Below are the proposed amendments to the Weld County Home Rule Charter, along with some comments for and against the proposals. These 9 items were the result of efforts by the 2018 ad hoc Charter Review Committee of which I was a member. (NOTE: The PRO/CON statements are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of other CRC members. In every case, there was a consensus that the question should be put onto the ballot. I have simply tried to offer some idea about the discussion that occurred.)
WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1A
Shall Section 3-6 of the Weld County Home Rule Charter be repealed and reenacted to correct reference to the Department of Finance and Administration and to correct the number of County departments as three rather than four, thus reading as follows?
Section 3-6. – Commissioner – Departments.
(1) The Department of Finance and Administration shall be coordinated by the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners.
(2) Each of the other three major departments, as established by Article IV, shall be coordinated by one of the other Commissioners together with assistance from another Commissioner, both of whom shall be appointed by the Board at its first meeting in January each year.
PRO: This is a correction to the charter to reflect that there are three County Departments in addition to the Department of Finance and Administration. (The Department of Human Services is a State-mandated requirement and is not reflected in the Home Rule Charter.) This change will have no effect on County operations or finances.
CON: None
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1B
Shall Subsection 3-8(4)(b) of the Weld County Home Rule Charter be repealed and reenacted to eliminate the requirement that contracts and the disposition of real property be approved by the Board of County Commissioners by ordinance only, thus reading as follows?
Section 3-8. – Powers and Duties.
(4) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing or diminishing the total authority and responsibility of the Board as herein provided, the powers and duties of the Board shall include duties and powers to:
(b) Enact legislation including such means of enforcement thereof as shall be authorized by law, and otherwise formally promulgate county policy. Unless otherwise required by statute, the Board shall act only by ordinance in matters of legislation and appropriations, and by ordinance, resolution or motion, as may be appropriate, in other matters.
PRO: The requirement that all contracts and real property dispositions approved through the County’s Ordinance procedure is unwieldy and impractical as it can add as much as 60 days to these processes. In many cases, there are requirements that these types of agreements must occur more quickly. In some cases, separate procedures have been developed to alleviate the procedural congestion required by this requirement.
For legislation and financial matters, the procedures remain unchanged.
Because of the special procedures which have been used, there will effectively be no change to County processes. In addition, if also passed, Ballot Question 1G will require additional Public Notice for large, unbudgeted expenditures.
CON: By eliminating the requirement for three public readings of the ordinance process, public oversight of purchase of contracted items and real property dispositions will potentially be reduced.
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1C
Shall the outdated Subsection 3-9(3) of the Weld County Home Rule Charter, which set the Commissioner initial annual salaries upon enactment of the Charter in 1976, be repealed?
PRO: This section of the Charter was only applicable during the initial period enactment of the Charter. It has been entirely superseded due to normal operation of the County Government.
CON: None.
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1D
Shall Section 3-11 of the Weld County Home Rule Charter be repealed and reenacted to amend its title to “Official Meetings” and to correct grammatical errors to Subsection (1), thus reading as follows?
Section 3-11. – Official Meetings.
Regular Board meetings shall be held at least twice weekly on days to be determined by the Board by resolution; however, regular meeting may be cancelled by resolution of the Board passed and publicly announced at least ten (10) days prior to the cancelled meeting date.
PRO: This change affirms the reference in Section 3-10 to “official” Board meetings. As stated in Section 3-10, “no action shall be taken by the Board other than at an official meeting”. This change makes the terminology of Section 3-11 consistent with Section 3-10.
CON: None.
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1E
Shall a new Subsection 6-5(5) be enacted to the Weld County Home Rule Charter to disallow convicted felons from being elected or appointed to County office, thus reading as follows?
Section 6-5. – Qualifications.
A person who has been convicted of a felony shall not be eligible to be elected or appointed to County office.
PRO: This new section of the Charter would preclude persons who have been convicted of serious crimes from serving in an elected or appointed position in the County, thereby reducing the risk of criminal activities.
Enforcement would be accomplished either by a failure to meet this requirement, or in the case that a person’s qualifications are misrepresented prior to election or appointment, the person could be removed from office by the County Council under Section 13-8(5) of the Charter.
