Colorado Springs City Council has paved the way for Class 1 e-bikes – the kind that require continuous pedaling even as the rider gets a boost from a small electric motor – to be allowed on the city’s trails, including those funded by the Trails and Open Spaces program.
But Council went about it the wrong way, TOPS advocates said, pointing out that the ordinance that created TOPS in 1997 included a requirement that voters must approve changes to the program.
“Strictly speaking, they’re not modifying TOPS,” said Cory Sutela, executive director of Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates, a nonprofit that builds, shares and protects trails and the experiences people can have on them – and has been advocating for e-bike expansion for years.
“What they’ve done is … created a new definition of ‘motorized’ within City code, chapter 4, and the idea is that that will automatically apply to the TOPS ordinance,” he said. “We think that’s not the right process. It’s clearly a way of avoiding the need to go to a vote of the people.”
It’s clearly a way of avoiding the need to go to a vote of the people. – Cory Sutela, Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates executive director
The ordinance that created TOPS, which takes a 0.1% sales tax in Colorado Springs and uses it to preserve trails, open spaces and parks, also says “you can’t have motorized vehicles on TOPS properties,” former councilmember Wayne Williams said.
“The fact that folks want a change, or a survey supports a change, or it would be a nice thing to have doesn’t override the TOPS ballot question,” he told the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
John Weiss, who, with Williams, is part of the Together for Colorado Springs nonprofit, said the group is closely watching how the City implements changes to TOPS to accommodate e-bikes.
“We’re not saying, ‘We’re going to sue,’ but we have done all the preliminary work,” Weiss said. “It’s a slippery slope. If you allow them to make this change [without going to the voters], then, when they want to make another change, they will use this as a precedent.”
[John Weiss has donated time and money to the Pikes Peak Bulletin. –ed]
At the Feb. 11 Council meeting, Williams, who is an attorney, suggested adding a phrase to the ordinance, calling for “limiting factors on TOPS-supported and some other properties to be addressed prior to the introduction of e-bikes in those locations.
That would allow the City to move forward with e-bike expansion while still allowing time “to get the necessary voter approval with respect to TOPS-supported locations,” Williams said.
But the suggested language was not included in the ordinance that Council passed in a 6-3 vote. A second reading is set for Feb. 25. If the ordinance passes then, e-bikes are expected to officially make their trail debut in phases in July, starting with Class 1 e-bikes on urban and commuting trails.
Several members of the public and councilors said e-bikes are already being used on city trails, and questioned how a ban on other, more powerful classes of e-bike, or fines for riding on TOPS properties, would be enforced.
Yolanda Avila, Donelson and Mike O’Malley voted against the ordinance. Among their reasons were concerns with e-bike batteries catching fire, enforcement difficulties, and, Avila said, going “against the vote of the people.”
Donelson worried about “the future of ballot initiatives if council sets a precedent where we go back and change the meaning of a … generally understood term” like “motorized.”
“I worry that it will always be brought up that you may vote on [an issue] but Council is gonna change the definition of whatever that thing happens to be that’s in there,” he said.
Revote on recreational pot
Donelson’s concerns were perhaps a little ironic, given that, in January, he had proposed holding a new vote on Question 300, the citizens’ initiative authorizing sales of recreational marijuana in Colorado Springs that passed with 55% of the vote in November.
He said he believed voters were confused by the wording of Question 300 and by having two marijuana-related issues on the ballot. The other issue, question 2D, sought to amend the City charter to ban recreational pot sales in Colorado Springs and was placed on the November ballot by City Council after Question 300 had been added. It did not pass.
I do trust our voters. I think this needs … to go to the people again. – COS City Councilor Yolanda Avila
Councilors voted 7-2 on Jan. 28 to add the repeal vote to ballots in the April 1 municipal election. Avila and Nancy Henjum voted against the do-over.
Then, days after the repeal vote was approved, two Colorado Springs residents sued the City, saying Council had “acted without regard to the Colorado Constitution,” which says local ballot measures to bar the operation of licensed recreational marijuana businesses, including stores, must “appear on a general election ballot during an even numbered year.”
On Feb. 10, District Court Judge Hilary Gurney sided with the plaintiffs, military veteran Adam Gillard and cannabis business owner Renze Waddington, and said the repeal vote should not appear on ballots.
But Council wasn’t giving up that easily, and the next day, the City filed an emergency motion to stay Gurney’s decision, which was granted. A day after that, Gurney “said the City was allowed to put the measure on the ballot but they had to use our words to remove confusion – because it was a confusing title they had on the ballot,” Gillard told the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
In the meantime, City Council had appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, but it declined to take the case, passing it back to Gurney who ordered the City to “take all actions necessary” to ensure that the repeal vote did “not appear on ballots to avoid disenfranchising and confusing the electorate.”
So, hours after City Council had debated whether to go above voters’ heads on the TOPS issue, it took a knockout punch after trying to circumvent the voters’ will on recreational marijuana sales.
“We decided that we didn’t like an ordinance that passed, so we could have another one on the ballot regarding cannabis,” Avila said at the end of the TOPS debate.
“We see now that a lot of us are not in agreement with the TOPS initiative and the ordinance, and I’m really loathe to go against the vote of the people,” she said.
“I do trust our voters. I think this needs … to go to the people again.”
