A look at Englewood City Council recall e orts

CLASSIFIEDS

Mayor responds to claims around leadership

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Although the Englewood City Council has tabled its consideration of permitting two-to-four-unit residences in single-family zoning, the e ort to recall four council members is still underway.

On April 17, resident Kurt Suppes announced that a group of Englewood residents led a davits with the city clerk seeking to recall Mayor Othoniel Sierra and Councilmembers Joe Anderson, Chelsea Nunnenkamp and Cheryl Wink.

In the a davits, the residents allege the four members are derelict in their duties representing their constituency.

Among the listed claims is that the four members support zoning changes contemplated in the CodeNext project including permitting “multiplex housing” in R-1 zone districts, which are areas that have single-family homes.

CodeNext refers to an ongoing e ort to update Englewood’s development code, called the Uni ed Development Code. e city is still in the drafting phase of the project.

e Englewood City Council unanimously agreed to inde nitely end the conversation of potentially permitting two-to-four-unit residences in R-1 zone districts during the April 17 meeting.

Although this discussion has been tabled, Suppes said he is not aware of any residents who have changed their mind about pursuing the recall.

“ e initial issue that came up was CodeNext, but really, when we started getting down into it, we realized there’s more than just that. It’s not a one-issue type of situation. It’s a general concern, I think, that a lot of people share regarding just the lack of leadership that exists currently … at the level of the city council,”

Suppes said.

The recall process

Filing the recall a davits is the rst step in the recall process. e residents have until May 4 to submit recall petitions for each council member to the city clerk, Englewood City Clerk Stephanie Carlile said via email.

Once that is done and the petitions are authorized, the residents can circulate the petitions for 60 days to get signatures, Carlile said.

Each petition may be circulated and signed by registered Englewood voters “who would be entitled to vote for the successor of the incumbent sought to be recalled,” according to the Englewood Home Rule Charter. e number of signatures must equal at least 25% of the voters who voted in the last general election for that o ce.

Carlile said the required signatures needed to proceed with the recall process are: 458 signatures for Sierra, 342 signatures for Nunnenkamp, 583 signatures for Anderson and 1,426 signatures for Wink.

“If the petitions are timely led and deemed su cient, council will set an election date not less than 60 days nor more than 120 days from the ling of the petitions,” Carlile wrote.

Suppes: ‘We’ve essentially been ignored’ Although he did not sign any of the led a davits, Suppes said he participated in drafting and putting together the a davits themselves. is was done in collaboration with a group of about 20-25 people, he said.

“ e lack of leadership and the inability of those four individuals to be attentive and responsive to the people in the city is a signi cant concern for all of us,” Suppes said. “We’ve essentially been ignored.”

Some similar allegations in each of the led a davits include claims that the council members vote favorably for high-density housing projects, as well as ignore resident concerns such as inadequate infrastructure and nancial resources necessary for supporting increased density.

Suppes said the residents think that “these folks are more interested in pursuing their own personal agendas” than they are with representing their constituency.

“ ere are a lot of issues in the city that need to be addressed. We have crime, and we have drugs, and we have all kinds of issues with the businesses that are trying to survive in the city,” Suppes said. “And there hasn’t been any attention to really speak of. We don’t see the city council and/ or the city — the management of the city — attending to these issues.”

Mayor addresses CodeNext, R-1 zoning Sierra said he is surprised by the recall e ort. He noted that the conversations council had regarding potentially allowing two-to-four-unit residential development in singlefamily areas had “really energized the community.”

“We’ve done all the things that you would expect a good council to do … in terms of, you know, realizing that housing is a big issue across the metro area,” he said, adding that the council started looking at what it could do.

“One of the ideas was to potentially allow that multifamily within singlefamily lots, and so we then went to the citizens and started requesting feedback on the plan. And obviously … it didn’t go anywhere,” Sierra said. “So we tabled having those discussions about adding multifamily to single-family areas.”

“To me, it’s just been a surprise because, you know, you would expect a good council to look at the major issues impacting, but then also taking the input from citizens and making the best decision for what’s right for Englewood. And I felt that we did that as a council,” he added.

Regarding council’s decision to no longer consider the zoning change, Suppes asked, “Well, why are they not gonna do it now? Because they’re being recalled?

“It was coincidental that they decided to drop the R-1 issues on the same night that I got up there and announced the recall,” Suppes said. “If it takes that to try to get their attention, that’s not appropriate.”

However, Sierra said the recall effort did not play a role in the council’s decision to table the consideration.

“We went in there looking at how we can solve some of the a ordability issues, attainability issues within the city. And so there’s a multi-prong approach that we’re taking,” Sierra said.

After digging into the issue, Sierra said he views allowing multifamily developments within R-1 zones as more of a “situation of last resort.”

“I don’t think we’re there yet,” he said, adding that he thinks the city should consider other steps rst such as development within the CityCenter area that stretches east from the light rail platform.

“To me, it was like, (it) doesn’t make sense at this point to go down that route. But, obviously, we needed to nd out the information. We