CON: If a person who has been convicted of a felony has satisfied all penalty requirements, his rights as a citizen, including holding office, should be fully restored.
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1F
Shall the outdated Section 10-6 of the Weld County Home Rule Charter, which says the County shall not be required to furnish the Sheriff or any deputy with living quarters because they are “keepers of the jail,” be repealed?
PRO: This is an outdated section of the Charter that was based on previous State requirements. This provision is no longer needed, and it’s elimination will have no impact on operation of the County.
CON: None.
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1G
Shall Section 16-6 of the Weld County Home Rule Charter be repealed and reenacted to require notice to the public by two publications ten days apart prior to approval of contracts for expenditures in the amount of $2,500,000 or greater by the Board of County Commissioners, thus reading as follows?
Section 16-6. – Public Notice.
Notice to the public of ordinances and of certain official acts, events, determinations, proceedings or meetings shall be given. Unless defined otherwise in the ordinances, rules or laws pertaining to the procedure to which the public notice relates, public notice may be by publication in a newspaper of general circulation in the County or by such other media and in such form as may be prescribed by the Board; except in the case of approval of contracts for expenditures in the amount of $2,500,000 or greater that are not identified within the County Budget, notice shall be by two publications ten days apart prior to approval. When the notice informs the public of some event to take place in the future, it shall be published at least five days prior to such event.
PRO: This addition to the Public Notice requirements mandates that large, unbudgeted expenditures must be the subject of a notice to the Public, prior to approval. Generally, items that have been included in the budget process, have been implicitly subjected to notice, but occasionally large expenditures come before the Board that have not been through the budget process. This section would assure that the Public is made aware of such expenditures.
CON: #1. This notification procedure may add several days to the time requiredto approve large items. This may pose a burden for some County procedures.
#2. The $2.5 million dollar threshold is far too high to provide any effective oversight of unbudgeted expenditures
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1H
Shall the title to Article XVII of the Weld County Home Rule Charter be repealed and reenacted, and a new Section 17-3 be enacted to the Weld County Home Rule Charter, to authorize the Board of County Commissioners to make non-substantive revisions to the Charter, thus reading as follows?
ARTICLE XVII – AMENDMENTS AND NON-SUBSTANTIVE REVISIONS TO CHARTER
Section 17-3 – Non-Substantive Revisions.
The Board of County Commissioners may, without approval of the voters, adopt an ordinance that makes the following types of revisions to this Home Rule Charter:
- Renumbering, revising titles, and rearranging parts thereof;
- Correcting errors in spelling, grammar, cross-references, and punctuation;
- Revising language to reflect modern usage and style; and
- Correcting obvious inconsistencies between sections.
- A revision adopted pursuant to this Section is not intended to and is not to be interpreted as making any substantive change in any Charter provision.
PRO: There are numerous minor grammatical, punctuation and other errors throughout the Charter as a result of changed usage and meanings since the Charter was approved. Currently, these errors can only be corrected through the Amendment procedure, which is burdensome for the citizens. This provision would allow corrections and revisions of these types of errors through the County’s Ordinance procedures, which require 3 public readings of the proposed changes, thereby offering a substantial opportunity for public scrutiny and oversight.
Any attempt to substantially amend or change the Charter through this process is explicitly prohibited.
CON: Despite the prohibition of attempting any substantial change through this procedure, the only way to actually stop its misuse would be through a lawsuit that would be initiated by citizens. This is too high a burden to protect the Charter from unauthorized amendments.
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WELD COUNTY
REFERRED BALLOT QUESTION 1I
Shall the word, “elective,” be amended to the word, “elected,” when referring to elected office or elected officer(s) of the County, in Sections 2-2, 5-3(3), 6-1, 6-3, 6-6(2), 13-2(2), 16-1, 16-7, 16-9, 18‑3, and 18-6, and in the title to Article VI of the Weld County Home Rule Charter?
PRO: This change is proposed to provide substantial consistency in the description of the “elected” officials and officers. It would eliminate any confusion in the descriptions of such persons.
CON: None