An effort to oust three Englewood City Council members as part of a recall election is faltering, unofficial results released Tuesday night showed.
The special election revolves around the issue of density in this suburb of 34,000, where a contingent of residents mounted a campaign earlier this year to recall four of Englewood’s seven City Council members. One of the targeted members, Cheryl Wink, resigned over the summer and wasn’t on the ballot Tuesday.
Mayor Othoniel Sierra, Councilwoman Chelsea Nunnenkamp and Councilman Joe Anderson were targeted for recall.
According to preliminary results, Sierra received 478 votes against recall and 346 in favor. Anderson had a better margin — 700 to 493 against recall. Nunnenkamp’s election was the closest, with voters in her district defeating a recall 435 votes to 421 votes.
The city said there were still more than 700 votes to tally as of late Tuesday night.
Those behind the recall effort accused the four council members of being too pro-density and pushing for a change to the city’s land-use code that “looks like it was written for developers and people wanting to cash out,” according to the recall campaign’s website. Englewood has seen a significant uptick in condo and apartment building in recent years.
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There is too much crime in the city, recall backers say, claiming that “homeless people use drugs openly around Englewood,” and that squeezing more homes on to the same footprint in the city won’t help the situation.
Kurt Suppes, a longtime resident of Englewood who helped lead the recall effort, declined to comment Tuesday.
The recall election in Englewood echoes a conflict that is emerging in Colorado, as home prices continue to escalate in the face of a housing shortage. Residents in Fort Collins recently repealed at the ballot box zoning reforms that city leaders had passed to encourage density in the city.
At the statewide level, a land-use reform bill that would have paved the way for the construction of more multifamily projects in Colorado died in the final hours of the 2023 legislative session.
