June 20, 2025 • 22 mins
I was so unconvinced by either of my guests the other day regarding whether to vote yes or no on Douglas County Home Rule (and, to be clear, I don't vote in DougCo) that I'm doing it again. Two guests, one after the other -- not at the same time, offering their views. This time the "no" side goes first.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had Abe Laden, who's a county commissioner in favor
of home rule in Douglas County, and I had Laura Thomas,
a former county commissioner who's opposed. And as I listened
carefully to each of them. Now, I don't vote in
Doug Co, but I was thinking, well, if I did,
how would I vote based.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
On this information?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And neither the one of them convinced me, and I
have a feeling that neither one of them really convinced anybody,
or not very many people listening to the show, which
makes me think that if their arguments are that unpersuasive,
maybe there are lots of people in Douglas County who
still don't know how they're going to vote on this thing.
So I thought I would do it again, but with
(00:39):
different guests. So joining me first, Steve Bowand is former
mayor of Castle Rock and former Douglas County commissioner, and
he is against home rule. But what's interesting Steve told me,
and I didn't know this before we started. Steve told
me he started as in favor of home rule and
signed petitions for it and so on. Steve, it's good
to meet you for the first time. Thanks for being here,
(01:00):
Thanks for having me. I think maybe the most effective
way to start talking about this is for you to
tell us about your journey from being in favor or
at least positively curious about Home Rule to now being
a spokesperson for no.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well. I, like many people, take the time to look
at things, and if you look at the details, you'll
often have an evolution in thinking. And for me, I
started open to home Rule sign petitions for some of
the elected officials in the county. The more I looked
at it, I saw a couple things that really bothered me.
(01:39):
First of all, the way the county commissioners approved the
home rule process. They did not take the time to
engender public support. They didn't take the time to get
people's thoughts and ideas. They rushed it through. And now
we're on a short term i'll call it a leash.
They want to get home Rule completed by November, sorry,
(02:03):
September second, so they can have a November vote on it.
That's the wrong way to do it. This is a
very complex issue. There are over fifty decisions that the
Home Rule Charter Commission will have to make. They range
from are we going to restrict debt issuance pursuant to
tabor to how are we going to do social services?
(02:25):
I often hear that there are four home rule counties
in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, that's not quite right.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
There are two home rule counties and two home rule
county municipalities.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Denver and what Broomfield. What's the other one? Yes, those two,
those two right.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
The reason why they do that is to be a.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Better service to their citizens.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
They want to integrate social services, drivers' licenses, you know,
all the things that the state requires a county to do.
Broomfield had Broomfield citizens had to go to three different
locations to get a social services in Broomfield. By becoming
the county, they could integrate that into the city and
(03:06):
county of Broomfield.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I would also note start to interrupts states quickly. Home
rule home rule cities, home rule municipalities have a lot
more benefits than home rule counties do.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
They are first home rule municipalities. The powers that a
home rule municipality has far outweigh what a home rule
county has in terms of the I'll call it the
higharity of governments in Colorado. Statutory counties are the base.
They provide the fundamental services that are required by the state.
They are not an independent government, they are an arm
(03:42):
of state government. Next comes home rule counties, Then comes
statutory municipalities, Then comes the State of Colorado, and the
highest level is the home rule municipality. They have the
greatest power. They can, even in some instances, override state laws.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I play Devil's advocate for a second, and again I
really don't have a strong opinion on this. Yet the
supporters of home rule say, look, folks should vote yes
on Tuesday, because all you're really voting yes for is
giving permission for the next step to go ahead and
draft a home rule charter, and then the more important
vote will be the next vote where you can decide
(04:21):
whether you like what we're proposing for home rule.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
You're absolutely correct, But here's my thinking that changed my
mind on this. If we only have sixty days to
craft a home rule charter, which is in essence, a
constitution for Douglas County, we are not going to get
this right. Let's take the time it requires to get
this right.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
If you were still a county commissioner, putting aside the
current deadlines and just sticking with the highest level question
of do you think home rule might be an appropriate
way for Douglas County to exist? What would your answer
be to that as a standalone question?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
When I was on the border county commissioners.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
We looked at home rule twice in detail.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Every two to three years, we examine home rule to
see if anything had changed in state law to give
us the extra powers that might be good for the county.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
We didn't see any.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It doesn't provide any exceptional capabilities to a county. Douglas
County already provides nearly all of the It provides all
the mandatory services required by the state, but then it
also provides nearly all the discretionary services that are allowed
by the state as a statutory county.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
We didn't see any benefit for the citizens.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And you looked at this twice while you were county commissioner. Yes,
all right, I'm gonna put you in a more difficult spot. Now,
what is the strongest argument in fee of home rule?
