Englewood City Council denies protest over charter amendment ballot-title process

Englewood City Council on Thursday denied a protest challenging the process the council used to place a citizen-initiated charter amendment on the November ballot, and directed staff to certify the ballot title.

The protest, filed Sept. 3 by a registered elector identified in the hearing as Mr. Kaplan, argued the council should have set the ballot title by ordinance rather than by resolution. Deputy City Attorney Victoria McDermott told the council the protest did not challenge the title wording but the legislative vehicle used to set it and that state law and the city’s timeline made the resolution lawful and necessary.

McDermott told the council the petition to place the charter amendment on the ballot had been certified Aug. 26 and that county and state certification deadlines required the city to act quickly. “The protest doesn’t claim the title misleads voters. It challenges our vehicle of putting the title on the ballot,” McDermott said, arguing the protest falls outside the scope of ballot-title protest procedures under state law and the municipal code.

Mr. Kaplan told the council he had to file the protest quickly and questioned the shortened protest period: “We were given a less than 24 hours essentially because it was by 5PM the next business day, to file a protest,” he said, and cited Colorado law he said supports using an ordinance to adopt a ballot title.

Council members asked questions about applicable state statutes and the city charter. McDermott and city staff explained that Colorado Revised Statutes procedures for home-rule charter amendments include separate tracks for citizen petitions and for ordinances adopted by a governing body, and that the council had set the title by resolution on Sept. 2 to meet the county’s Sept. 5 certification deadline. McDermott also said the city had previously used a resolution to set charter-amendment titles in 2024.

Councilmembers voiced a mix of procedural concern and deference to staff legal advice. Several members — including the mayor pro tem and Member Nootenkamp — said they would prefer a longer protest period or a more consistent local process for initiated charter amendments, but supported denying the protest to keep the measure on the ballot.

Member Pring moved to deny the protest; the motion was seconded and the council voted to deny the protest and directed staff to certify the ballot title for the November coordinated election. The hearing record and staff recommendation said adopting an emergency ordinance to set the title was an alternative but would risk delay and was unnecessary.

City staff said they are preparing election-code guidance and a possible council-level update to address timing and process issues for future citizen-initiated measures. With the vote, council concluded there was no need to adopt an emergency ordinance that night and adjourned the special meeting.