Fort Collins City Council wants voters to decide these 3 issues in November

Fort Collins City Council voted on three potential changes Tuesday night that, pending the approval of a second reading on July 5, will be on the ballot for voters in November.

This fall, in a special coordinated election with the county, residents will decide things like when we vote and the way we vote. Here’s what to know about the matters you’ll have a say in.

Should Fort Collins adopt ranked choice voting?

Ranked choice voting — where voters rank candidates by order of preference rather than voting for just one candidate — is likely the most debated measure on the ballot.

In short, voters will decide whether they want to keep casting ballots how they have been or go with ranked choice voting, which looks like this in practice:

• A candidate who gets more than 50% of first-choice votes wins outright.

• If no one gets a majority, the last-place candidate gets knocked out.

• The people who voted for the last-place finisher then have their votes redistributed to their second-choice picks.

• This process continues until one candidate has the majority of active ballots.

Have more questions?: How ranked choice voting works, and why Fort Collins voters should pay attention

Dozens of people attended the City Council meeting on Tuesday to speak for — and against — implementing the voting method.

Supporters nationwide of RCV say it ensures the results of an election represent voters’ true consensus, because voters can use their ballots to express their top picks as well as the candidates they could live with. They also say ranked choice voting encourages people to run for office without fear of vote-splitting or spoiling.

One commenter in favor of RCV expressed that while this wouldn’t be a “magic wand” that would fix everything about voting, it “would be an easy, simple change for the city to adopt.”

“I think that ranked choice voting makes voting more exciting, more engaging,” he said. “It won’t be perfect, but when was the last time an election in this country went perfectly?”

Robbie Moreland, who works with the organization Ranked Choice Voting for Fort Collins, presented council with 1,000 postcards signed by Fort Collins residents in favor of RCV.

"The point of this postcard collecting was to show you that, speaking now for these 1,000 people, we have your back and we strongly support ballot referral for ranked choice voting," Moreland said. "Let the people vote."

Among the opposition was former Mayor Wade Troxell, who said he was there to “argue for one person, one vote.”

“I’ve been through five elections in the city and we don’t have a problem in Fort Collins," he said. “Really, we have a discerning electorate in Fort Collins who know who they want to elect.”

Others speaking against RCV expressed concerns that the practice was too complicated to use, compared it to voter suppression and said it wouldn't be understood by the community. Some critics said the method was an experiment that hadn't yet proved successful and would lead to more voter disenfranchisement and exhaustion. They said they didn't want to test an unproven method on Fort Collins' voting and elections.

Jody DesChenes, who works with Moreland, disputed claims that RCV was voter suppression or disenfranchisement.

"Voter disenfranchisement and suppression are, by definition, when voters' rights are taken away or voting is made more difficult by others. They are by no means the same as ballot exhaustion, which is almost completely under each voter's control," she said, adding that the BIPOC Alliance supports ranked choice voting in Fort Collins.

Following the mixed public comment and a recommendation from city staff in favor of adding the initiative to the ballot, council approved referring the potential charter change to the ballot by a vote of 6-1.

Council member Shirley Peel, who was elected with 30% of the vote in a five-way race for District 4 last April, was the sole vote against the initiative. She said she felt it should have been a citizen-led initiative rather than city-led, and that because trust in elections is currently at an all-time low, she doesn't want to worsen that by adding new protocols.

Council member Susan Gutowsky, who voted in favor, said because of the passion and interest shown on both sides, she supported putting the question of ranked choice voting to the voters.

If voters approve ranked choice voting, it would go into effect in 2025.

But implementation wouldn’t be cost-free. The actual cost to the city is difficult to predict, according to city staff, and total costs would depend upon whether the election was conducted by the city clerk or in coordination with Larimer County.

For example, in a city-run municipal election, most election expenses would not change much. The greatest potential expense would be for the correct tabulation equipment, which was estimated at about $35,000 an election, and other potential expenses could include staffing costs and voter education.

City staff said they expected those cost increases would be manageable.

Coloradoan Conversations: Fort Collins ranked-choice voting proposal stirs vigorous debate

Should Fort Collins City Council member pay be increased?

The main question for voters here is whether they think what council members make now is adequate and equitable. Is the compensation enough for the time council members spend on their work, and does the amount prohibit people who may like to run for council from doing so?

Council has said it wants to increase participation in city government, particularly by removing barriers to sitting on city boards, commissions or City Council. And one way to do this, they think, could be increasing council pay.

In a presentation to the council and public, city staff said “adequate compensation for service on council will enable more members of the Fort Collins community to seek elective office on council.”

