Dacono voters to decide on change to personnel structure

DACONO — Residents will get the chance to change the way their city’s personnel structure works after the City Council unanimously agreed to place a question on November’s ballot asking them to approve a city-manager led government.

City Attorney Kathleen Kelly explained to the group Tuesday night that the city’s charter was set up in 1994, when the town’s government was a lot smaller and much less complex.

“The fewer employees the council has direct supervision and hiring and firing authority over, the less the risk to the city and council members,” Kelly said.

Mayor Adam Morehead suggested the ordinance comes at a good time given the events of the last year.

The city’s former town manager sued the Dacono City Council and its former members in July over his termination on Feb, 23, 2023, claiming it was retaliation for his stance on an Erie transportation project a council majority favored. A draft memo in support of the project also came with a pledge of financial support. A.J. Euckert’s lawsuit names former council members Kathryn Wittman, Danny Long, Jim Turini and Jackie Thomas as defendants as well as the town. The firing prompted a series of events that led to state inquiries of violations of open meeting laws, as well as a public recall of Turini and Thomas.

The Dacono City Council is substantially different now. Mayor Adam Morehead and members Kevin Plain and Doris Crespo remain, but none of the defendants in the lawsuit has continued in his or her role because of term-limits, recalls and elections.

Kelly, the town attorney, quit after Euckert was fired, but the council later voted to bring her back to the city. Kelly explained that making the city manager in charge of employees and the council only in charge of hiring and firing the city manager would take personnel responsibilities — which they could only make in public meetings — off their plates.

“When you make employment meetings, you cannot take action in executive session,” Kelly explained. “Any employment action you take has to be done in an open meeting, even if it’s a verbal reprimand. … The manager would be responsible to you, and you would not have direct supervision of any department head as you currently do.”

Morehead said in Tuesday’s meeting that with “the events of the last year and what’s going on now, I think this takes a lot of liability off of the council.”

Plain, the mayor pro tem, added that “I feel this ordinance says it the way folks in Dacono expect this to work. It’s a good change and most towns and cities, this is how they operate.”

The council voted 5-0 to approve the ballot language, which will go before the voters at the Nov. 5 election. Council members Crespo and Tony Cummings were excused from the meeting.

Voters also will have a say on giving the council and mayor a raise. Pay for the mayor and city council members were set more than 40 years ago at $75 per month for mayor and $50 per month per city council member. The council voted to approve a ballot question that asks voters to increase the mayor’s pay to $600 a month and increase councilors’ salaries to $400 a month, all taking effect Jan. 25. During a public hearing on the ballot question, only one person spoke, stating, “I support this.”

“It’s hard to vote on a pay raise basically for ourselves, though I think it’s time and fair to present what is around us to make sure we’re not totally out of line” with other communities, council member Michelle Rogers said.

Morehead said the council studied the issue three years ago, and if voters approve the raises, the city would not be at the top, nor at the bottom of council pay scales. Indeed, the town of Firestone pays its mayor $350, and its council $300 a month; Frederick pays $500 and $250 a month respectively, and Mead pays $1,000 and $700 respectively, according to a chart the city provided to council members in previous meetings.

Defendants in Euckert’s lawsuit petitioned the Weld district judge in charge of the case for an extension of time to answer the complaint. They now must file their replies by Aug. 30.