THORNTON

supply that we need to make sure people are housed,” she said.

She said ornton is running into a problem where the city is pricing people, like teachers and rst responders, out.

Kulmann said the bill doesn’t say the city has to build a ordable and only what density to build.

Henson said that with an increased supply will bring prices down.

A ecting Thornton

City sta presented the bill to the council and detailed how it would a ect ornton. Jessica Whitney, Senior Assistant City Attorney, said local control is ingrained in Colorado law. is bill would preempt that.

“Cities possess broad legislative discretions to determine how to best achieve declared municipal objectives,” she said.

Whitney went on to say that when matters are considered to be a local concern, local codes and ordinances

BY SANDRA FISH THE COLORADO SUN

A Denver jury has convicted a 52-year-old man of retaliating against an elected o cial for threatening Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold in a phone call to the Democrat’s o ce.

Kirk Wertz told Colorado State Patrol troopers investigating the threat that he called the Elections Division of the Colorado Secretary of State’s O ce on June 30, two days after the 2022 primary, and told a worker to “tell the secretary that the angel of death is coming for her in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Wertz has been held in the Denver Downtown Detention Center since July 6 on a $2,000 bond, jail records will supersede state law. She said land use is very much considered a local concern.

ADUs

One portion of the bill addressed ADUs. ADUs are allowed in ornton. e bill would say that ADUs are allowed by right for single-family homes.

Collin Wahab, the city’s principal planner, said that the di erence is that the new bill would preempt HOA regulations, meaning an HOA could not restrict ADUs.

Setback laws would also change,

Authorities traced the cellphone from which the call came and saw that it was moving from Kansas toward Colorado. e threat prompted the Colorado State Patrol to provide Griswold with round-the-clock protection.

“It made me feel like a sitting duck,” Griswold testi ed in court on April 11. “All I knew is that someone said they were going to come kill me and started driving toward this state.”

Troopers eventually tracked Wertz to a Je erson County convenience store. ere, Wertz told the troopers his call was protected by his First Amendment right to free speech. “I have a right to call,” he said, “and and speci cally be reduced in ornton. e bill would require municipalities to not allow setbacks greater than ve feet for side or rear yards. Currently, single-family detached zoning districts in the city have a minimum side yard of 10 feet and rear yard setbacks of 20 feet. e bill would also not allow cities to require that the property owner lives in either the main unit or the ADU. ornton currently requires the owner to live in one of the units. ornton also requires one o - disagree and give her a piece of mind.”

Public defenders and the prosecutor trying the case refused to say where Wertz is from, though voting records from 2022 list his address as Littleton.

Wertz’s conviction marks the second time a man has been found guilty of charges after threatening Griswold.

In October 2022, a Nebraska man was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from threats he made against Griswold