On September 27, 2007, petition organizers were notified by Aspen city clerk Kathryn Koch, that, “Both initiative petitions contain sufficient signatures to be referred to the City Council. An initiative petition requires signatures of at least 749 registered electors in the City of Aspen. This number is based on 15% of the number of registered voters at the last regular municipal election, which was 4990. I certified 795 signatures on the direct connection petition and 794 signatures on the modified direct connection petition.”
The clerk also noted that, “In order to arrive at a final determination of petition sufficiency, the period for a registered elector to file a protest must be allowed to elapse. The final date on which a registered elector may file a protest is October 10, 2007." With eight minutes to go on the final day of the protest period, Clifford Weiss, Les Holst, and Terry Paulson filed a protest to the petitions.
On October 22nd, a hearing was held to rule on the protests. The protestors took the kitchen sink approach, even objecting to the “ballot title” even though no ballot title had been set. The core issue is whether the two petitions propose state constitutionally allowed municipal legislation.
The hearing officer, appointed by the city, decided that our basic question regarding the change in use of land originally acquired for open space is legislative in nature, but that some of the descriptive language defining a new allowed use improperly extends into administrative functions which are not subject to the petition process.
Under current law, the hearing officer could have edited out the portions of the petitions she considered impermissible, giving us the opportunity to go forward with the portion of the question which remained. The hearing officer declined to do so, and the entire ruling was appealed to the District Court.The District Court upheld the findings of the hearing officer, and also declined to sever the objectionable portions of the petitions so that the questions could be placed on a ballot.
As of the 14th of July, 2009, all of the arguments of the petitioners, protestors, and the City of Aspen have been filed with the Court of Appeals, and general ball-park estimates are that the higher court will probably reach a decision regarding the previous rulings in about twelve to eighteen months.
Petition Protestors Answer Brief
We have strong reason to believe that the Court of Appeals will uphold the decision of the hearing officer and District Court that the question itself is a legal use of the initiative process. We also think there is a good possibility that the appellate court will allow the specific language of the petitions, because all of it is relevant and appropriate to defining what the voters will allow in exchange for their open space.
In the event that the Court of Appeals does not accept some of the specific conditions contained in the petitions, we have no reason to believe that they will be reluctant to exercise their power to strike those portions and send the edited proposals to the voters.
In other words, we expect that Aspen voters will have a sensible solution for the Entrance to Aspen available for their approval in the not too distant future. One thing is certain, barring the economic collapse of the western world, the traffic jam at the Entrance to Aspen will still need to be fixed whenever the voters have an opportunity to do so.
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