Opposition to Montrose Charter Amendments

Relies on Contradictions and Misinformation

by Michael J Badagliacco, “MJB”

Letters and ads in the October 26 Montrose Mirror from Tom Cheney, Cliff Faurer, Dave Stockton, Paul Janzen, and the listed former mayors treat the proposed Charter Amendments as an assault on settled practice. The same voices that routinely describe both the U.S. Constitution and local charters as living, breathing documents now insist that votes taken in 1993 and 2014 must stand forever. That position is not consistent. It is selective. When earlier changes produced lower turnout and reduced elected oversight, those outcomes are defended as permanent. When a later council asks voters to reconsider the results, the request is labeled a threat.

Past Votes Are Invoked Only When They Favor the Status Quo

Cheney, Faurer, and Stockton repeatedly cite the 1993 and 2014 decisions as reasons to reject any further amendment. The practical results of those earlier votes include:

• Standalone April elections that draw fewer voters than November contests.

• Final authority over the Police Chief left with an unelected city manager rather than the elected council.

• A narrower electorate deciding local offices while broader participation is treated as a risk.

These consequences are presented as virtues worth protecting. The same writers do not apply the same finality to other charter language when it suits them. A living document, in their usage, appears to live only in one direction.

The contradiction extends to claims of added bureaucracy:

• Restoring a limited Council review of the City Manager’s candidate list for Police Chief is called an unnecessary layer.

• Leaving the decision solely with an unelected official is called efficient.

The distinction does not hold. Elected officials answer to voters. A manager does not. The amendments return a narrow check that earlier councils had given away. Calling that restoration a power grab, as Cheney and Janzen do, requires reading language that places the decision with the full Council as if it placed the decision with one person.

The Charge of Uninformed November Voters Is Condescending

Faurer and Cheney argue that moving elections to November risks uninformed votes because local issues would share the ballot with other contests. Higher turnout is treated as a defect rather than a gain. The implication is clear:

• According to Faurer and Cheney, residents who participate in November are assumed less capable of judging municipal questions than the smaller April electorate.

• No evidence is offered for that assumption.

• The smaller, less representative April turnout they prefer receives no parallel criticism.

The stance is not neutral analysis. It is an assertion that certain voters cannot be trusted with a fuller ballot. That claim sits poorly alongside arguments that present themselves as defenders of voter decisions and home rule.

Republican Government Places Accountability with Elected Representatives

Paul Janzen objects to descriptions of the United States as a republic rather than a pure democracy. The founding documents do not support the objection:

• Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution guarantees every state a republican form of government.

• Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution uses the word democracy to define the system.

• James Madison, in Federalist No. 10, warned that pure democracies had proven incompatible with personal security or the rights of property and short-lived. The remedy he described was a republic in which citizens elect representatives who remain accountable.

Local charter amendments that restore limited elected review of key administrative appointments operate inside that framework. Opposition that treats such review as an attack on democracy substitutes a different model for the one the founding documents establish.

The October 26 pieces raise questions of cost and continuity. Those questions can be weighed against the text of the four amendments. They do not justify treating past low-turnout decisions as untouchable while dismissing present voters as uninformed. Residents who read the measures can decide whether the arguments against them match the language or rest on the selective permanence the “No on All 4” side now demands.