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What is a recall election?
A recall election is a legal way to force people out of office, similar to impeachment. Removing an elected official from office is certainly a method of addressing egregious errors or illegal behavior by that official, but it is a method of last resort, and not to be undertaken without serious consideration of the cost to the community in question, both in terms of finances and disruption to community life.
What does the Golden City Council do?
The Golden City Council is the legislative and governing body of the City, as established by the City Charter. The Council adopts laws, ordinances, and resolutions. The council also appoints the municipal attorney, the municipal judge, and the city manager. There are seven members of the City Council. Four are elected from wards, two are elected from districts (District One is comprised of Wards One and Two, District Two is comprised of Wards Three and Four), and the mayor is elected at-large. (See a map of Goldens Wards.)
Who is behind this recall attempt?
The professional signature collectors walking door-to-door are NOT from Golden, they are from Colorado Springs. They receive money for each signature they collect. Marian Olson, publisher of Voice of Golden, is paying them, according to one of the petitioners. They openly admit to being "mercenaries" who don't care about the issues -- and who have never attended a city council meeting. Please note that they claim to be collecting signatures of a "fiscal responsibly" measure and may not mention the recall as such.
In addition to allegedly paying the signature collectors, Marian Olson is using the Voice of Golden to support the recall and also sent one or more letters to most household in Golden repeating the inaccurate and incomplete information on the petitions. Additionally, an anonymous letter was sent to many people throughout Golden, announcing the recall. "Go for Golden 0809" was listed as the return address on that letter.
In order to circulate a petition, three people from each effected area must register with the city as committee members. These people are from Golden. The following nine people are the committee members for the recall attempts. Three of their names and addresses are printed on each individual petition:
With the exception of Leslie Olsen, who spoke to the council regarding museum contracts, recall committee members have never spoken to the councilors regarding the issues they list on the recall petitions. However, members of Citizens for Golden have contacted the committee members requesting that they meet with the councilors they feel should be recalled. The councilors have already agreed to these meetings.
Why is the recall election counterproductive?
This recall attempt will cost the City of Golden taxpayers an estimated $50,000. This is especially wasteful because a regular election is already scheduled for November, when four out of the seven members of the council are up for reelection--regardless of whether or not the recall election occurs.
A successful recall would effectively dismantle our city government by removing virtually all experience and continuity from the city council. The members of this city council are known for being transparent in process, open to public input, fiscally cautious and pro-active in planning for the future. Dismantling our city government, especially at this time, would be an extremely risky move for Golden.
What are the facts about the Highway 93 Sound Wall?
The City of Golden lies in a narrow valley, and much of the community lies within earshot of one or more highways.For at least fifteen years, the city has had the goal of reducing noise levels in those neighborhoods affected by highway noise.In fact, after a two-year public input process and more than 3,000 comments, Golden adopted a noise standard that is substantially more rigorous than the state’s.
Noise mitigation presents substantial challenges, not least of which are Golden’s topography and the cost of sound walls. The Colorado Department of Transportation, which owns most of the rights of way alongside the highways, has also often been more of an obstacle than a partner.The city has long sought to build sound walls along I-70 and 6th Avenue, for instance, but CDOT has made it virtually impossible. Despite these challenges, the community has made progress. The large earthen berm along the west side of Highway 93 between Iowa and Washington is a good example.
One project that’s been in the works for years is a sound wall further north to provide some mitigation for neighborhoods highly impacted by Highway 93 noise, and after years of negotiations the state finally granted Golden approval to move forward with the project.The City Council included this project in the 2009 capital budget and completed the bid process in October, and the project is expected to be completed this year. The project consists of a sound wall on the east side of Highway 93 near Virginia Street. In order to be effective at reducing noise in those neighborhoods, the wall has to be pretty tall, so the city designed it with large sections that will allow light to pass through so that the wall won’t shade out the nearby homes. It is a fully-functional and permanent demonstration project, meaning that it will substantially reduce noise levels for a large number of homes while giving everyone in Golden a chance to see how the wall, with its translucent panels, works in a tight space like the one up there. It will also give everyone a chance to see how this approach might be applied to other parts of Golden. The city will also construct a bike path along the wall connecting Golden’s northernmost neighborhoods with the rest of Golden.
