Earlier this week, an El Paso County district judge blocked Colorado Springs City Council’s attempt to again put the question of recreational marijuana sales in the city back before voters.
Judge Hilary Gurney placed an injunction on the city on Monday — blocking the question from appearing on the April ballot. Her ruling was largely based on Amendment 64, a measure added to the state constitution by voters in 2012, which stipulates that any local effort to ban recreational marijuana sales must be decided in a general election held in an even-numbered year.
But the fate of whether recreational marijuana sales will appear on the April municipal ballot is still unclear.
After the Monday ruling, the city filed an emergency appeal petition to the Colorado Supreme Court challenging the district court’s order.
“These folks just have a long history of — on multiple issues, too — doing things like this,” said Adam Gillard, executive director of El Paso County Progressive Veterans and one of the plaintiffs of the original lawsuit challenging the ballot question, told CPR News on Thursday in reference to the city’s decision to file an appeal with the Colorado Supreme Court.
“So we know this city council well enough to know that this isn't out of the norm for them, so kind of expected, but still disappointed in them. This is on the city council right now,” Gillard said. “The chaos that is created and all the extra question marks. They're doing something unconstitutional, clearly, and they just keep pushing the chaos and causing this quagmire.”
Gillard said he hopes to hear about the Supreme Court’s decision to accept the city’s appeal or not by Friday morning.
According to a spokesperson with Colorado Springs, officials decided to file an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court due to the pressing deadline for mailing ballots to overseas voters, which is set for Friday. Colorado Springs city code mandates that military and overseas ballots must be sent out 45 days before the election.
“The city does not want to treat its 4,848 overseas active-duty military and overseas citizens differently than its domestic electorate,” said Vanessa Zink, a spokesperson for the city in a statement. “It is important for them to have the same clarity and content on their ballot. The city is working as quickly as possible within the court system to resolve this issue.”
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