next phrase that we could mess around with is from the general fund, which provides funding for public safety, transportation, and other county services.

you know ensure before you move on i think you made an important comment i just want to clarify for the record does staff disagree with that final range or that language in any way any objection to that i mean honestly your range is what's up there right so the question is whether or not the board can ever see foresee going to three million dollars and i don't believe the board has said that they could foresee them going that to that uh rate and i also um don't believe that the board has said that they would deny their fellow commissioners staff So I think that that is a fair range. That being said, the total range is what's on the board. What actually could occur in Douglas County or what would be the appetite of Douglas County is not that. It would not be denying staff. It would not be adding 11 staff. So I believe that what you've come up with is a representation of what the commissioners are saying.

Okay, so you don't disagree with the 760,000 to 1.3?

Not if the board doesn't believe that they would ever deny their fellow colleagues, staff, or believe that they would go up to $3 million.

Okay, great. Dan, any issues with that language? Doug? Okay.

Let's move along, gentlemen. Our next phrases are from the general fund, which provides funding for public safety, transportation, and other county services.

Okay. I think that's fair. I think we're done with the fiscal range conversation. I do actually have one. I use the term cost over and over. The term expense actually is one that is I think maybe more precise statutorily in accounting. So.

So you're talking an ongoing estimated expense.

Expense as opposed to cost. It's silly or it seems silly but I think it's more statutorily. in line with also one of the things we also have to do here gentlemen is make it as plain english as possible so that the average voter who has no knowledge no campaign materials nothing can read it understand it and cast a clear vote so i think when it comes to little things like changing cost to expense it may seem insubstantial, but I think what the goal is is to something that any voter can read and perfectly understand. So I just, it's simple, but I propose we do ongoing estimated expense versus ongoing estimated cost.

My thesaurus says that would be okay, so okay. At an average ongoing estimated expense of $760,000 to $1.3 million,

And that brings us, Mr. Chair, to from the general fund. Is that a term that a regular voter can understand is that it is probably the most precise term from a government accounting perspective, so we can keep it from that perspective. If we wanted to use a term like paid from county revenues, just to make it a little more plain English for the average voter, we could consider that, but I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way to do it. Mr. Councilor, I may ask you, should we use the precise term for the account that it would come from, or should we use something just a little more plain English in terms of county revenues versus general fund?

No, and to the point, I'm not married to any of the language up there. I'm perfectly... okay with it all being changed to be fair but i did believe that in giving that qualitative outcome of what this would actually affect and the difference between raising taxes versus cutting services and we do have a budget right we have a finite amount of money that comes into the county so there would be things that would be paid would not be paid for because some is going to sell or you're going to to other costs of the board so um The general fund is not a easily recognizable term. It's a term we use in government accounting pretty frequently, but if you wanted to change that, that'd be perfectly okay. I do think that there needs to be some kind of distinction around that, though, where the funding's coming from, whether it's taxes or services or something like that. I think one of the speakers earlier said, you know, you could cut it down to just the cost. That would be true, too. It's really up to the board in making sure that we're giving the best information we can to inform the voter.

Okay, do you guys have a strong opinion? I don't have a strong opinion. I go back and forth. It's a legal term of the fund. It's also not as understandable for the average voter, I think, who doesn't follow our budgeting process.

Do you have any suggested alternatives? I think I heard maybe a couple.

So let me jump in then. I was A-okay with from the county general fund. I think if we keep general fund there, we gotta say county. On the other hand, Kevin, you said from the county revenues. I could be okay with that too.

I would suggest, and this is just me, but paid from county either funds or from county revenues. And if we think, our legal advice doesn't seem to imply that we need to use the actual term of the account. It's splitting hairs, but our job is a title board, so to make it as common as possible.

What do you think?

So what's your suggested language? from county funds or, yeah, from county funds or county revenues, probably county funds. That makes the most sense to me. If I'm a voter, it's like, okay, you're gonna pay it from the county's funds. Okay, that makes sense. It's coming from the county POP.

Well, I mean, if we're being completely clear, we don't have any money. The money is the people's. I mean, I see that as county tax dollars. Right, the money isn't ours, the money comes from the people of this county.

I hesitate to put the word tax in here because I think if I was a proponent of it, I would, I don't know, I would be, I would not want, if I was proposing this and I was pushing it, I don't know if I'd want the word tax.