There are plenty of other areas that need noise mitigation as well, and given the cost it will take years before the city can build mitigation in all the neighborhoods that are affected by highway noise. But the community will continue moving forward, taking advantage of good opportunities (like cheap or free dirt) and building the more expensive sound walls as funding allows. Read more about this issue in the Golden Transcript.
- City Council discussed the noise mitigation wall at its October 9, 2008 meeting.
- City Council awarded the bid for the noise mitigation wall at the October 23, 2008 meeting.
- City Council reviewed the project at a the January 8, 2009 meeting. (Watch the meeting on-line. Note: This issue is discussed at about 49 minutes into the meeting.)
What are the facts about the contract for energy efficiency improvements?
The City of Golden adopted ambitious energy efficiency and other sustainability goals in 2007. As part of this Golden Sustainability Initiative, in June of 2007 the City of Golden published a Request for Proposals for companies interested in conducting an energy efficiency audit in the city and implementing the highest value energy efficiency projects identified by the audit. Six companies responded, four were selected for interviews, and the City Council unanimously (including Councilor Mary Weaver) selected the proposal submitted by the McKinstry firm. The project cost is $1,183,691, but Golden subsequently secured a $500,000 grant from the State of Colorado, dramatically reducing the total cost of the project. Some of the specific energy efficiency elements of the project include upgrading lighting inside and outside city’s buildings, installing a solar water heating system for the community center pool, and improving the city’s HVAC systems. Not only will these projects save Golden money every year, but within about twelve years the city will have saved more than the entire cost of the project and the city will continue to experience long-term energy savings and lower energy bills. Read more about this issue in the Golden Transcript.
- The city issued a Request for Proposals in June 2007.
- Staff reviewed the six submitted proposals and referred four for in-depth interviews and additional consideration. City Council evaluated the results of the interviews and additional consideration and voted unanimously to award the audit/implementation contract to McKinstry at the September 13, 2007 meeting.
- McKinstry presented the findings of their energy audit at the March 6, 2008 meeting.
- City Council voted to finalize the actual construction contract for energy efficiency improvements with McKinstry at its September 11, 2008 meeting.
- City Council reviewed this project at the January 8, 2009 meeting. (Watch the video. Note: This discussion begins 1 hour and 1 minute.)
What are facts about the museum contracts?
The City of Golden owns three history museums: Astor House, Clear Creek History Park, and the Pioneer Museum. One local non-profit organization has had the contract to run Astor House and Clear Creek while another has had the contract for the Pioneer Museum. Because both of the contracts were expiring at the end of 2008, City Council published a Request for Proposals inviting the current operators and anyone else who might be interested in running the museums to submit proposals for consideration. Although it would undoubtedly have been easier simply to renew the current contracts, City Council believes periodically inviting proposals like this is a good policy because it requires the current operators to make the case for maintaining their current role and it allows the community to entertain other options.
Each of the current operators submitted proposals, and the city submitted as well. Because city staff submitted a proposal, they were firewalled from the process. The process was extensive, rigorous, and extremely transparent. It included an independent audit of all three museums, evaluations of all the submitted proposals by a Technical Review Committee of museum and non-profit experts, and a great deal of public comment.
The questions asked of City Council: should they unify all three museums under one operator, and if so who should the single operator be? After considering all of the available information and the many comments offered by members of the community, the City Council made the difficult decision to unify management of Golden’s historical museums and to award the contract to the Friends of Astor House based on the strength of their proposal. Theirs was the strongest proposal, they offered the most for the money, and they seemed most likely to successfully unify all three of Golden’s historical museums.
The City and the Pioneer Museum management recently reached a partial settlement, agreeing to work with the court to resolve disputes about ownership of the various artifacts. The city is working hard to make this happen. The city hired, on a temporary basis, a former curator of the Pioneer Museum and they are also dedicating additional staff time to resolve the dispute, protect the community’s historic artifacts, and help the Friends non-profit build the best historic museums Golden has ever had.
- The three entities submitting proposals for management of Golden’s historical museums presented their proposals to City Council at their August 21, 2008 meeting.
