BY FREDA MIKLIN
GOVERNMENTAL REPORTER
Voters in South Metro Fire Rescue (SMFR) districts one, three, four and five have been sent mail ballots for the May 2, 2023 regular election for district directors. The election in districts three, four and five are uncontested so there is only one name on those ballots. Unfortunately, state law required that they be sent out anyway.
Mike Dell’Orfano, SMFR chief government affairs officer, explained to The Villager, “Our fire district is divided up into seven director districts with each board member required to be an eligible elector of their director district. That is different from many Special Districts where directors can come from anywhere in the district (at-large directors). Through SB21-160 (a law passed two years ago), board members qualified by director district can be voted on by all the electors of the entire district (at-large voting) or by only the eligible voters within the applicable director district.”
He continued, “For the 2023 board member election, South Metro has called for a mail-ballot election with voting by director district. State statutes view this as a single election and don’t allow us to cancel just a part of an election. This is supported by the definition of an election in the Special District Act, §32-1-102(17), C.R.S. and the Colorado Local Government Election Code, §1-13.5-513(4), C.R.S., which says that “no election may be cancelled in part” (with exceptions that don’t apply). Therefore, we can’t cancel 3 “parts” of our single, 4-district election. Ideally, this would be viewed as 4 separate elections but it’s not.”
Dell’Orfano added that the three director districts that are not contested in the May 2 election include approximately 180,000 voters and that SMFR plans to “explore a potential legislative change since perhaps the scenario was not envisioned when the director district election concept was allowed.”
He also shared that the $500,000 total cost of the election would have been higher if SMFR chose its directors by at-large elections because that would result in every voter and property owner in SMFR’s 540,000-person district receiving a mail ballot in any election in which even one of the seven district directors was contested. SMFR directors serve four-year staggered terms so elections are held every two years.
The contested election in SMFR director district one is between:
Sue Roche, a volunteer firefighter in the Franktown Fire Protection District who holds an EMT license, Firefighter II and Fire and Emergency Services Instructor certifications, and is a CPR instructor for the South Metro Safety Foundation. She is a current SMFR board member, serving since 2020.
Randy Perlis, who served on the Cherry Creek School District Board of Education for 10 years, the Arapahoe County Liquor Authority for 10 years, and the Willow Trace Special District Board for 10 years. He is a Hazardous Material Chemist and Specialist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The uncontested candidates running for re-election are James E. Albee in director district three, Bruce Stahlman in director district four, and Renee Anderson in director district five.
Ballots for this election are due by May 2, 2023.
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