And I don't mean in favor of necessarily voting yesterday.
Let's say you could have a perfect process, Steve's perfect
process for implementing home rule. What would the strongest argument
(06:10):
be for having home rule for Douglas County.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
For me, it would be to return government revenue limitations
back on the county. I have this streak in me
that likes smaller government. I would also look at some
of the issues that the advocates are saying, what can
we do with respect to immigration issues that were not
(06:35):
already doing I talked to the sheriff about this. He said,
we are doing fine right now. He is functionally cooperating
to the extent that he can by state law with
federal ice.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
With ice, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Home rule wouldn't as far as I understand, Home rule
would not allow him to cooperate more, despite what some
of the proponents are saying.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But you correct me. I believe you're correct. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The other thing I wonder about is, you know a
lot of people say we can do this and it'll
prevent like the growth of our county government or something.
But county government in Douglas, the county, they've been spending
a lot of money already. Douglas County, which is a
home rule county.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
They actually have higher salaries for their county commissioners than
other counties do.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Their home rule and they can do that.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
But it's not obvious to me that unless you are
going to have a conservative government in your county forever,
which Douglas County might not, it's drifting more independent, more
moderate as the years go by. You could end up
with a home rule charter that actually allows the future
county commissioners to make government what conservatives would think is
big or more expensive and worse.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
That's one of my greatest concerns. A home rule charter
could allow the overturn of three fundamental aspects of county
budget control. First of all, you can only spend what
you have. Second of all, we follow Tabor. You can
only issue debt that's approved by the people. Now, what
(08:07):
we know is that there are two other forms of
debt that are non voter authorized debt that have been
used in the.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Past by the county. One of the things I worked
on as a county commissioner.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Was to pay off all non voter authorized debt, and
we got that done. They used what's called a lease
trust to buy water rights in nineteen ninety three. That's
something that I'm hearing well. It'll be a great power
for the county to be able to water by water rights.
(08:37):
That's already been done several times. And the third thing
is is that we need to maintain spending pursuant to
the limitations that we currently have in state law. Those
are three important things that could be overturned with a charter.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Steve Bowen and his former Castle Rock mayor, and more
importantly for this conversation, former Douglas County commissioner, who started
thinking he was in favor of home rule, and as
he did more research on well, he already knew a.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Lot about what home rule meant. So he.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
As a commissioner decided that they didn't think it was
worth approving, but still started this time signing the petitions
in favor of moving ahead with the process and has
been so disappointed in the process that he has become
a public spokesperson against it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Steve Bowen, thanks so much for joining us on the show.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
All right, we're going to do something different now, well,
the same subject, different opinion. George Teel was actually in
studio with me probably a month ish ago, maybe a
little more, when this home rule thing started rolling out,
and I wanted to get an opinion today in favor
of home rule. We had his fellow commissioner Abe Layden
(09:59):
on the other day. So George joins us now by
phone to give his opinion. And George, I think you
heard a fair bit of what Steve had to say.
Do you want to respond to any of that?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
You know, Listen, Steve's right about the water issues. There
is nothing more substantial that Home Rule would give us
in terms of acquiring water rights or anything than we
can do right now. He was exactly right, and I
think that's why, except for Steve, hardly anybody's talking about
(10:37):
water with Home Rule. It's understandable Steve is a water consultant.
I totally understand why that's a focus for him, but
it's really not a focus for what everyone else is doing.
