But on August 25, supporters of the proposal — including Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, who'd donated more than $10,000 to the cause — reported that it wouldn't be on the ballot this year because the petition had been turned in after a key deadline.
"The opponents were able to delay the process just long enough for the ballot initiative to miss a critical deadline for the county clerks to be able to have it on the 2023 November ballot," Mountain State Solutions, an advocacy group pushing the proposal, announced.
“Regrettably, the citizens of Aurora will not have the opportunity to express their preference for a strong-mayor form of government and further restricting term limits in the upcoming November elections, as a result of legal technicalities and opposition tactics," adds Mountain State Solutions spokesperson Natela Manuntseva.
If passed, the proposal would have given Aurora's mayor CEO-like powers to hire and fire department heads without approval by city council, have more control over the budget and veto council decisions. Aurora would have become the fourth city in Colorado with a strong-mayor form of government, alongside Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.
According to sources in the City of Aurora, the ballot initiative has been pushed back indefinitely. That is not definite, however. And Coffman is already on record saying that he believes it will make the 2025 ballot — without the need to gather signatures again.
“Regrettably, the citizens of Aurora will not have the opportunity to express their preference for a strong-mayor form of government and further restricting term limits in the upcoming November elections, as a result of legal technicalities and opposition tactics," adds Mountain State Solutions spokesperson Natela Manuntseva.
If passed, the proposal would have given Aurora's mayor CEO-like powers to hire and fire department heads without approval by city council, have more control over the budget and veto council decisions. Aurora would have become the fourth city in Colorado with a strong-mayor form of government, alongside Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.
According to sources in the City of Aurora, the ballot initiative has been pushed back indefinitely. That is not definite, however. And Coffman is already on record saying that he believes it will make the 2025 ballot — without the need to gather signatures again.
“I’m disappointed that the ballot measure is not on the 2023 ballot to give the opportunity for voters to decide the issue, but I’m glad that it can be on the ballot in 2025 without having to gather signatures again,” Coffman says in a statement issued August 25..
Under the Aurora City Charter, a municipal election isn't allowed in the same year as a presidential election, so 2024 is off the table, too.
Coffman donated more than $10,000 to the Term Limits & Empowering the Mayor for a Better Aurora campaign that gathered signatures to put the proposal on the ballot, according to public records.Another $144,000 was contributed by Colorado Dawn, a group that funded Republican and nonpartisan conservative candidates for the Colorado Springs City Council in 2021.
Term Limits & Empowering the Mayor campaign supporters started gathering signatures in May. But a bipartisan coalition of opponents soon called out the campaign for using deceptive canvassing techniques and hiding the true intention of the initiative.
Coffman denied his involvement in the campaign for several months — until late last month, when the petition was initially determined to have enough signatures to make the ballot. Councilman Juan Marcano, who's running against Coffman in the mayor's race, called it "the worst-kept secret in Aurora."
Under the Aurora City Charter, a municipal election isn't allowed in the same year as a presidential election, so 2024 is off the table, too.
Coffman donated more than $10,000 to the Term Limits & Empowering the Mayor for a Better Aurora campaign that gathered signatures to put the proposal on the ballot, according to public records.Another $144,000 was contributed by Colorado Dawn, a group that funded Republican and nonpartisan conservative candidates for the Colorado Springs City Council in 2021.
Term Limits & Empowering the Mayor campaign supporters started gathering signatures in May. But a bipartisan coalition of opponents soon called out the campaign for using deceptive canvassing techniques and hiding the true intention of the initiative.
Coffman denied his involvement in the campaign for several months — until late last month, when the petition was initially determined to have enough signatures to make the ballot. Councilman Juan Marcano, who's running against Coffman in the mayor's race, called it "the worst-kept secret in Aurora."
A bipartisan coalition formed on the Aurora City Council to oppose Mayor Mike Coffman's push for a strong-mayor government.
Aurora City Council
Marcano speculates that if he wins the mayor's seat in the November 7 election — Aurora City Clerk Kadee Rodriguez determined on August 22 that he had enough valid signatures to make the ballot — the proposal will die because Coffman only wants to see it pass if he's the mayor.
"The proponents of this — which is to say, Mike Coffman and the dark-money group that's funding this operation — would not want to actually put this on the ballot if it's anyone other than Mike Coffman in that seat," Marcano says. "I suspect the effort will die for good, not because of anything I could do, but because I would be the mayor — or rather because Mike Coffman would not be the mayor."
Residents who signed the petition had until August 14 to try to withdraw their signatures; although the proposal survived that, a hearing was still scheduled for Wednesday, August 30, to hear protests regarding the measure itself. After that, the city clerk's office would have had ten days — until September 11 — to determine whether the petition followed procedure and qualified for the ballot.
But at the same time, the Aurora City Clerk only has until September 8 to certify what's going on the ballot, in order to give the Arapahoe, Adams and Douglas county clerks time to meet their deadlines for the November ballot. And after that, two city council meetings are required: the first to read the final ballot, the second to approve it. That leaves barely enough time to have everything ready for the November 7 election. And it makes it almost impossible to put the strong-mayor proposal on the ballot, unless Aurora holds two special city council meetings to meet the timetable.
So it seems the strong-mayor proposal just ran out of time. This round, unless Aurora officials suddenly reverse course and find they can squeeze it onto the November ballot.
A decision that came down from the Colorado Supreme Court related to Proposition HH and the single-subject rule stymied Richardson's move; the judge ruled that courts have no say on issues that are not yet law.
While the judge rejected Richardson's proposed substitute language for the proposal, she only put the single-subject challenge on hold; that complaint can be reinstated in the future.
Richardson still plans to fight any chance of this proposal getting on the ballot by going to the administrative hearing, which will "address omissions and defects that the clerk should have remedied," he says.
