Legitimacy of signatures on Basalt initiative petition called into question
Town clerk determined that about 25 signatures were on "disassembled" petitions, bringing the petition 10 signatures short of town requirement to move forward
Town of Basalt/Courtesy image
The legitimacy of some signatures on an initiative petition has been called into question in Basalt, potentially dooming an effort to affect off-street parking and the Midland Avenue Streetscape Project.
The evidence? Staple holes.
Basalt residents brought the initiative petition to Basalt Town Hall months ago, opposing elements of the multi-million dollar revitalization project in downtown. Town Hall said the petition didn’t get enough valid signatures.
The future of the initiative petition will rest with a hearing officer appointed by Basalt Town Council at Tuesday’s meeting. The councilors unanimously approved the appointment of Karen Goldman, a longtime municipal clerk now consultant.
The hearing will re-examine Basalt Town Clerk Pam Schilling’s determination that approximately 25 signatures turned in were on “disassembled” petitions, potentially evidence that the signatories of the petition were not fully informed of what they were signing.
Losing those 25 signatures put the validated signature count at 350 — 10 short of the town requirement for the initiative petition to move forward.
Town Attorney Jeff Conklin said that the hearing will be scheduled before Feb. 28 and will be open to the public.
Initiative petitions are citizen-sponsored legislative proposals, basically a way for residents to bypass an elected body to put forth their own legislation. They require signatures from 360 Basalt electors to be considered by town council and potentially move to a ballot, according to town code. The town clerk verifies the signatures.
In fall 2023, Basalt resident Ted Guy and Tempranillo owner Laura Maine filed an initiative petition with the town that targeted two topics: parking and putting the Midland Avenue Streetscape Project scope and budget back in front of Basalt voters.
Town Manager Ryan Mahoney said the language of the initiative petition has not changed and the town’s position is still that the parking language in the document would not affect the streetscape parking plans — specifically changing the on-street parking along Midland Avenue in the town’s right-of-way from diagonal parking to parallel parking, resulting in fewer parking spaces immediately in front of most Midland Avenue businesses.
Conklin said Tuesday that the petitioners, via their attorney Richard Neily, Jr. of Neily Law in Glenwood Springs, expressed a desire to move forward with the hearing officer.
The debate over signatures and staple holes
Both state statute and municipal code dictate the timeline by which initiative petitions get passed back and forth between petitioners and Town Hall — and Basalt code allows a curing period for petitioners to remedy problematic signatures or add new ones.
According to correspondence between Neily and Schilling, the petitioners filed their initiative petition with signatures on Jan. 18. Schilling then had five business days to certify the signatures and concluded in that time that only 296 signatures were valid. The letter referred to signatures obtained outside of the 90-day period preceding the filing of the initiative petition, the signatory not being a qualified elector of the town, missing signatory information, detached affidavit, illegibility, duplicate signature, and more.
She posted a response letter to the petitioners on Jan. 24, triggering a 3-day curing period for the petitioners to “supplemental or corrected petition papers,” as defined in the municipal code.
The petitioners did so within the three business day deadline, supplying additional petition packets with signatures and correcting an issue with some signatures collected after affidavit notarization, according to a Feb. 7 letter from Neily to the town.
Schilling then had two business days to respond, and by Jan. 31, she posted a notice that she accepted some signatures and not others through canvassing. By Feb. 1, she amended that response that 54 supplemental signatures were accepted, totaling 350 accepted signatures — 10 short of the code-required 360, meaning the initiative petition failed to meet threshold.
A Feb. 9 letter from Neily to Town Hall alleges that 25 signatures rejected for being “disassembled” should be counted, bringing the total number of valid signatures to 375 and over the threshold. Mahoney said there were as many as three sets of staple holes on the petition packets in question, potential evidence the signature page of the packet had been circulated separately from the written affidavit part of the petition that informs the signatory what they’re signing and against state statute.
The letter references the 1992 Colorado Supreme Court Case Committee for Better Health Care for All Colorado Citizens v. Meyer as precedent for multiple reasons behind “extra staple holes” in an initiative petition.
“Certain of the Petition packets submitted did have the staple removed and replaced. This was to replace the Summary (initially issued by you on September 8, 2023) once it was corrected by the Town through your office on September 29, 2023,” the Feb. 9 letter reads.
Conklin said the protest hearing will allow the petitioners to present evidence of that statement to Goldman and its validity will be her decision. He also said the petitioners expressed approval to the town for her appointment.
If she accepts the new evidence, the initiative petition will move to town council for adoption or reference to a ballot issue.
The Aspen Times reached out to Guy and Neily but did not receive comment by press time.
Timeline issues with the April 2 election and construction schedule
The timing of the initiative petition and hearing officer process collide awkwardly with the timeline of the streetscape project and the upcoming Basalt general election.
“Based on where we are timing-wise … we’d be looking at a special election,” Conklin said.
Town code dictates that an accepted initiative petition that town council decides to put to voters instead of adopting outright “may, at the discretion of the Council, be held over and submitted at the first election thereafter” when the next scheduled election is less than 60 days away, which the April 2 election is.
Then, if there is no other scheduled election in the next 150 days from the petition submission date, then the council must call a special election.
Mahoney also pointed out that the town has a signed contract for construction on the Midland Streetscape Project to begin in early March, about a month before the April general election.
“I think part of the part of the issue being represented … is that this will give the public an opportunity to vote up or down on the Midland project. And, you know, I find that to be a little bit troubling,” he said. “It’s not specific to the Midland project; it is specific to a change in code language that is not currently in effect. And we have a project and a contract that we’ve been working on for well over a year.”
Basalt voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot issue 3A in 2021, which authorized the town to take on $18 million of debt through bonds to fund Basalt Forward Program initiatives, including affordable housing, streetscape and infrastructure improvements on Midland Avenue, as well as “green” projects.
The Midland Avenue Streetscape Project specifics and expanded scope to include the Midland Spur did not come until later.