You know, Steve mentioned nothing substantial has changed. I think
that's just profoundly incorrect. You know, our sheriff cannot engage
(11:02):
in a two eighty seven g agreement with the federal
government right now, and that's a federal that's a federal
form that local governments fill out in order to work
with ICE more closely. And what Steve said about, oh,
the sheriff thinks everything's going fine right now, that's just
not true.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Well, I'll ask him. I'll ask the sheriff and we'll
see what he has to say. But let's stink with
your primary point.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Why do you can't engage in two eighty seven G
with ice?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, but why are you Are you saying that you
think the sheriff would be able to if you were
a home rule county.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Absolutely, under Section thirty of Carrotter Revised Statutes uh In,
the ability for a home rule county to engage in
independent contracting with all levels of government, whether we're talking
about our municipal partners, our state partners, or federal partners
is absolutely enhanced because you're not following the statutorially appointed
(12:06):
precepts of state government. And Stee was right. A statutory
county is an arm of the state of Colorado. A
home rule county is an independent legal entity from the
State of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
You know again, I need to I'm having a hard
time getting definitive answers on this. I suspect that the
state laws that prohibit the kind of cooperation that you
and I would both like to see. By the way,
I'm in favor of the kind of cooperation that you're
talking about. I suspect that the state laws that prohibit
(12:41):
it right now would not be overcome by being a
home rule county. Just like you know, I've heard some
people say, oh, you won't have to pay the ten
cent bag fee anymore. I doubt that's true either. And
I've heard some people say, you know, you won't have
to abide by some state gun laws.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
That's not true.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And so I just I wonder, George, what are the
actual benefits and not just sort of the biggest claims
that folks will get if Doug Cole becomes a homeworld county.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Well, first and foremost, Ross Listen, I'm not a lawyer,
but Steve's not a lawyer either. You're not a lawyer.
But it's the legal opinion of our county attorney and
other attorneys around the state that, yeah, we would be
able to engage in independent contracting and thereby be able
(13:34):
to work with ice. You know. Another matter that Steve
brought up is that nothing's changed, and something huge changed
a couple of years ago in the state legislature. They
passed a law. It's called Kopka, and what it allows
for is collective bargaining by government employees at the county
(13:55):
level to include our sheriff's deputies. Prior to that, that
was not a lot. Prior to that law passing, it
just wasn't allowed. You couldn't form a collective bargaining agreement
among county employees in the state of Colorado. That changed
two years ago. An exception built into that law, it's
written right into it is that Homerold counties are accepted.
(14:19):
That's a good one to talk about. How do we
keep costs down from the taxpayer? Well, we don't get
into collective bargaining for government employees that we know. We
see example over and over and over again across this country.
Just leads to government debt and a government drag servicing
those collective bargaining agreements.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I do like that one. That's a good one.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I mean, even FDR thought that government workers should not
be allowed to collectively bargain.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So I think that was a terrible law.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And if that's true that the well I believe you
that the county could get around that, then that's a
that's a very good thing. What about the process questions? Again,
you were you were listening when Steve was talking. He's
not the only one who has said that the that
the commissioners have rushed this and are continuing to try
to push a process that's that's too rushed, and I
(15:14):
think there's some validity there.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But I'd like to know what you think.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Our founding fathers wrote the Color the State of Our
founding fathers wrote the American Constitution between May and September
of a seventeen eighty seven. I don't understand if our
founding fathers could create the constitution that is endured for
about two hundred and fifty years, how anybody can say
(15:42):
that we're rushing this process, that we don't have time
to write a constitution or a charter for Douglas County tolerance.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's a very interesting comparison.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I guess I will say, first, with not much disrespect intended,
that the founding fathers who wrote our Constitution are smarter
than anybody who's going to be involved in this process,
even smarter than the smartest person, which could be you
involved in this process. Those people were in a different league. Also,
they had spent their adult lives thinking about the questions
(16:17):
that would come up in the Constitution. And also the
constitution is actually rather short. I think that a county charter,
I think the doug Coe County Charter would likely be
much longer than our constitution. And then finally you're proposing,
I think, to do it in maybe half the time
(16:37):
that you said was enough time to do the federal Constitution.
