New Monument council takes office following concern over timeline in changing town leadership

Jan. 3—New members of the Monument Town Council took their oaths of office Tuesday night just days after some residents raised concerns about the timeline for the change in town leadership, a move one former council member claimed was an attempt to circumvent a controversial town investigation into possible campaign finance violations by the town, among other issues.

Mitch LaKind, first elected to the council in April 2020, was sworn in as Monument mayor while Steve King, Sana Abbott and Kenneth Kimple were sworn in as council members. King was appointed mayor pro tem.

They join Councilman Jim Romanello, first elected in November 2018, on the dais. Councilman Redmond Ramos, who was not at Tuesday's meeting, has resigned, Deputy Town Clerk Tina Erickson announced.

His resignation, plus LaKind's election as mayor, leave two vacancies on the dais. The council has until April 2 to fill the vacancies by appointment or by calling a special election, Erickson said.

Concerns about when the change in leadership should occur were raised during a chaotic special Town Council meeting held Dec. 28. Residents claimed the terms of former board members Kelly Elliott, Darcy Schoening and Ron Stephens ended in November, according to a 2020 town ordinance that changed Monument's regular elections from April to November of even-numbered years and that extended the terms of elected officials until the regular election.

LaKind, Romanello and Elliott said in interviews with The Gazette the previous council never received explicit instructions from town staff about the transfer of leadership between the former and incoming councils.

LaKind said he and King, Abbott and Kimple should have been sworn in by Nov. 21, per the ordinance. Romanello and Elliott said they believed the council was operating under the terms of the recently passed home rule charter, which requires new council members take their oaths of office at the council's first regular meeting in January after the election.

The charter states its effective date is "immediately upon voter approval and canvassing" — the election's official tally of votes — "at a regular or special election held for the purpose of considering this charter."

"We were no longer a statutory town, so the home rule charter takes over," Elliott said. "... The charter was effective immediately after canvassing was done. We're already following it."

The argument that previous council members' terms had ended was laid out in a Dec. 26 memo recently published online and written by William Reed, an attorney LaKind said he hired in late December to review a contentious investigation the former council commissioned to look into possible campaign finance violations, town staff and council member actions, and possible redistricting problems in the newly approved home rule charter, among other issues.

The council has not publicly reviewed the resulting investigative report after the Dec. 28 meeting descended into chaos, with members of the board and public shouting at each other, and because the town was and remains without a town attorney.

Kathryn Sellars, whom the council appointed interim town attorney in November, resigned amid the ongoing investigation.

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In the memo, Reed said the 2020 ordinance ended the terms of former council members Elliott, Schoening and Stephens when King, Abbott and Kimple were elected on Nov. 8. State statute then requires new members to be sworn in within 10 days.

"Taken together, Ordinance 29-2020 and the referenced statutes indicate that, under the existing legal regime at the time of the November 2022 election, the newly elected officials should have taken the oath of office within 10 days of notification of election," Reed wrote. "The outgoing officials hold office until their successors are elected and take the oath of office."

Monument Town Manager Mike Foreman said he cannot comment on the matter due to the investigation.

But the gap in the transition period between councils should not happen again since the charter will "control the transition of power" and the former ordinance "will no longer be operative," Reed wrote.

Elliott said she thought the question of the previous council's legitimacy was an attempt from "certain people," whom she declined to identify but said were named in the report, to derail the investigation.

"There was no attorney that ever said emphatically, 'Your term is up ... in November and you must leave.' No one said a word about that," she said. "All we've gotten are very vague communications on this topic, because just prior to this it seems certain people were working hard to circumvent this investigation."

King, who was named in the report and was the chairman of the nine-member Home Rule Charter Commission that drafted the town charter, denied Elliott's claim.

"The investigation is a politically-motivated tactic to destroy the home rule charter and the committee that created it," he said.

Elliott and Schoening said previously they supported the investigation because it would look into whether taxpayer funds were misappropriated to support the home rule ballot question in the Nov. 8 general election.

"When taxpayer funds are used, we do owe the public some explanation. There was a breach of public trust here," Schoening previously said.