At a work session in May, at which council members discussed this potential raise, many showed support because they felt higher pay would make council candidacy more feasible for a more diverse slate of community members.

Council members currently make about $893 a month, or $10,712 annually. The mayor earns $1,340 a month, or $16,074 annually. Currently, council members don’t qualify for the health insurance provided to city employees.

The ballot issue would ask for compensation of 75% of the area median income, or AMI, for the mayor, 60% for mayor pro tem and 50% for council members. Council members could also opt into city health benefits for medical and dental care.

Data from a March study found that Fort Collins has the lowest compensation level for council among the peer cities in the study and that two of six Front Range cities had lower compensation.

Previously: Fort Collins eyes ballot measure to increase council member pay, benefits

Council members previously estimated they spend between 20 and 30 hours a week on their council duties, while Mayor Jeni Arndt estimates she works 50 to 60 hours a week as mayor. Because of the time commitment of being on council, members usually are retired or don’t work full time. Just two of council’s seven current members have full-time jobs, and both have said it’s tough to balance their work with their council duties.

Because of this, council members questioned whether council makeup is representative of the community in terms of income and employment status.

"With our current pay, it's a very limited number of people who can do this. You have to have special circumstances to be able to serve on council, and I'm very thankful that I was able to do that, but it also puts a strain on your family to do this work," council member Tricia Canonico said.

"And again, I'm very appreciative that I have a family that's willing to see their spouse and their mom go and serve this time for their community. But how many people are able to do that when they're making very little money?"

Gutowsky, the sole council member who voted against putting the measure on the ballot, wanted to propose a smaller pay increase and said she wanted to think of the issue from the viewpoint of a taxpayer who made less than the median area income.

"I'm almost embarrassed to ask our taxpayers, our voters, to vote this amount of money," she said. "I wholeheartedly agree that we need to have a raise. I wholeheartedly agree that we should base it on the AMI ... but I'm thinking that the amount is is excessive."

In 1998, the city evaluated council salaries and set a monthly amount to be adjusted annually for inflation using the Denver/Boulder Consumer Price Index.

Then in 2019, a citizen-referred ballot issue sought to make City Council representation a full-time job with a salary matching AMI, but it failed with 58% of voters saying no.

Now — after council voted 6-1 to add the question to the November ballot — Fort Collins voters will weigh in again.

On the ballot, voters will be asked whether to increase council pay to a biweekly amount that is a percentage of the area median income for a single-person household in the Fort Collins/Loveland metro area.

Fort Collins’ 2021 AMI for a household of one is $67,200, so half of that would be $33,600 — about three times the current pay for council members. Sixty percent of AMI is $40,320, and 75% is $50,400.

A number of council members said they were supporting this initiative not for themselves but to diversify future councils, but if voters approve the change, it will go into effect in January, meaning this council would receive the compensation they're proposing.

The shift would cost the city about $304,000 each year — a little more than $95,000 in benefit costs and almost $209,174 in salary additions.

Should Fort Collins elections be held in April or November?

In November, Fort Collins voters will decide whether to shift regular city elections to November of odd-numbered years.

Regular city elections, which determine City Council members and mayor, are currently held in April of odd years. Fort Collins is one of just four of the 30 largest municipalities that holds elections then; 21 hold them in November of odd years.

This change, if passed, would take effect in 2023. It would also align the city election with the Poudre School District Board of Education’s election.

The shift would add a one-time, seven-month extension to council terms, and some council members said they felt comfortable with that because voters would be aware of that impact when voting on the November issue.

But council member Julie Pignataro said she didn’t feel it was fair to voters or people wanting to run for council for seven months be added to her term. She said she’d support implementation in 2027, which would give people knowledge of a prolonged term when they're voting on who would receive it.

Part of the desire to move voting to November is about increasing voter turnout, which council has previously said is one of its priorities.

Some council members said aligning the city election with the school board election would mean voters would have to come out only once during a time already associated with elections and voter education efforts could be combined.

Emily Gallichotte, a community member who spoke about the issue in public comment, said she is "utterly exhausted" as a voter and believes consolidating elections could improve that.

"We have three elections in a two-year period ... It is absolutely exhausting," she said. "And it puts the burden on voters to figure out what they're voting on, if it's even worth them voting."

The proposal to refer it to the ballot was approved 6-1, with Pignataro voting against it.

Molly Bohannon covers education for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @molboha or contact her at mbohannon@coloradoan.com. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins City Council puts ranked choice voting, raises on ballot