Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Lens, Gina Ganda, Good morning.
The Douglas County Board of Commissioners preparing for the June
twenty fourth special election, where voters will make a decision
on forming a home rule charter commission.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
They held a town hall on Wednesday for voters learning
more about becoming a home rule county and what that
would look like. In joining us now in the KWA
Common Spirit Health Studio to talk more about it is
Douglas County Commissioner for District two. It's George Teal. Commissioner Teal,
thank you so much for joining us in studio this morning.
Thanks for having me in Gina, so start giving your
elevator pitch. In summary, why are you such a strong
(00:31):
supporter of making Douglas County a home rule charter?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, home rule is the very mechanism given to us
under the Colorado State Constitution to enable local control. We
can talk about local control, we can preach about it.
The real mechanism given to us in the Calira State
Constitution is home rule. It's a process that every one
of our municipalities in Douglas County have adopted. It's a
(00:55):
process that only a few counties in the state have
a too. As a matter of fact, Weldon Pitkin and
I do believe. Well, Hey, I grew up in Wild County,
I grew up in Greeley. I've heard my whole life
the advantages of home rule. I can't recall a lot
of those because I was like in eighth grade at
(01:15):
the time. But through further analysis that we did with
our new county attorney that came on just a couple
of years ago, we get them from the city in
county at Denver. He knows the kind of dirty little
secret of Denver administration where sometimes they play home rule municipality,
sometimes they play home rule county. He gave us a
great legal analysis, and it worked for my colleagues as well.
(01:40):
When they were presented with it. We decided that, yeah,
the time is now to do this. We do not
always see eye to eye in Douglas County with what's
going on in the state legislature, much less the governor's mansion,
and with some of the laws that we're seeing past
every year. Now decided that, yeah, home rule is a
(02:02):
tool that we need in our toolkit in.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Order to move forward.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So when I hear this, and again I have no
level of expertise or depth in this as all.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
But here's what I hear. With home rule.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I hear you're gonna do what you think is best
for your accounting regardless of state law.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
You can do that.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Or am I oversimplifying that, or am I not? Am
I not portraying that accurately?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
You're actually mostly accurate. I mean, it's not a total panacea.
Nobody should be fooled to say, oh, no matter what
laws passed, no matter what law is signed into is
signed into law by the governor, we're just going to
ignore it. We're going to I've had people say, oh,
so you're like seceding from the state of Colorado. No,
(02:41):
we're not. We're still going to be in Colorado. Obviously
we're in the heart of Colorado. But it does allow
us at times to run if a law is not
written to be of state concern magic words in every bill,
then it is something that we can choose to ignore.
Every year, and I haven't counted up any how many
(03:04):
bills were past this past legislative session, but last year
four bills were passed and signed into law that completely
in the writing in the bill exclude home ruld counties.
Every year those pass, and it's an opportunity for us
to in many ways pick and choose.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Give me an example of one of those bills to
where you say, we're home rule, we don't have to
abide by this.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
What was one of those bills? Do you recall off hand?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
A bill from a couple of years ago, And it
stood out because it was the first one that really
caught my attention. Was one that we introduced from Douglas
County from our public works. It involved the grading of
gravel roads. Probably not a big topic for a lot
of people in the Denver metro, big topic in Douglas County.
We're over half the county is still rural. It excluded
(03:59):
home rule counties, and I was trying to get the
support of our colleagues in Weld County Border County commissioners
for it, and they were like, no, no, no, States
shouldn't be involved in something like this. This is a
matter of local controlling. Said, well, don't worry about it, man,
it absolutely excludes it's written in to exclude home rule counties. Well,
(04:20):
I won his support, and I won the support of
World County for our bill. It did pass through. Makes
a lot of sense for small counties that have a
tough time going into contractors and negotiating specific terms. That's
part of the reason why we were behind it. But
for a home rule county, a county that has done
(04:41):
the extra work to establish a home rule local control,
staff levels and administration, well, of course you should be excluded.
There's a lot of discussion about the fact of Well,
what are some of the more controversial bills Senate Bill
three this year dealing with gun regulation. Hey, the reality
is I've read that a couple times, and I know
(05:03):
it's meant to be of state wide concern. It's meant
to be state wide application. It doesn't say of state
concern anywhere in that bill. Furthermore, it dictates an unfunded
mandate on sheriff's departments across the state. I'd like to
try it. I would like to try to take on
Senate Bill III in our home rule charter by defining
(05:26):
the roles and responsibilities as a sheriff, and I do
have the cooperation of Sheriff Weekly to go at this.
Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything written down yet,
I don't have anything penned up I can't tell you
how we're going to do it, but do I intend
to absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Commissioner til I know somewhere frustrated at the last meeting,
saying that they didn't really have enough time to share
some of their thoughts and questions when it came to
home rule. Why we're so few able to speak and
why now? Why are we looking at the special election
in June and not November.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, it's probably on me. That's probably my fault. I
really wanted us to push out information. We've gotten a
lot of questions in the community, just like you just asked, Marty,
what is home rule? What are the ins and outs?
What are the specifics. I wanted us to make sure
that we were pushing out the information. I wanted them
to hear from their elected officials in the county on
(06:18):
the effect that home rule would have on their offices.
And we should have probably gone two hours. Quite frankly,
our standard run is one hour. We've done dozens of
town halls since twenty twenty, all about an hour in duration.
(06:39):
So yeah, I stayed around. I talked to a lot
of people afterwards. I tried to answer their I tried
to answer their questions. When they wanted an argument, I
gave them an argument. But we probably should have planned
for two hours. And we've been talking about it. Both
my colleagues bumped into them. We had a mayor's lunch
(07:00):
yesterday for the mayors in Douglas County. Of the municipalities,
we were talking we probably need another one, and maybe
another one where we're a light on the information push
and more open to the comments.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Is there a reason for having in the special election
in June instead of waiting till November to have it.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah? The calendar, Well, first of all, we're following the law.
We're falling what is detailed an Article fourteen of the
Colorado Constitution and then Section thirty of colorad Revised Statutes
on the calendar for this. And I think these laws
were well these laws, I know were written in nineteen
seventy as Amendment three and voted in by the people
(07:40):
of Colorado. We did not have the standard calendar election
calendar that we do today. I was elected to the
Castrock Town Council in twenty fourteen on April first of
twenty fourteen, and only now has has Cassrock gone to
(08:01):
a November election. So when these laws were first contemplated,
we did not have this standard calendar. So the reality
was we were either going to have a two year
process of a November election to just decide to go
home rule, and then a second November election to actually
adopt the charter. If we wanted to do it in
(08:23):
one year, we were going to have to have a
special election either to ask the people of Douglas County
do we want to go home rule, and then a
standard general election for adopting the home rule charter, or
we were going to have to wait to November, ask
the permission, and then have a special election in order
(08:43):
to adopt the charter. We have limited time, but I
want to get to a couple other things. You talked
about the things, the benefits, but what are the potential downsides?
And I preface this because I think I saw when
I saw a slide when I was watching some of
the local news one of the downsides from who was presenting.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't know if it's your district attorney who was saying, well,
the downside is not a people know about the good sides.
I'm paraphrasing here, which I thought was an interesting defense
to say, well, it's not the downsides are you don't
know about the good sides, But really, what are the
downsides about?
Speaker 4 (09:11):
What is the negative?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I'll tell you what the negatives is. It's a lot
of work. I mean, I think that is the biggest negative.
That's the biggest reason why you've only seen two counties
actually adopted. I asked my county commissioner back in two
thousand and two, when I had just gotten out of
the army. I just moved into the county and I said, hey,
I grew up in Greeley. Home rule is the way
(09:33):
to go. His response was, it's complicated. He wasn't wrong.
It is complicated. Well, Douglas County is a lot different
of a county than it was in two thousand and two.
I think we have a good professional staff that can
really help out on this process. And only that, but
our electorate today in twenty twenty five is a whole
(09:56):
lot different than it was in two thousand and two.
We're better educated, we have such a high professional population.
I think we're ready to roll on this. You want
other downsides, I don't know that I can give you, Marty.
I mean, honestly, I don't see actual operational downside. We
go home rule, we have the local control. We have
(10:20):
that capability to have more choice and more decision, more
freedom and liberty, if you will, in Douglas County than
we do today as a statutory county.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So those other two counties, like you mentioned, when they
implemented home rule, they went from three to five commissioners.
Is that a possibility if Douglas County goes home rule?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
It is a possibility. I don't advocate for that. That's
going to add it extra half a million dollars every
single year, but it's absolutely possibility. I am running to
be one of the members of the twenty one home
rule commissioners. The reality is I'll be one out of
twenty one. My position is let's stick at three. I
might get out voted.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
This is a lot of depth, a lot of information,
and we appreciate you coming in here, and we probably
didn't do you justice to give you more time, but
at least we kind of got about a ten thousand
foot level of a lot of this.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Meank you.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'm sitting in a comfy chair. I can just kind
of hang out and interrupt, especially when you get sports.
I got some opinions I bet you do.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Home rule not happening for certain teams anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Douglas County Commissioner George Teal, thank you so much for
joining us in the studio this morning. Please keep us
informed on the process as we see this going forward.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Roger, that will do.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Thank you,
It is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Lens, Gina Ganda, Good morning.