So it's a fun argument, but I'm not really buying it.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Well, anybody who's read one of the municipal charters or
the World County Charter and the municipal charters I'm going
to focused on that. I was on the Telera Council
for six and a half years. I thought, since I
had to protect and defend that charter, should read it,
and I did so several times. The reality is the
second half, the budgeting and the and the debt of
(17:09):
the pieces and parts of that charter are almost identical
to every other municipal charter in this state. Because they
are prescribed by law what they have to be. We're
going to have the same thing. Our analysis so far
says that about the second half dealing with finance and
(17:29):
budgeting in our charter is going to have to be
virtually a word for word identical to Pitkin County and
Wild County. Why because Pitton Counties and World Counties are
virtually word to word, word for word identical. Here's the
thing that's missing, though. We can put in the taxpayer
(17:50):
Bill of Rights into the Douglas County Charter. A lot
of people don't know that Douglas County d Bruce in
the nineteen nineties. We were the first county to d Bruce.
As a matter of fact in Colorado. We can take
word for word a copy and paste the taxpayer Bill
of Rights and put them back, put them in, I
should say, the county Charter and allowed that the citizens
(18:15):
of Douglas County can live fully under the taxpayer of
Bill of Rights once again at their county level.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
All right, so many interesting, so many interesting things here.
I want to we only got about a minute and
a half left. I want to ask you a question.
I asked a because it's a question that's just sticking
with me. If if home rule were such a good idea,
why are there only two home rule counties?
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Well, I think that's one of the downsides. It is
the work that has to be done. I mean, Ross,
I'm not taking vacation this summer. I anticipate we're going
to win. I hope I am chosen to be a
home rule charter commissioner, just like Steve opposed to it,
but he's still running to be a home rule charter commissioner.
(19:05):
I already canceled our vacations. The wife and I we're
hanging and you know my wife, now she does like
to travel. We're staying here because I know I'm going
to be putting in ten to twelve hour days for
two months to get this process done. Listen, I grew
up in World County. You talked about the founding fathers
(19:27):
thinking about the Constitution for their entire adult lives. I
can't say that, but for most of my adult life,
I've been advocating, ever since I got out of the
Army and moved to Douglas County in ninety seven, that
we should be a home rule county. Why Because when
I was a kid growing up, all I ever heard
(19:48):
were the benefits of home rule. And it's something I've
been thinking about for most of my adult life. And
it's something that I feel like I have a respond
still to your bear. So that's a good ansertifications this summer.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I know I appreciate that answer, and I'll give
you this. I don't have an opinion. I hear what
I think are good arguments from both sides, no arguments
that have convinced me one way or another. To be clear,
I don't vote in Douglas County, and so if I
had an opinion, unless it was incredibly strong, when I'm
not even sure I would say it.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
So I'm gonna give you a prediction which.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Is not something that I doesn't mean I'm hoping one
way or another. I have a feeling that because Coloraden's
vote no on things they don't understand, and because the
timeline to get from introducing this idea to the first
vote was pretty compressed, I have a feeling it won't pass,
(20:47):
but there may be an and if I'm right, then
maybe there will be an opportunity for you or whoever
new commissioners are after you and ab or eventually term
limited if they want to go for it again, to
do a process that's a little bit longer and gets
the public involved in the educational process a little bit
earlier and maybe have a better chance. That's my prediction. Again,
I'm not saying I'm hoping for that. I'll give you
(21:08):
the last few seconds.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
You know your prediction actually doesn't bother me because the
Genie's out of the bottle. If indeed the people of
Douglas County tell us that they wanted more time to
consider this, my answer is, no problem. We'll do this
vote again in November. We've heard concerns about a special election.
(21:31):
No problem, We'll do this again in November, and we'll
keep doing it until. Quite frankly, the people of Douglas
County do feel comfortable with the conversation, and do feel
comfortable with the benefits, and do have an opportunity to
learn kind of both sides and learn that no, it's
not bulletproof, it's not a panacea, but can you give
(21:52):
us an advantage? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I just last quick thing here. I'm a little overtime,
But last quick thing, I was texting with the sheriff
trying to do this what multitasking while talking to you,
and he said, home rule will not permit me to
circumvent state law. And this is in the context of
working with ice, So he seems a little bit skeptical
(22:16):
that home rule will allow him to do more with ice.
