Board of County Commissioners Business Meeting - Regular Meeting

All right. Commissioner, are you ready to go? Yes. All right. All right. If we will, please come to order. Welcome, everyone, to the Board of County Commissioners Special Business Meeting. It is Monday, August 31st, 2026. The Special Business Meeting is a continuation from our August 28th, 2026 Special Meeting. At this time, if everyone will 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.

All right, thank you, Councilor. Commissioners, any disclosures for items on the agenda today? No, sir. All right, I have none either. Thank you, gentlemen. Let's get into our regular agenda. We do have a 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. Jeff Garcia, Douglas County Attorney, presenting for staff.

All right. Thank you, counselor. Questions for the county attorney?

For me, Mr. Chair, it seems pretty straightforward.

My question for the county attorney is, so we can see demonstrated that Adams County had the three legal options for expansion to five commissioners as part of their ballot measure. That was not included by the three to five petitioners. My question is, which one did Adams County voters choose to pursue?

Okay, so they did actually choose the five at large commissioners. All right, I think those are my questions for the county attorney. Board, another opportunity to ask any questions of the county attorney?

Perhaps later, Mr. Attorney. One is noodling around my mind. But we can hear from the public first, and then I can ask legal questions.

Okay. Cool, cool. In that case, let's go to public comment. I do have people scheduled to speak on public comment. First person up, Della Ingrondo. Della Ingrondo. D? I think it's... Come on up, Della. Della, you are no stranger to members of the board, but please do give us your name. Tell us where you're from, ma'am.

Bye. All right. Thank you very much, ma'am. We appreciate your comments.

Ma'am, if you could please give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

Okay, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Next up, I have Bill Jack. And Bill, please give us your name again and tell us where you're from. Good morning, commissioners.

All right, thank you, sir. We appreciate your comments. Mark Custer. Mark, give us your name again and tell us where you're from, sir.

Sir, if you could please wrap up your comments, please.

Sir, if I could please ask you to wrap up your comments. Thank you so much. Appreciate your comments, sir. Sue Pro... Pantioco. Hey, all right, ma'am. Come on up and correct my pronunciation.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Paul Ackerman, please. Sir, if you could please give us your name and tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, sir. Folks, please hold applause. This isn't a Trump rally. Let's go ahead and conduct ourselves. See, they thought it was funny, Kevin. I thought it was funny too, but thank you all. But let's hold off. I appreciate you thought my joke was funny. That's great. But let's hold off on applause. And I will say at this stage of the game, let's everybody show some respect to your neighbors who may be here and who may be listening. Moving along, Julie Ort, please. And Julie, you are no stranger to the board, but please come on forward, give us your name, tell us where you're fr

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Laura Thomas. Ma'am, you're no stranger to the board, but if you could please give us your name, tell us where you're from.

Thank you, ma'am, appreciate your comments. We'll try to answer that question after public comment. Thank you, Commissioner, good point. Kim Turnage, ma'am, I invite you to please correct the pronunciation of your name and tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Rachel Lesser, please. Ma'am, please give us your name and tell us where you're from.

Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate your comments. Mary Wilson, please. Mary, you're now a stranger to the board. Please give us your name. Tell us where you're from. Mary Wilson, Castle Rock, Colorado.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments, Mary. Cheston Harris, please. Ma'am, please give us your name, correct my pronunciation, and tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, ma'am, appreciate your comments. Angela Thomas, please. Angela, please do give us your name, tell us where you're from.

Thank you, ma'am. Let's hold applause, folks. Thank you, Angela. Appreciate your comments. Kim Carroll, please.

Does she decide on her own to hold that option for voters? That's a good question.

Ma'am, please give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, ma'am. We appreciate your comments. All right, Kurt Jacobson, please. Sir, please give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. Bob Marshall, please. And representative, please do give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, Representative. We appreciate your comments. Let's hold the applause, folks. Dan Smith, please.

He's really good at imputing the motives of other legislators, or nor us.

Yeah. Mr. Smith, please give us your name.

Mr. Smith, you're straying from the topic at hand, kind of getting into the topics we had on Friday. Can I ask you to return to the topic? Yes.

Thank you, sir. We appreciate your comments. Stacy Rogers. Stacy, you're no stranger to certain members of the board, but please do give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

Please be sure to address the board, please.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. George Jackson, please.

All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. That concludes those who I have signed up for public comments. Is there anyone else who would like to give public comment at this time? Ma'am, up front here, please. Please come forward, give us your name, tell us where you're from.

Ma'am, if you could please wrap up your comments. Oh, thank you very much. We appreciate your comments, ma'am. I think I had other folks who would like to give public comment. Ma'am, please come forward. Give us your name. Tell us where you're from. I see you in the back.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. I had a hand raised in the back. Come on forward. Amy, you're no stranger to the board, but please come forward, give us your name, tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else who would like to give public comment? Ma'am, come on forward. Look at that, Stacey. I called on Casey Neal to come forward and give public comment. Casey, you are no stranger to the board, but if you could please give us your name, tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. I have one hand over here, gentleman in the back in the red checked shirt. Please come forward, sir. Give us your name. Tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, sir, appreciate your comments. I had ma'am over here in the horizontal stripe. Please come forward, give us your name, tell us where you're from.

