Parks & Recreation Bond Update

Did you hear that Englewood City Council has approved placing a $41 million parks and recreation bond on the November ballot? You heard right! But then the city was faced with a challenge.
1️⃣ Englewood’s City Charter (a.k.a. our Constitution) has a provision that requires any General Obligation bond that raises property taxes city-wide to be placed on a special election ballot, separate and apart from all municipal ballot questions.
2️⃣ Englewood residents have exercised their right through a signature-gathering petition process to place two charter amendments on the upcoming November ballot.

As our city charter is currently interpreted, the citizen ballot initiatives remove the Parks & Recreation Bond from the ballot.

So what is the city doing to resolve this problem?

On Monday, August 11, the City of Englewood filed a request for declaratory judgment from the Arapahoe District Court, asking the court to resolve the charter interpretation question with the hopes of allowing the city to place both the Parks & Recreation Bond and the citizen-initiated charter measures on this November’s ballot.

If the judgment is granted as requested, the bond measure could proceed along with the charter initiatives. If the court upholds the current interpretation of the charter (which prevents us from having both on the ballot at the same time), we will not be able to have the Parks & Recreation Bond on the ballot.