But as he also said to me, it is a
complex issue.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
So I got to leave it there.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
George, I always appreciate your time thanks for being here.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Thank you Ross appreciate it.
I had Abe Laden, who's a county commissioner in favor
of home rule in Douglas County, and I had Laura Thomas,
a former county commissioner who's opposed. And as I listened
carefully to each of them. Now, I don't vote in
Doug Co, but I was thinking, well, if I did,
how would I vote based.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
On this information?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And neither the one of them convinced me, and I
have a feeling that neither one of them really convinced anybody,
or not very many people listening to the show, which
makes me think that if their arguments are that unpersuasive,
maybe there are lots of people in Douglas County who
still don't know how they're going to vote on this thing.
So I thought I would do it again, but with
(00:39):
different guests. So joining me first, Steve Bowand is former
mayor of Castle Rock and former Douglas County commissioner, and
he is against home rule. But what's interesting Steve told me,
and I didn't know this before we started. Steve told
me he started as in favor of home rule and
signed petitions for it and so on. Steve, it's good
to meet you for the first time. Thanks for being here,
(01:00):
Thanks for having me. I think maybe the most effective
way to start talking about this is for you to
tell us about your journey from being in favor or
at least positively curious about Home Rule to now being
a spokesperson for no.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well. I, like many people, take the time to look
at things, and if you look at the details, you'll
often have an evolution in thinking. And for me, I
started open to home Rule sign petitions for some of
the elected officials in the county. The more I looked
at it, I saw a couple things that really bothered me.
(01:39):
First of all, the way the county commissioners approved the
home rule process. They did not take the time to
engender public support. They didn't take the time to get
people's thoughts and ideas. They rushed it through. And now
we're on a short term i'll call it a leash.
They want to get home Rule completed by November, sorry,
(02:03):
September second, so they can have a November vote on it.
That's the wrong way to do it. This is a
very complex issue. There are over fifty decisions that the
Home Rule Charter Commission will have to make. They range
from are we going to restrict debt issuance pursuant to
tabor to how are we going to do social services?
(02:25):
I often hear that there are four home rule counties
in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Well, that's not quite right.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
There are two home rule counties and two home rule
county municipalities.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Denver and what Broomfield. What's the other one? Yes, those two,
those two right.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
The reason why they do that is to be a.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Better service to their citizens.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
They want to integrate social services, drivers' licenses, you know,
all the things that the state requires a county to do.
Broomfield had Broomfield citizens had to go to three different
locations to get a social services in Broomfield. By becoming
the county, they could integrate that into the city and
(03:06):
county of Broomfield.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I would also note start to interrupts states quickly. Home
rule home rule cities, home rule municipalities have a lot
more benefits than home rule counties do.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
They are first home rule municipalities. The powers that a
home rule municipality has far outweigh what a home rule
county has in terms of the I'll call it the
higharity of governments in Colorado. Statutory counties are the base.
They provide the fundamental services that are required by the state.
They are not an independent government, they are an arm
(03:42):
of state government. Next comes home rule counties, Then comes
statutory municipalities, Then comes the State of Colorado, and the
highest level is the home rule municipality. They have the
greatest power. They can, even in some instances, override state laws.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I play Devil's advocate for a second, and again I
really don't have a strong opinion on this. Yet the
supporters of home rule say, look, folks should vote yes
on Tuesday, because all you're really voting yes for is
giving permission for the next step to go ahead and
draft a home rule charter, and then the more important
vote will be the next vote where you can decide
(04:21):
whether you like what we're proposing for home rule.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
You're absolutely correct, But here's my thinking that changed my
mind on this. If we only have sixty days to
craft a home rule charter, which is in essence, a
constitution for Douglas County, we are not going to get
this right. Let's take the time it requires to get
this right.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
If you were still a county commissioner, putting aside the
current deadlines and just sticking with the highest level question
of do you think home rule might be an appropriate
way for Douglas County to exist? What would your answer
be to that as a standalone question?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
When I was on the border county commissioners.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
We looked at home rule twice in detail.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Every two to three years, we examine home rule to
see if anything had changed in state law to give
us the extra powers that might be good for the county.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
We didn't see any.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It doesn't provide any exceptional capabilities to a county. Douglas
County already provides nearly all of the It provides all
the mandatory services required by the state, but then it
also provides nearly all the discretionary services that are allowed
by the state as a statutory county.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
We didn't see any benefit for the citizens.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And you looked at this twice while you were county commissioner. Yes,
all right, I'm gonna put you in a more difficult spot. Now,
what is the strongest argument in fee of home rule?