All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments. Anyone else like to give public comment? Yes, ma'am, in the back, kind of denim jacket. Come on forward. And Dana, you're now a stranger to the board, but please do give us your name. Tell us where you're from, ma'am.

All right, thank you, ma'am, appreciate your comments. Is there anyone else who'd like to give public comment on this matter? I am seeing none, so let's close public comment and bring it back to the board for discussion, any possible motion, and of course, any follow-up questions. Before we get to that, ma'am, second to last speaker, you asked, you had questions, and just like a couple other people had questions, you had asked, When are we going to address those questions my hope would be that into the discussion? We're going to address some of the questions that were brought up as to your Que

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Do you know, and Representative Marshall never stays for questions, I hate it. How was, we got accused a lot of, with Home Rule we had 17 town hall meetings, we had press conferences, we had lots of open meetings. But on Friday we were accused constantly of doing that in the dark. Of course, thank you. Do you know how it was determined to keep the voters from having the third option as permitted by law? Were there town hall meetings or public meetings? Who determined to keep that away from the voters?

Okay, we have the state Adams County measure up here, but really that's what we probably should have as the state law. But we can go directly into the language if that's okay. Mr. Chair?

Before we go into the question, Commissioner Layton, just turning to you, just because you're remote today, hope you're getting better, hope that knee's healing for you. Turning to you, any questions, any opening comments before we get into the language?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the citizens who defied today managing medical appointments at the same time. But this is critically important. And, you know, candidly, it's it's pretty straightforward in my mind. The question of whether or not all of the citizens voting electorate in Douglas County should have a right to elect their commissioners or not. So it's very straightforward to me. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner. Julie Ord. No, 20,000 people did not ask me to preserve the at-large voting on the Board of County Commissioners. 20 definitely did. I guarantee it. 20 did. No, I did not take their names. No, I did not make them sign a piece of paper. They approached me because... I'm their commissioner. They probably voted for me. Maybe they didn't vote for me. But the bottom line is, yes, I had at least 20 people ask me to preserve at-large voting for the Board of County Commissioners. Third option required, and now we'll deal with that later. Hey, Mary and Stacy, thank y

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before that, there was one question that was raised during public testimony. There seems to be some confusion about why, in our measure, it's basically clean. It's just that's the method of voting. It's not going into the residency requirements. So I do have a question for our counselor to kind of specify why we don't duplicate or copy or try to restate what's already being stated in the first ballot measure that was approved on Friday for title. The residency, I understand, I mean, the Citizen Initiative already dictates a residency, so we don't need to confuse things

Okay. Well, that makes sense. Thank you. There's a lot of people that really should.

They're in a giggle mood today. A lot of laughing. Commissioner, where do we wanna go from here?

Well, to be fair, Mr. Chair, I have spent a lot of time in the statute books and the laws on this. So to me, it makes sense. But I think maybe for the average person who hasn't been spending as much time in the statute books, it may not. So one of the things I think it's to be clear about today, we're not deciding how it ought to work. We're deciding whether the voters should have the third option hidden from them or given to them. So I think it should be, I don't think we should, I don't even know how the decision was made. I don't think anyone knows how it was made to keep off the third ball

I was not invited to one town hall. I wasn't invited to anything that was like, hey, we should take away people's right to vote.

So I wonder if staff could help us out with helping members of the audience to maintain order and decorum. Commissioner, I think you can proceed.

Okay, well, it's hard to talk, but I think we should get to the measure at hand, which I think we can probably clean up and just make as clear as possible, same as we did on Friday, for the people of Douglas County. One, I think there's basically just a lot of words, and some of them are duplicative, some of them are unnecessary. So, Mr. Chair, if I could propose we start with the very first line, which, how would, Let's give our attorney a moment here, because I'm gonna be proposing amendments to the language. I think we can just avoid some confusion for the voters, as is required by the law,

All right, let's, okay, we've got our first option as to amending the recommended staff language board. Commissioner Layton, what do we think about that?

Yeah, I don't disagree with that, Mr. Chair. And I would commend Commissioner Van Winkle. You have spent the bulk of your entire life and your career, both as a state representative, a state senator, and now as a commissioner, deep diving into the law and statutes. So respect the amount of time and effort you've put into looking at this and understanding it. And I believe that the north of 100,000 people that voted for you certainly appreciate that as well. So I do support the amendment.

Okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, Kevin, with, I'm okay right now. Let's continue with this. I might roll back up on it, but let's continue. Do you have any other changes?

So it would now read, in the event the Douglas County Board of Commissioners is increased to five members, I would say, shall all registered Douglas County voters continue to elect all county commissioners. So we would delete to be permitted, and we would delete members of the Douglas County Board of, because that's already established it on the very first line, and it's the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners, the legal term.

I think it's key here, and we may require debate on the subject, be permitted to vote. It would be the term be permitted to. This would stay in. Okay.

