County Home Rule petition is circulating now

The County Home Rule Study Committee is now circulating a petition to place Home Rule on the November ballot.

A "yes" vote in November would mean that we, the citizens of the County, would form an eleven member Charter-writing Commission and hold public meetings to begin writing a new County Charter. We would see if we could write a County Charter that would serve us better than the boilerplate rules set forth in the State Constitution.

In June or July 2009, we would get to vote again. Either we would adopt the new charter or we would say "no" we do not like the way the charter is written.

The County Home Rule process is, essentially, an agreement to take a blank piece of paper and see if we, the people, can write a County Charter that would organize County government more effectively than the way the County is run today.

Anyone who tells you that "I don't like Home Rule because......." is assuming that the charter would be written in a particular way when in fact it could be written many different ways. I've heard many people tell me that they don't like Home Rule because "it would give the County Commissioners too much power".

Where did that information come from? If we wanted to, we could have a separate administrative council manage the County and the Board of County Commissioners would only set policy. Not that I recommend that. Probably, a five or seven member Board of County Commissioners would be a good idea for consideration by the Charter-writing Commission.

The point is that County Home Rule is a process where we get a chance to see if the people can come together and write and adopt a new County Home Rule Charter. County Home Rule is a civic process of coming together and discussing how our County should be organized going into the future.

A new County Home Rule charter could give us better County management or worse depending upon how we write the charter. It is up to us to come together and work together to create the new charter.

Everyone agrees that the current County structure seems to not work particularly well. Are we willing to commit ourselves to trying to come together to form a new charter? Remember....nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Please find us to sign the County Home Rule ballot petition to place this question on the November ballot:
"Shall a Home Rule Charter Commission be elected for the purpose of developing a proposed Home Rule charter for Archuleta County, Colorado?"

In November, you would also be able to vote for who sits on that temporary eleven-member County Home Rule Charter-writing Commission.

To sign a petition, call: Teddy Herzog 731-2587, Hank and Norma Busleep 731-3789, and Bev Warburton 731-0343.