Dacono city staff members had to take matters into their own hands and order ballots for the upcoming recall election after the City Council failed to authorize the purchase.
During its April 24 meeting, the Dacono City Council narrowly voted to hire Wilson Williams LLP as special counsel for the June 27 recall election and to rent election equipment for $8,452.
However, when it came time to vote on purchasing ballots for the recall, the council no longer had a quorum after Mayor Pro-Tem Kathryn Wittman and Councilmembers Danny Long, Jim Turini and Jackie Thomas abruptly left the meeting out of frustration.
In accordance with the city’s charter, Turini and Thomas were not allowed to vote on the agenda items pertaining to their own recall. The charter says, “No elected official shall vote on any question concerning the official’s own conduct.”
Turini and Thomas will face a recall for allegedly violating Colorado open meetings law on Feb. 13 when they, along with Wittman and Long, voted to fire former City Manager A.J. Euckert without public notice or offering any explanation as to why.
Staff still moved forward with purchasing the ballots even though the council was unable to vote on the matter.
Citing the city’s purchasing policy for emergencies, City Clerk Valerie Taylor said in an email that she was obliged to move forward with ordering the ballots.
“The council’s failure to act collided with the city’s constitutional obligation to conduct a recall election, thus creating a financial emergency in which exercise of authority conferred by Section XIV of the Purchasing Policy was both necessary and appropriate,” Taylor said in an email on April 28.
In a follow-up email Monday, Taylor said the exact cost of the ballots would not be finalized until the ballots are mailed out June 5.
Councilman Kevin Plain, who along with Councilwoman Doris Crespo and Mayor Adam Morehead voted in favor of hiring a special council and renting election equipment for the recall, said in an interview Monday that he supported staff’s decision to order the ballots.
“The city’s purchasing policy allows for staff to spend money in the case of financial emergencies and, in this case, constituents have a constitutional right to vote in a recall,” Plain said.
The Dacono City Council was scheduled to convene Monday night and is scheduled to convene again Wednesday.
In a memo to the council dated April 27, Geoff Wilson of Wilson Williams LLP stated that it was “inconceivable, and thus completely unforeseeable, that council would fail to fund the exercise by their constituents of their constitutional right to recall.”
“These are purchases that the city legally must make, and of course, the city is obliged to pay its bills,” Wilson’s memo stated.
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