How to make a County Home Rule charter

Why would it be a good idea to ratify a Home Rule Charter for the County and why should we care?

To change our County to a Home Rule Charter would mean that the rules by which we govern and run our county would be made by us, here at home. It is like writing our own county constitution instead of blindly following rules set forth in the state constitution. No one needs to be convinced that our current county structure is not working very well.

By voting for a Home Rule Charter for the County, we get to make the rules here that work for us. Some of you might not read this entire piece so just remember this. Home Rule puts control of our county government back into the hands of the citizens of our county.

When Home Rule gets put on the county ballot, you will actually end up voting for it two different times.

The first time you will get to vote on two questions: [1] should a Home Rule Charter Commission be formed, and [2] who do you want to elect to be the 11 members of the Charter Commission? Then, the Charter Commission goes off and works on writing the new Charter for 240 days. During that time, they have to present their work to the general public at least two times. Then, 240 days later, you get to vote again on this question “I accept the Home Rule Charter as written: yes or no?”

The Home Rule question will get put on the ballot one of two ways: [a] either the County Commissioners will put it there, or [b] approximately 600 of us county voters will sign a petition to put it there. A petition will begin circulating in June 2008. The idea will be to place the Home Rule question on the November ballot.

The different new Home Rule Charter issues or “flavors” explored here are: [a] number of County Commissioners and their salaries, [b] hiring of Department Heads versus electing them, [c] Initiative and Referendum process, [d] districting or “at large” election of Commissioners, and [e] partisan versus non-partisan elections.

The Commission of Eleven will be studying these topics extensively and make final decisions by the end of their 240 day Charter-writing project.

The number of County Commissioners is presently three, as mandated by the State constitution. To avoid the dynamic of a two-to-one vote split, five commissioners or seven commissioners might be better. More commissioners would divide up the various committee tasks and other duties more easily. Five commissioners only need five offices and five telephones, etc. So, maybe, five is the right number.

Right now, the State requires that we pay our Commissioners $50,000. per year. Under Home Rule, we can pay whatever we want.

The choice here is however many Commissioners that we want and to pay them whatever salary that we want.

The hiring of department heads instead of electing them is possibly the most important Home Rule Charter issue. Some believe that it is critical to streamline the County chain of command and to make it operate like a business instead of like divided fiefdoms. Currently, we elect the Treasurer, the Assessor, the County Clerk, the Sherriff, the Coroner and the County Surveyor. The Treasurer has in the past had troubles communicating with the Finance Director. The Assessor has had trouble talking to the Planning Department.

Currently, the Commissioners, the Treasurer, the Assessor, the County Clerk, and the Sherriff all act like separate CEO’s. We could create only one Chief Executive and that is the five (or seven) member Commissioner body. The County Manager would be responsible for knowing everything and providing all necessary information to the Commissioners. The people would go straight to the Commissioners for answers. The Commissioners would go straight to the County Manager for answers. The County Manager gets answers straight from the Department Heads. Alternately, elected department heads would operate somewhat independently from the Commissioners.

The Sherriff is the most likely Department Head to be kept as an elected position.

So, the choice here is to keep some or all or none of the department heads elected or else hired. Those not elected could be appointed or hired.

The initiative and referendum components are required by State law to be included in our new Home Rule charter. This is the right of the citizens to propose and vote on legislation without going through their elected representatives. This right does not exist currently in Archuleta County.

No choice here.

The topic of Commissioner’s Districts could become a complicated one. Right now the Commissioner districts are divided into three districts with approximately equal numbers of voters. We could keep this simple and leave the districts alone. If we decide that five commissioners is the right number then keep it at three commissioners elected from districts and two commissioners elected “at large” (the entire county).

The choice here is, probably, five districts, three districts, or no districts.


We can choose to make our County Commissioner elections partisan or non-partisan. Right now, County elections are partisan. When you vote you see the name of the candidate and the name of their “party”. The party machine candidates (plus the independents) narrow list of who you get to choose from before you even get to vote.

If we wish, we can retain a more pure form of democracy. If we eliminate the “partisan” nature of our county elections then we can eliminate a lot of the power that the party machine has on our local government.

The choice here is to continue “partisan” elections or to eliminate the party affiliation to create “non-partisan” elections.

Presentations to inform the public about County Home Rule will begin to be made in March. If you have a group for which you would like a brief presentation made, you may contact Teddy Herzog at 731-2587 or teddyherzog@yahoo.com