On Feb. 16, the City of Woodland Park mourned the death of Mayor Val Carr after he died from complications after contracting COVID-19. Carr spent the two months before his death in a hospital in Colorado Springs fighting for his life after contracting the disease.
The Woodland Park City Council held a meeting two days after Carr died where they delayed important agenda items due to everyone mourning the mayor’s death. One item that was removed from the agenda during the Feb. 18 meeting was a resolution speaking out against the state’s COVID-19 health regulations. The discussion on how the council would move forward with a new mayor was also pushed to the next meeting.
Carr was known for taking his volunteer job as mayor seriously and treating it as though it was his full-time job. “He worked harder at the job as mayor than I see most people work at the job that sustains their livelihood,” Woodland Park City Councilmember Stephanie Alfieri said. “It’s absolutely true, Val was putting in 50, 60, 70 hours of work a week as a mayor. He researched everything and read everything. Doing right by the community was that important to him. I don’t think that people fully understand or grasp just how much of a committed public servant he actually was.”
How to move forward to a new mayor
During the council’s March 4 meeting, the council was presented with options on how they could move forward with a new mayor. According to the City Attorney Geoff Wilson, the council could do nothing and leave Mayor Pro Tem Hilary Labarre in charge of the meetings, they could vote to fill the position with a councilmember or community member, or they could call for a special election with a nearly $20,000 price tag. However, before a special election could be called the city’s charter requires that the council try to appoint someone to the position first.
“I tried to appoint Hilary Labarre the mayor pro tem to the mayor, but they didn’t follow my lead,” councilmember Kellie Case said. “We could have a full city council by now because we could have appointed someone to replace Hilary. Since that didn’t happen we directed the clerk to publish to ask for applicants to submit letters of intent to be appointed. In the second meeting in April, we will look at those applicants and if we fail to appoint someone then we have several options.”
As of this writing, there has been only one application submitted for mayor. If during the appointments there is a tie, then the council could decide to draw the winner’s name out of a bowl to choose the mayor like has been done in the past. If the council decides not to do that, then they could call for a special election this November.
Resolution against the states health regulations passes
Before the mayor died, a resolution was proposed by the Woodland Park City Council similar to one passed by the city of Monument, which spoke out against the restrictions put on local businesses by the state’s governor. Since the mayor was not at the meeting because he was in the hospital, the vote on the resolution was tied 3-3.
After the mayor died, the resolution was held off the first meeting agenda but then an altered version was brought to a vote on March 4. The amended resolution was criticized because it still came too soon after the mayor’s death from the disease and that the new version had “watered down” language. However, the resolution was still passed by a 4-2 vote.
The new resolution was more about the council speaking up against state legislators, not writing legislation to prevent the governor from passing and extending executive orders. The resolution also had language in it saying that the local government could not tell residents and businesses to disobey the state health orders.
Woodland Park City Council goes back to tying on all key issues
After the last city election held in April 2020, councilmember Noel Sawyer resigned from his position after he lost the mayoral race to Carr. Ever since the six-member council had difficulty passing any measures because they tied on just about everything.
When it came to appointing a new council seat, the board also tied the vote and failed to appoint someone to the position. As a result, the council decided to hold a special election last November to fill the remaining seat. Councilmember Stephanie Alfieri won the election and was put into the tie-breaking position until the mayor died.
However, holding a special election was more of a viable option last November because the city jumped onto the county’s election that was already being held for county commissioners and the president. To hold another special election this November would cost the city much more because it would have to host its election.
Over the last month or so, the council has shown that they are going back to being split on many issues. Some appointments to key committee positions have not taken place because the council has had a split 3-3 vote.
And many residents think the deadlock could stay as it is for some time. “Do you think this council is going to agree on anything?” Case said. “I don’t think we will have a mayor until our election in a year from April, that is my prediction. Because there is not a coordinated election for us to participate in so it would cost us a significant amount of money to hold a special election.”
According to Labarre, she sent an email to all council members saying that if she was appointed mayor, she would abstain from voting, which would have given the council an odd number of voters to prevent a tie. But three councilmembers chose not to go along with the appointment.
Labarre also said that she has tried to bring up a change to the city’s charter that would kill the vote in the instance of a tie, but other councilmembers would not go along with it. Therefore, the city is stuck with tied items returning to the agenda every meeting due to a decision made in 1996.
