Broomfield Taxpayer Matters

City Council Considering Proposed Charter Changes to Grow Their Power

At the City Council Study Session on April 16, 2024, the Mayor and City Council started diving into the charter changes proposed by the committee.

Keep in mind that any changes to the Charter must go to a vote of the Broomfield Voters, and each ballot item must focus on a single subject.

So, this process may extend over the next few years.

The presentation summarizing the items discussed can be found here, and the actual charter with red-lined changes can be found here. And, our summary of the changes that were discussed is available on our website here (please go to the April 16, 2024 study session section on the page).

A few of the suggested Charter changes from the City Council clearly show their desire to centralize power in Broomfield.

Below are the key suggestions that some on the City Council are advocating for. These are the latest examples of items that the City Council is bringing forward that are taking away focus from the real issues affecting our community.

Reduce the City Council size from 5 Wards down to 3 Wards.

Councilmember (CM) Marsh-Holschen wants to change the number of Wards from 5 to 3, and reduce the number of City Councilmembers from 10 to 6.

This would decrease your representation which benefits their government power and reduces your voice and representation. This is not just about centralizing their power, this is also about moving to full-time, full-paid councilmembers, much like the City and County of Denver.

If the City Council desires to fundamentally change the structure of the city council, this should be discussed in a town hall BEFORE taking the issue to the ballot. If this discussion does not include you before that take it to a vote of the community. They still work for you, and are accountable to you, the taxpayer.

Revise Recall Procedures to add requirements and grounds for removal.

A long discussion ensued on this topic. CM Cohen was under recall last year, and is of the opinion that the recall was not reasonable. So, to address this, Cohen and others on the council want to look at putting restrictions on when a recall can be pursued and how recalls would be handled.

There's only one glaring problem with this. Our U.S. Constitution, State Constitution, and even our City Charter are founded on the consent of the governed. It is the right of the citizens to remove or replace those who represent us through legal means, regardless of the reasons for the recall. That should not be limited in any way by those who represent us. To do so puts those who we elect above We The People.

It is important to be able to redress your grievances, no matter what they are. If the reason to remove is not accepted by the people, the elected officials will not be removed. If the reason to remove does resonate with the people, the elected officials will be removed. Do not let them take these individual rights from you, it will only lead to further tyranny.

Change the age to vote to 16 in Municipal Elections.

This was proposed by Councilmember Ward, and is rooted in the Vote 16 USA initiative, a national campaign to support efforts to extend voting rights to 16 and 17 year olds at the local and state levels. The discussion by the City Council is summarized below:

• Arguments for:
• Mayor Castriotta - Young people are engaged and way ahead of the curve
• CM Ward - There is a vote 16 movement, young people want to be involved, they have rights in this community
• CM Marsh-Holschen - The same arguments being used today are the same as those not allowing blacks and women to vote
• CM Henkel - Young people should have a vote because many of today's issues affect them
• CM Nguyen - Broomfield should lead the way in letting youth get involved
• Arguments against:
• CM Cohen - Would like to hear from youth
• CM Anderson - It's not their priority and doesn't see a lot of engagement from that portion of the community
• CM Lim - May be more important they sit on school board - don't see this as a priority
• CM Leslie - Worked hard to get people to vote at 18, due to the war, but question the intellectual capacity of this age group

Lockdowns affected housing prices...

Could the government be responsible for the current housing crisis? Unintented consequences of government actions are part of the study of economics.

In this article, author Aldo Svaldi describes the consequences of people moving from large cities due to the fear that they were the source of higher risks of infection. The mountain towns surged in population and housing prices in towns like Edward surged from about 66% of the population buying homes under $1 million to now only 28% of the population can buy houses under $1 million. Home prices for homes over $5 million grew from about 4% prior to the pandemic to about 28% after the pandemic. Because of the lockdowns, there were fewer people visiting downtown retailers and restaurants, fewer people attending concerts and performances, and the 2020 riots in Downtown Denver resulted in widespread damage to private property, and the delayed rebuilding of certain parts of downtown are only adding to the problem.

Now, the State Legislature is trying to solve the problems they created by forcing more laws onto private property owners. The bills they are pushing in the current legislative session include HB24-1057 (prohibiting the use of algorithms for setting rent amounts), HB24-1098 (making it more difficult for a landlord to evict a tenant), and HB24-1007 (prohibiting local governments from enacting or enforcing certain residential occupancy limits). And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The government's role is to protect property rights; it is not the government's job to interfere directly in private property. Their rationale that they are taking direct action in your property for your protection always end up with many more unintended consequences, because they do not understand economics or because they don't really care, they just want you to feel good about them.

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