Fair, but I would say our job today is to not be partisan. So it's not about supporting the proponents and we cannot support those that oppose. We know that there are a lot of people that oppose this. We know there's a lot of people that support it. So I think tipping the scales in favor of either group is not wise. I think your question is what is the most accurate and intelligible for the average citizen?

And I think, I believe that would be county funds.

If the goal is brevity in this and to make it as less wordy as possible, by using the word revenue, I think you probably could drop without raising taxes because revenue is the taxes. That's how we get property tax. That's our revenue. That's the money that comes in. So by using that, you could drop without raising taxes.

Which I do want to do because I do believe that's a term out of TABOR, which has nothing to do with this.

I would support that too. So what is your suggestion?

I would use county revenue then instead of county funds because it talks about the source and the source of our revenue is largely property tax. We have some sales tax, but largely property tax.

Okay, so I propose that we make it from county revenues.

I support that and support the recommendation of county council.

All right, I'm okay. So in an ongoing estimated expense of 760,000 to 1.3 million from county revenues, which provide funding for. So from the general fund, the general fund has been eliminated to read now from county revenues. Do we wanna consider, I just heard a little bit of back and forth between Kevin and the county attorney of eliminating the phrase further on that we see here in white of without raising taxes. Do we wanna take that part up?

Thank you. Yeah, I think Kevin makes a good, Commissioner VanWinkle makes a good point that that's addressed at the top with the suggestion made by council, county revenues.

Yeah, I also support it because it's standard TABOR specific language. This has nothing to do with raising taxes, it's not lowering taxes, it's off topic, and from a pure governance structure, it's just changing the structure of government. It's not raising or lowering taxes, so Taxpayer Bill of Rights is not, I think it's unnecessary clutter that confuses things, and if I was a pro, well, yeah, we can't look at it from the proponent or opponent. Yeah, I wouldn't want the, I wouldn't want tax questions mixed in with the structure of government questions. Because that wasn't, they're the will of the signers, so.

All right, I'm not going to argue against it. So without raising taxes has been eliminated. Let's move back to the middle. We're dealing with the phrase from county revenues. And actually, go ahead.

Which provides funding for, we can simplify that, remove some letters, some words, and just make it that support. It's more plain English to me.

I'm not tracking.

county revenues that support as opposed to county revenues which provide funding for. Yeah, that's concise.

Okay.

And actually under, well, that takes us, I don't know.

Keep going.

I don't wanna use terms. It's tempting to use terms like we'll reduce services, we'll reduce funds available for, I think that would be putting the thumb on the, that could be interpreted as pushing one way or another. So I think just by saying that supports. And then we can, the reason, the next conversation will be the three topics, which is state law. Are we in agreement on that supports?

Yep, me too.

All right, you wanna take us into the next piece of what the three topics suggested of public safety, transportation, and county services?

And the reason for even doing that, it comes from the CARL revised statutes. Now, We are a statutory county, we are not home rules, so we must look to the legislature and to our Colorado laws for guidance. And the Colorado laws are very clear that voters are entitled to know what's going to be affected by any revenue changes or expenditure changes. And it specifically says that the state of Colorado in state law that the major programs, and it lists three, let's see. The three largest areas of program expenditures must be stated. So if we're going to provide the information to people, state law takes it a step further and asks for three areas. Right now we have our two biggest parts of the pie, which are public safety and transportation. That's our sheriff's office, that's our helitack, that's our firefighting, transportations. We use more money on transportation than like the next biggest counties combined. I know more than Adams, Jeffco, Arapahoe combined and Boulder combined. So those are the two biggest just from a structural perspective. The question I have is other county services. I'm not sure. It tries to encompass the rest of the pie. That would be human services, it'd be veteran services, senior services, things like that. I don't wanna, while tempting, I would love to put in there snow plows and senior services. I think that might be a bit too descriptive. I think just simply stating essential county services as the third option.

I would agree with that.

All right, well, first of all, I was totally gonna fight you about keeping public safety and transportation in there because that's, every year I've been here, that's 80.

Oh, wait, you're suggesting taking that out?

No, no, no, no, he didn't suggest taking it out. I was gonna fight him about it, though, because what he started, sorry, Kevin, but just because at any given year, public safety and transportation is between 80 and 90% of this county's budget.

Yeah, I was gonna fight on that, too. It's just such a massive component of what happens here.

