The sun doesn’t shine on Aspen City Hall

Editor’s note: The following letter was written to members of Aspen City Council.

Dear Editor:

Based on our newspapers and the Denver Post, I take it that you are going to fight to roll back four judges’ recent rulings affirming that average citizens can test and oversee Colorado elections.

In August, the chief judge of our state court district, Judge Martin Gonzales, ruled that anonymous ballots are public records that can be tested and the accuracy evaluated by the citizens. In September the city of Aspen was slam dunked by the Court of Appeals with an identical ruling. So, why do you think you can “win” at the Supreme Court? Why do you want to win, when your win will mean that most Colorado citizens lose?

The clerk in my county is under recall. One reason is that we average citizens had the right to see the evidence of election irregularities for ourselves. Now we are getting her out of office and cleaning up our elections. It is because of citizens’ oversight that we found the long-time problem in our elections. Your move to stop transparency, if successful, is taking steps backwards, and would prevent us from finding such problems in our county. Shame on you for fighting against the will of the people.

Aspen may not need transparent elections, but those of us in rural Colorado need all the oversight on government we can get. Please stop fighting against the sunshine in the rest of the state. Don’t appeal the solid, citizen-friendly court ruling.

Allen Jones

Villa Grove