And I don't mean in favor of necessarily voting yesterday.
Let's say you could have a perfect process, Steve's perfect
process for implementing home rule. What would the strongest argument
(06:10):
be for having home rule for Douglas County.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
For me, it would be to return government revenue limitations
back on the county. I have this streak in me
that likes smaller government. I would also look at some
of the issues that the advocates are saying, what can
we do with respect to immigration issues that were not
(06:35):
already doing I talked to the sheriff about this. He said,
we are doing fine right now. He is functionally cooperating
to the extent that he can by state law with
federal ice.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
With ice, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Home rule wouldn't as far as I understand, Home rule
would not allow him to cooperate more, despite what some
of the proponents are saying.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
But you correct me. I believe you're correct. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
The other thing I wonder about is, you know a
lot of people say we can do this and it'll
prevent like the growth of our county government or something.
But county government in Douglas, the county, they've been spending
a lot of money already. Douglas County, which is a
home rule county.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
They actually have higher salaries for their county commissioners than
other counties do.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Their home rule and they can do that.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
But it's not obvious to me that unless you are
going to have a conservative government in your county forever,
which Douglas County might not, it's drifting more independent, more
moderate as the years go by. You could end up
with a home rule charter that actually allows the future
county commissioners to make government what conservatives would think is
big or more expensive and worse.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
That's one of my greatest concerns. A home rule charter
could allow the overturn of three fundamental aspects of county
budget control. First of all, you can only spend what
you have. Second of all, we follow Tabor. You can
only issue debt that's approved by the people. Now, what
(08:07):
we know is that there are two other forms of
debt that are non voter authorized debt that have been
used in the.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Past by the county. One of the things I worked
on as a county commissioner.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Was to pay off all non voter authorized debt, and
we got that done. They used what's called a lease
trust to buy water rights in nineteen ninety three. That's
something that I'm hearing well. It'll be a great power
for the county to be able to water by water rights.
(08:37):
That's already been done several times. And the third thing
is is that we need to maintain spending pursuant to
the limitations that we currently have in state law. Those
are three important things that could be overturned with a charter.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Steve Bowen and his former Castle Rock mayor, and more
importantly for this conversation, former Douglas County commissioner, who started
thinking he was in favor of home rule, and as
he did more research on well, he already knew a.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Lot about what home rule meant. So he.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
As a commissioner decided that they didn't think it was
worth approving, but still started this time signing the petitions
in favor of moving ahead with the process and has
been so disappointed in the process that he has become
a public spokesperson against it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Steve Bowen, thanks so much for joining us on the show.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
All right, we're going to do something different now, well,
the same subject, different opinion. George Teel was actually in
studio with me probably a month ish ago, maybe a
little more, when this home rule thing started rolling out,
and I wanted to get an opinion today in favor
of home rule. We had his fellow commissioner Abe Layden
(09:59):
on the other day. So George joins us now by
phone to give his opinion. And George, I think you
heard a fair bit of what Steve had to say.
Do you want to respond to any of that?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
You know, Listen, Steve's right about the water issues. There
is nothing more substantial that Home Rule would give us
in terms of acquiring water rights or anything than we
can do right now. He was exactly right, and I
think that's why, except for Steve, hardly anybody's talking about
(10:37):
water with Home Rule. It's understandable Steve is a water consultant.
I totally understand why that's a focus for him, but
it's really not a focus for what everyone else is doing.