So, but, I mean, I think 80 to 90% is two topics. 89% of the budget is two topics. So then it just feels to me if we were to truly stick to the letter of the law that you referenced, Commissioner, then we would be parsing. Okay, what is... what is 4.7% versus 5%, you know what I mean? So I'm A-okay, I heard, that supports, and then public safety, transportation, and essential county services. I think that looks okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And to be clear, there's no, I don't think there's a right way and wrong way to do this. 141.05, we just need to be as clear as possible, as concise as possible. I was trying to find the, got so many statute references here. Yeah. I think the spirit of the legislative intent does imply three, so I think that third catch-all bucket is necessary, just other essential county services. Now, the rest of it after that is shall the membership of the Douglas County Board of Commissioners be increased, actually, from a three-member board to a five-member board? Now, That is the plain stating of the question. Thought I had one word I saw that was missing there. But frankly, I don't wanna mess with the question being asked. I wanna give a full picture and effect on what it's going to do, but for the question being asked, I think we minimize any edits there. What is the, if you could put up, do we, we may not have it, do we have the question? I have it. Let me pull it up here. Here it is. If the Mauritian... Okay. Mr. Chair, if I could look into my statute book here for just a moment. I thought there was one word I wanted to change in the question.

All right. Well, I'm going to say, yeah, go ahead, but it better be a really good word because I think we've... I'm okay right now. I think we've done our duty to the people of Douglas County. We heard from proponents. We've heard from opponents today. And by the way, I remind my colleagues, I've done a petition effort here in the town of Calcerock Now we're at the meat and potatoes of what was actually on the petition and better be a really good word to add.

No, Mr. Chair, and it's not necessary. Maybe I think in the sense of brevity, we leave it off. Technically it'd be the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners, but I don't, so it'd be importing the word county there. I don't, that's probably not necessary. Douglas County Board of Commissioners is perfectly fine. So I don't think we changed the question being asked

I'll just say as a commissioner and a lawyer, I greatly appreciate the depth and the intensity with which my colleague is exploring statute. Obviously, you had a long and storied career as a representative and state senator, so I know you're very familiar with statute. I tend to agree with the chair. Looking at this in front of me, this seems like the most brief, concise, accurate, realistic description of what's going on here. So I do support this language.

The only thing that I'm seeing that staff took care of that I had recorded that I see a discrepancy here is from county, we had said revenues, that's what I recorded. We have staff recorded county revenue. Board, do we need to make further correction to notes of staff? You didn't, Dan, you didn't have to do that, man. Revenue might have been any okay just because I recorded something else. Board, what do you think? Do we need revenues or revenue that supports? Or is it great right now?

Revenue is plural, I believe.

Yeah, it'd be revenues plural. It would be because we have several sources of revenue.

Cool. Okay. In that case, what I see up there is correct. That's what I, the notes I was keeping. Great job, Dan. Well done. All right, let's continue on. So I think that is going to be the first question on the ballot per state law. I think we got that set right now. No need for a motion at this time, guys, because this is what we want captured in the resolution. If everybody notices, that is what our staff has done, is actually changed the wording on the resolution. All right, let's go down to what will be the second question on the, the second question on the ballot. Okay, so notice we do have the suggested amendments from staff up there already, and staff did not suggest changing the question of if the membership of the Douglas County Board of Commissioners is increased from three members to five member board, by what method shall the Board of Commissioners be elected? Staff did not suggest any change there that is from their petition. You guys want to get into that or are we okay with that? Because I thought that looked okay. I don't see a need to make a change there. I'm comfortable with that. We're talking about the text between yes, no, and vote for what?

No changes for me, although. Go ahead, Commissioner. It's the same question as before. Do we use the actual legal term, which is Board of County Commissioners? That's the legal term in law, but it seemed like before we were okay just using Douglas County Board of Commissioners.

I think of our barometer as clarity. We're okay because saying county twice would be duplicative.

Yeah, I agree. It's not what's in the Constitution and the statute books, but I don't think any voter would be confused by it.

Let's ask our county attorney.

Jeff, any issue with that legally? I think both of them are acceptable. The commissioner is correct that it is the Board of County Commissioners, but Douglas County Board of Commissioners I think is understandable, and I think that it would be a fair reference. Okay. Okay. Moving on, sorry, no edits.

All right, so let's turn our attention, gentlemen, then to the text below, vote for one. And the change that we had suggested is making sure that district commissioners are capitalized, kind of like a title, and then who reside, because I think in our analysis during the executive session, and gentlemen, you need to stop me too much. You need to stop me if I go too far to breach confidentiality of the executive session, but I think all three of us felt it was very important to clarify is that five districts who reside in districts to be elected only by the voters resident in the district. I think it was very important for us to clarify, yeah, those new five district commissioners have to reside in those districts. Questions, concerns?