The Douglas County Board of Commissioners preparing for the June
twenty fourth special election, where voters will make a decision
on forming a home rule charter commission.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
They held a town hall on Wednesday for voters learning
more about becoming a home rule county and what that
would look like. In joining us now in the KWA
Common Spirit Health Studio to talk more about it is
Douglas County Commissioner for District two. It's George Teal. Commissioner Teal,
thank you so much for joining us in studio this morning.
Thanks for having me in Gina, so start giving your
elevator pitch. In summary, why are you such a strong
(00:31):
supporter of making Douglas County a home rule charter?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, home rule is the very mechanism given to us
under the Colorado State Constitution to enable local control. We
can talk about local control, we can preach about it.
The real mechanism given to us in the Calira State
Constitution is home rule. It's a process that every one
of our municipalities in Douglas County have adopted. It's a
(00:55):
process that only a few counties in the state have
a too. As a matter of fact, Weldon Pitkin and
I do believe. Well, Hey, I grew up in Wild County,
I grew up in Greeley. I've heard my whole life
the advantages of home rule. I can't recall a lot
of those because I was like in eighth grade at
(01:15):
the time. But through further analysis that we did with
our new county attorney that came on just a couple
of years ago, we get them from the city in
county at Denver. He knows the kind of dirty little
secret of Denver administration where sometimes they play home rule municipality,
sometimes they play home rule county. He gave us a
great legal analysis, and it worked for my colleagues as well.
(01:40):
When they were presented with it. We decided that, yeah,
the time is now to do this. We do not
always see eye to eye in Douglas County with what's
going on in the state legislature, much less the governor's mansion,
and with some of the laws that we're seeing past
every year. Now decided that, yeah, home rule is a
(02:02):
tool that we need in our toolkit in.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Order to move forward.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So when I hear this, and again I have no
level of expertise or depth in this as all.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
But here's what I hear. With home rule.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I hear you're gonna do what you think is best
for your accounting regardless of state law.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
You can do that.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Or am I oversimplifying that, or am I not? Am
I not portraying that accurately?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
You're actually mostly accurate. I mean, it's not a total panacea.
Nobody should be fooled to say, oh, no matter what
laws passed, no matter what law is signed into is
signed into law by the governor, we're just going to
ignore it. We're going to I've had people say, oh,
so you're like seceding from the state of Colorado. No,
(02:41):
we're not. We're still going to be in Colorado. Obviously
we're in the heart of Colorado. But it does allow
us at times to run if a law is not
written to be of state concern magic words in every bill,
then it is something that we can choose to ignore.
Every year, and I haven't counted up any how many
(03:04):
bills were past this past legislative session, but last year
four bills were passed and signed into law that completely
in the writing in the bill exclude home ruld counties.
Every year those pass, and it's an opportunity for us
to in many ways pick and choose.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Give me an example of one of those bills to
where you say, we're home rule, we don't have to
abide by this.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
What was one of those bills? Do you recall off hand?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
A bill from a couple of years ago, And it
stood out because it was the first one that really
caught my attention. Was one that we introduced from Douglas
County from our public works. It involved the grading of
gravel roads. Probably not a big topic for a lot
of people in the Denver metro, big topic in Douglas County.
We're over half the county is still rural. It excluded
(03:59):
home rule counties, and I was trying to get the
support of our colleagues in Weld County Border County commissioners
for it, and they were like, no, no, no, States
shouldn't be involved in something like this. This is a
matter of local controlling. Said, well, don't worry about it, man,
it absolutely excludes it's written in to exclude home rule counties. Well,
(04:20):
I won his support, and I won the support of
World County for our bill. It did pass through. Makes
a lot of sense for small counties that have a
tough time going into contractors and negotiating specific terms. That's
part of the reason why we were behind it. But
for a home rule county, a county that has done
(04:41):
the extra work to establish a home rule local control,
staff levels and administration, well, of course you should be excluded.
There's a lot of discussion about the fact of Well,
what are some of the more controversial bills Senate Bill
three this year dealing with gun regulation. Hey, the reality
is I've read that a couple times, and I know
(05:03):
it's meant to be of state wide concern. It's meant
to be state wide application. It doesn't say of state
concern anywhere in that bill. Furthermore, it dictates an unfunded
mandate on sheriff's departments across the state. I'd like to
try it. I would like to try to take on
Senate Bill III in our home rule charter by defining
(05:26):
the roles and responsibilities as a sheriff, and I do
have the cooperation of Sheriff Weekly to go at this.
Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything written down yet,
I don't have anything penned up I can't tell you
how we're going to do it, but do I intend
to absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Commissioner til I know somewhere frustrated at the last meeting,
saying that they didn't really have enough time to share
some of their thoughts and questions when it came to
home rule. Why we're so few able to speak and
why now? Why are we looking at the special election
in June and not November.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, it's probably on me. That's probably my fault. I
really wanted us to push out information. We've gotten a
lot of questions in the community, just like you just asked, Marty,
what is home rule? What are the ins and outs?
What are the specifics. I wanted us to make sure
that we were pushing out the information. I wanted them
to hear from their elected officials in the county on
(06:18):
the effect that home rule would have on their offices.
And we should have probably gone two hours. Quite frankly,
our standard run is one hour. We've done dozens of
town halls since twenty twenty, all about an hour in duration.
(06:39):
So yeah, I stayed around. I talked to a lot
of people afterwards. I tried to answer their I tried
to answer their questions. When they wanted an argument, I
gave them an argument. But we probably should have planned
for two hours. And we've been talking about it. Both
my colleagues bumped into them. We had a mayor's lunch
(07:00):
yesterday for the mayors in Douglas County. Of the municipalities,
we were talking we probably need another one, and maybe
another one where we're a light on the information push
and more open to the comments.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Is there a reason for having in the special election
in June instead of waiting till November to have it.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah? The calendar, Well, first of all, we're following the law.
We're falling what is detailed an Article fourteen of the
Colorado Constitution and then Section thirty of colorad Revised Statutes
on the calendar for this. And I think these laws
were well these laws, I know were written in nineteen
seventy as Amendment three and voted in by the people
(07:40):
of Colorado. We did not have the standard calendar election
calendar that we do today. I was elected to the
Castrock Town Council in twenty fourteen on April first of
twenty fourteen, and only now has has Cassrock gone to
(08:01):
a November election. So when these laws were first contemplated,
we did not have this standard calendar. So the reality
was we were either going to have a two year
process of a November election to just decide to go
home rule, and then a second November election to actually
adopt the charter. If we wanted to do it in
(08:23):
one year, we were going to have to have a
special election either to ask the people of Douglas County
do we want to go home rule, and then a
standard general election for adopting the home rule charter, or
we were going to have to wait to November, ask
the permission, and then have a special election in order
(08:43):
to adopt the charter. We have limited time, but I
want to get to a couple other things. You talked
about the things, the benefits, but what are the potential downsides?
And I preface this because I think I saw when
I saw a slide when I was watching some of
the local news one of the downsides from who was presenting.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't know if it's your district attorney who was saying, well,
the downside is not a people know about the good sides.
I'm paraphrasing here, which I thought was an interesting defense
to say, well, it's not the downsides are you don't
know about the good sides, But really, what are the
downsides about?
Speaker 4 (09:11):
What is the negative?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I'll tell you what the negatives is. It's a lot
of work. I mean, I think that is the biggest negative.
That's the biggest reason why you've only seen two counties
actually adopted. I asked my county commissioner back in two
thousand and two, when I had just gotten out of
the army. I just moved into the county and I said, hey,
I grew up in Greeley. Home rule is the way
(09:33):
to go. His response was, it's complicated. He wasn't wrong.
It is complicated. Well, Douglas County is a lot different
of a county than it was in two thousand and two.
I think we have a good professional staff that can
really help out on this process. And only that, but
our electorate today in twenty twenty five is a whole
(09:56):
lot different than it was in two thousand and two.
We're better educated, we have such a high professional population.
I think we're ready to roll on this. You want
other downsides, I don't know that I can give you, Marty.
I mean, honestly, I don't see actual operational downside. We
go home rule, we have the local control. We have
(10:20):
that capability to have more choice and more decision, more
freedom and liberty, if you will, in Douglas County than
we do today as a statutory county.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So those other two counties, like you mentioned, when they
implemented home rule, they went from three to five commissioners.
Is that a possibility if Douglas County goes home rule?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
It is a possibility. I don't advocate for that. That's
going to add it extra half a million dollars every
single year, but it's absolutely possibility. I am running to
be one of the members of the twenty one home
rule commissioners. The reality is I'll be one out of
twenty one. My position is let's stick at three. I
might get out voted.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
This is a lot of depth, a lot of information,
and we appreciate you coming in here, and we probably
didn't do you justice to give you more time, but
at least we kind of got about a ten thousand
foot level of a lot of this.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Meank you.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'm sitting in a comfy chair. I can just kind
of hang out and interrupt, especially when you get sports.
I got some opinions I bet you do.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Home rule not happening for certain teams anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Douglas County Commissioner George Teal, thank you so much for
joining us in the studio this morning. Please keep us
informed on the process as we see this going forward.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Roger, that will do.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Thank you,
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