You know, Steve mentioned nothing substantial has changed. I think
that's just profoundly incorrect. You know, our sheriff cannot engage
(11:02):
in a two eighty seven g agreement with the federal
government right now, and that's a federal that's a federal
form that local governments fill out in order to work
with ICE more closely. And what Steve said about, oh,
the sheriff thinks everything's going fine right now, that's just
not true.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Well, I'll ask him. I'll ask the sheriff and we'll
see what he has to say. But let's stink with
your primary point.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Why do you can't engage in two eighty seven G
with ice?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, but why are you Are you saying that you
think the sheriff would be able to if you were
a home rule county.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Absolutely, under Section thirty of Carrotter Revised Statutes uh In,
the ability for a home rule county to engage in
independent contracting with all levels of government, whether we're talking
about our municipal partners, our state partners, or federal partners
is absolutely enhanced because you're not following the statutorially appointed
(12:06):
precepts of state government. And Stee was right. A statutory
county is an arm of the state of Colorado. A
home rule county is an independent legal entity from the
State of Colorado.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
You know again, I need to I'm having a hard
time getting definitive answers on this. I suspect that the
state laws that prohibit the kind of cooperation that you
and I would both like to see. By the way,
I'm in favor of the kind of cooperation that you're
talking about. I suspect that the state laws that prohibit
(12:41):
it right now would not be overcome by being a
home rule county. Just like you know, I've heard some
people say, oh, you won't have to pay the ten
cent bag fee anymore. I doubt that's true either. And
I've heard some people say, you know, you won't have
to abide by some state gun laws.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
That's not true.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And so I just I wonder, George, what are the
actual benefits and not just sort of the biggest claims
that folks will get if Doug Cole becomes a homeworld county.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Well, first and foremost, Ross Listen, I'm not a lawyer,
but Steve's not a lawyer either. You're not a lawyer.
But it's the legal opinion of our county attorney and
other attorneys around the state that, yeah, we would be
able to engage in independent contracting and thereby be able
(13:34):
to work with ice. You know. Another matter that Steve
brought up is that nothing's changed, and something huge changed
a couple of years ago in the state legislature. They
passed a law. It's called Kopka, and what it allows
for is collective bargaining by government employees at the county
(13:55):
level to include our sheriff's deputies. Prior to that, that
was not a lot. Prior to that law passing, it
just wasn't allowed. You couldn't form a collective bargaining agreement
among county employees in the state of Colorado. That changed
two years ago. An exception built into that law, it's
written right into it is that Homerold counties are accepted.
(14:19):
That's a good one to talk about. How do we
keep costs down from the taxpayer? Well, we don't get
into collective bargaining for government employees that we know. We
see example over and over and over again across this country.
Just leads to government debt and a government drag servicing
those collective bargaining agreements.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I do like that one. That's a good one.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I mean, even FDR thought that government workers should not
be allowed to collectively bargain.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So I think that was a terrible law.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And if that's true that the well I believe you
that the county could get around that, then that's a
that's a very good thing. What about the process questions? Again,
you were you were listening when Steve was talking. He's
not the only one who has said that the that
the commissioners have rushed this and are continuing to try
to push a process that's that's too rushed, and I
(15:14):
think there's some validity there.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But I'd like to know what you think.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Our founding fathers wrote the Color the State of Our
founding fathers wrote the American Constitution between May and September
of a seventeen eighty seven. I don't understand if our
founding fathers could create the constitution that is endured for
about two hundred and fifty years, how anybody can say
(15:42):
that we're rushing this process, that we don't have time
to write a constitution or a charter for Douglas County tolerance.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's a very interesting comparison.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I guess I will say, first, with not much disrespect intended,
that the founding fathers who wrote our Constitution are smarter
than anybody who's going to be involved in this process,
even smarter than the smartest person, which could be you
involved in this process. Those people were in a different league. Also,
they had spent their adult lives thinking about the questions
(16:17):
that would come up in the Constitution. And also the
constitution is actually rather short. I think that a county charter,
I think the doug Coe County Charter would likely be
much longer than our constitution. And then finally you're proposing,
I think, to do it in maybe half the time
(16:37):
that you said was enough time to do the federal Constitution.