Well, actually, some of that should be highlighted up there because it is a change. The original ballot language stated five commissioner resident in districts, which if I'm the average voter, five commissioner resident in districts, it just seems much cleaner to say five district commissioners who reside in districts.

And that was the request for grammatical, make it a little easier to read. um they to give credit to the the petitioners they're trying to use the language out of the um state statute as close as possible but even adams when they um you put the same measure on they did that made the same similar correction just so that people understand um i believe the the original petition language said five commissioners resident in districts and and that was difficult to understand i even gave that a little bit of a smell test with a couple folks in my office and they had a difficult time understanding what that was and i hopefully five district commissioners who reside in the districts is a little clearer and now if you'd like to take the step further i think you could look at what um if the the phrasing for the description of the voters would like to be changed as well but i think that's uh voters resident in the district is a little clearer than that that first phrase was five districts residing districts to be elected by

I would change only to be in front of voters elected only by the voters residing in the district. That may add clarity as well. To me, just the original language does it. Five commissioner resident in districts to be elected by the voters only in the voters resident in district. I think there's just a better way for that to be plainly understood by the voters without changing any of the meaning whatsoever. And I do think I tried to add clarity to this, but I also was trying to be thoughtful to not change their question. Five district commissioners who reside in districts to be elected by the voters only by the...

I like the idea for clarity of saying five district commissioners who reside in those districts. those districts to be elected by voters only by the voters who reside in the district.

I'm with that. Replace resident with who reside is what I would suggest, just like you did, Commissioner. What do you think, Kevin?

It would be good to see it on the screen, I think, what Commissioner Layton just said, and also probably the original.

And then below that, oh, sorry, Chair, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, Dan, can we make that change? You had no sweat. So in the second line on what is displayed for question one starts by the voters resident in the district. Please change it to by the voters who reside in the district. All right, fellas, take a look at that.

Do you want to add the word only again somewhere? Because I think only is an important word in this.

Elected only by the voters who reside in the district.

Yeah, get only right there, Dan.

That's super clear.

Okay, check it out, fellas. We good with that now? By the way...

I'm district commissioners who reside in those districts...

I mean, I do believe that captures the desires. I think that correctly captures the intent of the petitioners.

I have something to throw out. Go ahead. Five district commissioners residing in separate districts elected only by the eligible electors residing in each respective district.

Nah, you might have to say that again for me.

Five district commissioners residing in separate districts elected only by the eligible electors residing in each respective district.

Oh, you murdered Brevity.

Brevity's dead.

Yeah, you kind of killed Brevity there, buddy. But, I mean, I can understand where you're coming from.

Okay. So five district commissioners who reside in those districts to be elected only by the voters who reside... I feel like it needs further work, guys.

That seems super brief and super clear to me.

I guess I don't understand, Kevin, where the contradiction is. I'm not necessarily seeing a contradiction.

I think the term those districts...

How about their districts? T-H-E-I-R. You have to reside in their district.

That makes sense. Reside in their districts to be elected only by the voters who reside in their district. Or the district. Five district commissioners who reside in their districts to be elected only by the voters who reside in

Their respective district?

Or you're good with that?

Their districts. I think I'm good with it.

I guess the only other question would be at-large component. Is there an at-large issue we need to address in that one?

I think we need to mirror the language in the second question for sure. So the changes we made in the first, we should mirror in the second. And then how you'd like to...

Yeah, remember, this is the element of the question that the at-large county commissioners are eliminated through the asking of this question, and it's only district-based, so I don't think we have to say anything about at-large. Here, next one down, we do. All right, I'm good with it. Abe, sounds like you're good with it, as written. Kevin, we don't need unanimity. However, I'm willing to hear any concerns you still have.

No, I think we made it more clear than it was before. I am tempted to make it even more clear for each voter, but it also requires changing their language even more. So I think this is a good middle ground.

Okay, let's consider that good to go. Let's turn to question number two, which is really option number two. Three district commissioners who reside was a modification that staff suggests in the districts to be elected only by the voters resident in the district. and two at-large commissioners to be elected by the voters of the whole county. I do think we need to consider changing the language for the first part where it talks about the three district commissioners to make sure we're mirroring up against the first option. So five district commissioners who reside and reside. Thank you, Dan. And districts to be elected by the voters. Elected by the voters, only by the voters. We've got too many by the voters, only by the voters. So elected only. So Dan, move down to the end of the line, please. And then come back and... Okay, now you can start deleting, Dan. Or there you go, I think you're on it. You're on it, man, go ahead.