I think, including the term, shall all Douglas County registered voters be permitted to continue to vote, it is factually accurate. I think it's completely true. I also think it may be seen by some as, well, taking, Overly complicated, I'll say. Simple question, keep it clear.

I do appreciate concise language, and I do find that to be much tighter and much more concise and clearer for a voter to understand.

Okay, thank you, Commissioner. All right, here's what I got. In the event that Douglas County BOCC is increased to five members, shall all Douglas County registered voters continue to vote and elect all county commissioners? Commissioner, do you think we need a four between vote and continue to vote for and elect all county commissioners, or do you think the four is extraneous?

Shall all Douglas County commissioners? Shall all the registered voters continue... Shall all the Douglas County registered voters continue to vote for and elect... I don't know if we need the word for. I mean, they should be allowed to vote for or against, so I don't want to...

Oh, okay. I got you. I got you. That presumes a type of vote.

We could say continue to vote for or against and elect all county commissions, but I think those are extra words that may not be necessary. Continue to vote and elect. Okay. I got you. Just continue to vote. Yeah. Okay. I got you.

All right, I was a history major. I was an English major, no sweat. Okay. All right. Let's get a capital C and a capital C for county commissioners at the end. I think that would be consistent with the work we did on Friday. I invite discussion on that topic from the board.

Guys, please turn your attention to the screen. Let's make sure we agree on that. Or...

Hang on guys, we're trying to read and we're trying to do this. That looks like what I got. What do we think guys? Further discussion. It was probably appropriate, considering we have monitors of the screen up here, I get it. So that was probably appropriate, thank you, Councilor. All right, board, for the discussion.

What may not need to be capitalized? What are you thinking of, Commissioner?

County commissioners at the end may not need to be capitalized because it's not a county commissioner, George Thiel, it's just county commissioners.

I mean, they're titles, right? Isn't that a proper noun?

Yeah, I think so too. All right, fellas. Sounds like we're about there, unless we've got further concerns.

I would have loved at the Capitol, by the way. When Representative Marshall presents an amendment, it's on a physical piece of paper that's distributed only to the committee, and no one else can see it until it's actually in law. I wish we would have this at the Capitol. This is nice.

It's much more open. Something for us to talk to our representatives about.

It was an... Oh, well, when Representative Marshall, it's a throwaway comment. It's not necessary for the record at all. I was just saying when I was at the Capitol, I would have loved to have a system such as this. At the Capitol, when Representative Marshall, for example, presents an amendment, it's on a physical piece of paper that gets distributed only to the committee members. No one in the audience or the public can see it until after it's adopted. And actually, it's the next day when the whole House or Senate would accept those amendments that it then becomes fully public. but it would

No, I think it, I mean, to me it would be clear the language would mirror each other and they would presumably be, presumably be next to each other in the ballot since they're the two county measures. Okay.

All right, well, sounds like we have language for the resolution, gentlemen. Is there a motion? Let me be specific. Is there a motion to adopt the resolution referring a ballot measure per our discussion today?

Yes, Mr. Chair. I move to approve the amended resolution referring the ballot measure to preserve all Douglas County voter rights and elect all members of the Douglas County Board of County Commissioners to the ballot for voter consideration and eventually wish to speak on it. Is there a second? I'll second that motion.

Thank you, Commissioner. I'll second that. Thank you, Commissioner. Appreciate it. Commissioner Van Winkle, speaking in favor of the resolution.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. And right now, the way it's set up, the way our county government works, the way almost every county government in Colorado works, really, there's only three that have gone to either a district or a hybrid model out of the 64. So the way it works now is every voter in Douglas County gets to have a say in every single commissioner and hold those commissioners accountable. We hear a lot about accountability and I face accountability just as much today as a voter from Sedalia and Highlands Ranch and Lone Tree as I do Franktown. If there's a water problem in Sedalia, I

All right. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Layton, any comments on the motion?

No, I agree with that analysis. And in many respects, you know, heard some comments about, you know, why can't we be more Congress or more like this feature? And with all due respect, the average citizen does not believe that those governing bodies are making nearly the level of difference that they should be. I'm very proud of what has happened in Douglas County. We do have a particular history associated with every voter having the opportunity to weigh in and make decisions about what happens and who is elected to serve the entire county. So I do support the analysis and support the motion.

Very good, thank you, Commissioner. I had said before, I actually really enjoyed Representative Marshall's comments on how he talked about the structure of governance, the structure of government. I did appreciate Mary Wilson and Stacy Rogers reminding us all of our efforts here in the town of Castle Rock to introduce a at-large and district representation model to the Castle Rock Town Charter. I think the thing that's missing in the debate that is very, very important is when we look at the examples of our federal Congress. Yes, you have the Senate, which is at large voting. you have the Hous

Very good. There is a motion and a second. The language was amended for the resolution before us. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye. And that passes unanimously. The resolution is approved. Well, that does conclude our work for today on the special business meeting on August 28th, 2026. Next special business meeting will be called as needed, and we look forward to seeing everyone at our regularly scheduled business meetings on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. We are adjourned.