Vote Yes on the Proposed Charter Amendments

The Charter Belongs to the Voters

by Michael J Badagliacco, “MJB”

A new committee has formed to urge a No vote on all four Montrose City Charter amendments on the November 3, 2026 ballot (ballots drop in the mail the week of October 5, 2026). They say the process moved too fast, that a citizen’s commission should have written the questions first, and that each change is a threat to good government. Those claims do not hold up against the Charter or against how Montrose has changed this document before.

Article X, Section 2 of the Charter is plain. Amendments may go to the ballot by citizen petition or by the Council on its own initiative, under the Colorado Constitution. A citizen’s commission is not required. It can be useful. It is not the legal gate.

The last two packages prove the point. In 2014 the Council referred a large rewrite to the April 1 election that Voters approved. Reporting at the time and later described the work as led by City Manager Bill Bell with council members. Then-Mayor Judy Ann Files called much of it clerical. There was no independent citizen’s commission.

Inside that package was a real transfer of power. The City Manager, not the Council, gained the sole authority to appoint or remove the police chief and the city clerk.  Former state legislator Ben Alexander warned in the Montrose Press on March 26, 2014, that the ballot language hid that change.

That is the system the new committee now calls “professional” and “insulated.” It was not handed down from Mount Sinai. It was written in 2014 by the same kind of inside group the committee now condemns.

On November 4, 2025, another Council-and-staff package went to the voters as one bundled question. Ordinance 2690 says the Council and the city’s leadership team reviewed the Charter. A June 2025 account named Mayor Dave Frank, Mayor Pro Tem Judy Ann Files, City Manager Bill Bell and other staff.  It failed but again, no citizen’s commission.

The current proposed amendments for the November 3, 2026 ballot were presented by sitting council members, written by the city legal staff, debated in public meetings, and placed on the ballot by recorded votes. They are four separate questions. Voters can approve one and reject another. That is more choice, not less.

The items are all separate measures, not a single bucket for all.

Confirmed questions include:

 Moving city elections from April of even years to November of even years

o April yields 25-35% of registered voters. November pulls 60-87%

o Stand-alone April elections cost $30,000, November coordinated elections cost $5,000-10,000

 A lifetime eight-year limit on Council service after November 3, 2026

o Current limits are for consecutive

 Council approval of the manager’s decision to appoint or discharge the Police Chief.

o This pertains exclusively to the hiring and discharge, no operational authority or changes are included.

 Council approval of the manager’s decision to appoint or discharge the City Clerk.

o This pertains exclusively to the hiring and discharge, no operational authority or changes are included.

Amendment 1 does not hide city hall. It puts city hall where people vote.

Montrose now elects its Council in April of even years. Amendment 1 would move those elections to November of even years, starting in 2028. Sitting members would serve until their successors take office after the November 2028 and 2030 elections. That bridge is how you change the calendar without leaving empty seats.

April is a quiet election. On April 7, 2026, only 35.5% of mailed city ballots came back. November coordinated elections draw the larger crowd (60-87% on average), because people are already voting for state and federal offices. Local races do not disappear on a longer ballot. They gain readers. If the fear is “partisan politics,” the honest answer is that city elections are already political. Holding them in April does not make them more partisan. It just makes them smaller.

And let’s not forget the financial implications.

April stand-alone municipal elections in Montrose cost $30,000,

November coordinated elections cost $5,000 - $10,000

Amendment 2 does not steal your choice. It stops the same names from cycling forever.

Today a district member may serve eight consecutive years and an at-large member six, then sit out four years and come back. Amendment 2 would set a lifetime cap of eight years of Council service after November 3, 2026.

The committee wants the four-year pause so familiar faces can return. Voters can still pick experienced people. They just cannot keep recycling the same five chairs for decades. Eight years is a long run on a five-member Council. If someone is indispensable, the city will survive the next name on the ballot.

Amendments 3 and 4 restore a check the public never clearly bargained away.

The manager would still hire, supervise, and run the police department and the clerk’s office day to day. Council would only confirm appointment or discharge. That is advice and consent, not a takeover.

Public safety and elections are not private personnel files. The police chief answers for law enforcement in this city. The clerk administers municipal elections. Elected officials who face the voters should have a recorded yes or no on who holds those jobs. If a future Council abuses that vote, the remedy is the next election, not a Charter that leaves both posts solely in the manager’s hands.

The committee’s three words, trust, honesty, and accountability, cut the other way. Trust is built when more voters see the city ballot. Honesty is putting four questions in plain view instead of burying a power shift inside a “clerical” package, as happened in 2014. Accountability is elected people taking responsibility for the chief and the clerk, then living with the vote.



Read the redlined Charter on the city’s elections page. Then vote Yes on November 3.
The amendments do not take effect unless you say so.
That is citizen participation. That is the Charter working as written.