I'm gonna appoint a personal privilege chair scheduled to be back in my district at one, which I'm gonna be terribly late for. I know this is critically important, but just wanted to advise the board of that.

Yeah, I really feel like we're almost done here, but you bet.

I gotcha, I gotcha, brother.

All right, gentlemen, please cast your attention there.

That makes sense to me.

I kind of like that, fellas.

Yeah, I don't think it changes at all the original intent of how those two options would be.

I think it provides the clarity needed. All right, gentlemen. Sounds like we're in agreement. What we see right now is the resolution under consideration for adoption. Folks, come on now. You did have your opportunity. We're either gonna get this done or we're not gonna get this done. I think some of you want us to get this done. All right. Gentlemen, does this look like a resolution we could adopt?

Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion if it pleases the board to adopt the ballot title for the Douglas County BOCC expansion three to five members voter initiated petition as recommended and discussed today.

Heard. And I will second the motion, Mr. Chair.

All right, second is heard. There is a motion and a second. Further discussion?

I'll just ask for additional clarity. Any objection from our expert staff as to any of the language today?

No objection to the language, sir. I would say in the motion itself as edited in the meeting today.

Okay.

I'll accept that as a friendly amendment.

I'll second the amended amendment. Motion.

You can just, a motion to accept the amend, second to accept the amend.

Mr. Chair, one further just point of clarity. Changing nothing substantially, if staff finds out later there needs to be like a comma somewhere, it doesn't change any meaning, doesn't add or subtract words. Do we want to allow staff to make those changes or we wanna title set it right now in stone? I think we wanna title set it right now in stone.

Well, you know, the ballot title will be fixed on the adoption of this resolution. If we are concerned, if staff has concerns that there is a comma missing, please advise the board at this time. If there is a member of the board who feels that there is a comma missing, please draw the attention of the rest of the board. I was a history major, the comma count looks great.

I have no concerns in the resolution.

I read it one additional time after reading it probably 50 times, so yes, it looks good to me.

Okay, well there's a motion and a second. Any further discussion, gentlemen?

Oh, actually, Mr., I just, under Colorado law, our duties as a title board in the legislative policy established by actually more than one legislative bill that gives us at least guidance as to which direction to go, ballot titles must provide complete objective financial transparency, And we don't wanna conceal those financial consequences of two additional constitutional officers. Adding two constitutional officers commits hundreds of thousands of dollars to permanent recurring operational expenses. And I think pointing out by legislative direction at the very minimum, revenues that fund public safety, transportation, and essential services gives the voters a much more full and complete picture of what they're voting for without changing the ultimate goal or question being asked of increasing the board from three to five commissioners. Just wanna ensure that Douglas County citizens have the essential economic facts before them when they vote. and have a core clean message that is fair, it's clear, it's not transparent. We didn't include any terms whatsoever that could be seen as campaigning or catchphrases, argumentative language or sloganeering. I don't see any of that here, just full transparency at the ballot box. And there is no county blue book. We can't be part of the blue book, but I don't know, might be worth I guess we can't debate that today. That's a whole different subject that we may not do. So with that, Mr. Chair, I think we have a good product before us here for the voters.

All right. Commissioner, any further discussion?

Nope. Clean, clear, accurate. I believe the 400,000 plus we represent will have a very, very concise and clear idea of what they're voting on.

Well, I concur with my colleagues. I speak in favor of the motion. I know a couple members of the public had mentioned, listen, you didn't give us a cost estimate for home rule. Okay, I hear you. I accept that as a failure of that measure. I learned a lesson. Lesson learned. We are going to apply it here. Quite frankly, guys, I believe the cost is the cost. And we have a way to demonstrate there will be a cost there. But there's always been an estimated cost. We have heard from several of the leadership of the proponents, there was a cost always mentioned. This is the cost that we have been able to use county resources to nail down, and I would mention, we threw out the highest estimate, based on some of your comments, by the way. that that highest estimate was far too high. So I think this is good. I think this is good, clear ballot language for the people of Douglas County to consider. And I speak in favor of the motion. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? There is a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. And the resolution is adopted. Well, thank you everyone. This is our only business for the day. This concludes and we will resume Monday morning at 8.30 on August 31st, 2026 to take up the continued resolution. Thank you all for coming. We are adjourned.