- City Council discussed and decided on this issue at its September 11, 2008 meeting.
How do the city councilors respond to citizens who are dissatisfied?
Members of the city staff and the City Council work hard to treat everyone professionally and respectfully. Every regular business meeting of the City Council has a public comment period where anyone can make comments about any issue. If there are a larger number of people who wish to speak, the chair will usually adopt a strict time limit so that everyone gets an opportunity to speak and has the same amount of time as everyone else. City Council and city staff take all comments and suggestions seriously, and seriously consider all opinions offered by members of the community. However, the City Council often has to make decisions that some people support and others oppose. Most people will disagree with at least some of the decisions that the City Council makes, but their decision making is always transparent and respectful. The City Council and city staff’s obligations include listening to everyone who wants to weigh in, carefully considering all of the available information and all of the perspectives, and then using their best judgment to make decisions that are good for Golden even when members of the Golden community don’t agree on what the best answer is.
What is the procedure for going into executive session?
In recent years the City Council has become a strong advocate for open and transparent government. The city now televises City Council meetings, puts the entire City Council packet each week up on the city’s web site, and the mayor and another councilor both provide regular email communications to constituents to help keep folks in the community plugged in to what City Council is doing. Nearly all of the Golden City Council’s business is conducted in open meetings – they are televised and livestreamed on the web, they are archived on the web and at the public library, and anyone can attend in person any of these meetings. There are a very limited number of instances where the City Council needs to meet in Executive Sessions, nearly always having to do with personnel issues (which the City Council can’t legally discuss in an open session) and taking legal advice from the city’s attorney or discussing legal negotiations (where discussing the issue in open session would hurt the community’s interests).
he State Constitution, state law, and the City of Golden municipal code establish very strict rules on how City Council may enter into an executive session and very strict limits on what can be discussed during an executive session, and the City Council takes those rules and limits very seriously. The City Council is required to clearly indicate in advance what subjects the executive session will cover, for example, and they are prohibited from discussing anything else. A judge can always review the tapes of an executive session to ensure that the City Council complied with these rules.
In 2007, Councilor Mary Weaver sued everyone else on the City Council and the City of Golden, claiming that the City Council wasn’t following the proper procedure. She filed this lawsuit against the City Council (including herself) without ever having asked Council to consider making changes. The city settled the lawsuit, agreeing to review and consider refining the procedures. City Council promptly did so, and made a small modification to the executive session procedures as a result, which they would likely have done had she simply asked. Councilor Weaver voted against that change and subsequently attempted to undo the settlement, going back on her commitment in the settlement agreement and costing the Golden taxpayers even more money than the lawsuit wasted in the first place.
- Councilor Mary Weaver filed suit against all members of the City Council and the City of Golden on May 10, 2007.
- Councilor Weaver and the City of Golden agreed to settle the lawsuit in December 2007.
- Councilor Weaver filed a motion attempting to undo the settlement on March 5, 2008, going back on her commitments in the settlement agreement.
- The court rejected her attempt to undo the settlement on May 27, 2008.
- Councilor Weaver filed an appeal of the rejection July 11, 2008. That appeal is pending.
Why did the city council support school bond issues?
The City Council occasionally weighs in on regional or statewide issues when it believes the issue impacts Golden in a direct and significant way. For this reason, the City Council this fall passed a resolution in support of two bipartisan school funding measures. Both measures had widespread support from Democrats and Republicans, the business community, teachers, parents, and many others. The funding would have been used for school repairs, renovation of older schools, improving safety within the school district, expanding job skills and technical training, expanded math and science offerings, and other related expenses. The quality of our schools is a critical issue for Golden residents: many of our residents have kids in the school system and care a great deal that our schools are adequately funded, our property values are closely tied to the quality of our schools, the quality of neighborhoods is directly affected by the quality of our schools.
- City Council discussed this issue at its October 9, 2008 City Council meeting.
Does everybody always get what they want from city council?
Most people won’t agree with every single decision the City Council makes. On many important issues, the community has diverse views. The City Council must carefully consider everyone’s perspective, but on most important decisions there will be people who agree with and disagree with the outcome.
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