So it's a fun argument, but I'm not really buying it.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Well, anybody who's read one of the municipal charters or
the World County Charter and the municipal charters I'm going
to focused on that. I was on the Telera Council
for six and a half years. I thought, since I
had to protect and defend that charter, should read it,
and I did so several times. The reality is the
second half, the budgeting and the and the debt of
(17:09):
the pieces and parts of that charter are almost identical
to every other municipal charter in this state. Because they
are prescribed by law what they have to be. We're
going to have the same thing. Our analysis so far
says that about the second half dealing with finance and
(17:29):
budgeting in our charter is going to have to be
virtually a word for word identical to Pitkin County and
Wild County. Why because Pitton Counties and World Counties are
virtually word to word, word for word identical. Here's the
thing that's missing, though. We can put in the taxpayer
(17:50):
Bill of Rights into the Douglas County Charter. A lot
of people don't know that Douglas County d Bruce in
the nineteen nineties. We were the first county to d Bruce.
As a matter of fact in Colorado. We can take
word for word a copy and paste the taxpayer Bill
of Rights and put them back, put them in, I
should say, the county Charter and allowed that the citizens
(18:15):
of Douglas County can live fully under the taxpayer of
Bill of Rights once again at their county level.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
All right, so many interesting, so many interesting things here.
I want to we only got about a minute and
a half left. I want to ask you a question.
I asked a because it's a question that's just sticking
with me. If if home rule were such a good idea,
why are there only two home rule counties?
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Well, I think that's one of the downsides. It is
the work that has to be done. I mean, Ross,
I'm not taking vacation this summer. I anticipate we're going
to win. I hope I am chosen to be a
home rule charter commissioner, just like Steve opposed to it,
but he's still running to be a home rule charter commissioner.
(19:05):
I already canceled our vacations. The wife and I we're
hanging and you know my wife, now she does like
to travel. We're staying here because I know I'm going
to be putting in ten to twelve hour days for
two months to get this process done. Listen, I grew
up in World County. You talked about the founding fathers
(19:27):
thinking about the Constitution for their entire adult lives. I
can't say that, but for most of my adult life,
I've been advocating, ever since I got out of the
Army and moved to Douglas County in ninety seven, that
we should be a home rule county. Why Because when
I was a kid growing up, all I ever heard
(19:48):
were the benefits of home rule. And it's something I've
been thinking about for most of my adult life. And
it's something that I feel like I have a respond
still to your bear. So that's a good ansertifications this summer.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I know I appreciate that answer, and I'll give
you this. I don't have an opinion. I hear what
I think are good arguments from both sides, no arguments
that have convinced me one way or another. To be clear,
I don't vote in Douglas County, and so if I
had an opinion, unless it was incredibly strong, when I'm
not even sure I would say it.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
So I'm gonna give you a prediction which.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Is not something that I doesn't mean I'm hoping one
way or another. I have a feeling that because Coloraden's
vote no on things they don't understand, and because the
timeline to get from introducing this idea to the first
vote was pretty compressed, I have a feeling it won't pass,
(20:47):
but there may be an and if I'm right, then
maybe there will be an opportunity for you or whoever
new commissioners are after you and ab or eventually term
limited if they want to go for it again, to
do a process that's a little bit longer and gets
the public involved in the educational process a little bit
earlier and maybe have a better chance. That's my prediction. Again,
I'm not saying I'm hoping for that. I'll give you
(21:08):
the last few seconds.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
You know your prediction actually doesn't bother me because the
Genie's out of the bottle. If indeed the people of
Douglas County tell us that they wanted more time to
consider this, my answer is, no problem. We'll do this
vote again in November. We've heard concerns about a special election.
(21:31):
No problem, We'll do this again in November, and we'll
keep doing it until. Quite frankly, the people of Douglas
County do feel comfortable with the conversation, and do feel
comfortable with the benefits, and do have an opportunity to
learn kind of both sides and learn that no, it's
not bulletproof, it's not a panacea, but can you give
(21:52):
us an advantage? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I just last quick thing here. I'm a little overtime,
But last quick thing, I was texting with the sheriff
trying to do this what multitasking while talking to you,
and he said, home rule will not permit me to
circumvent state law. And this is in the context of
working with ice, So he seems a little bit skeptical
(22:16):
that home rule will allow him to do more with ice.
But as he also said to me, it is a
complex issue.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
So I got to leave it there.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
George, I always appreciate your time thanks for being here.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Thank you Ross appreciate it.
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