Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office has officially dismissed a complaint against current El Paso County Commissioner Stan VanderWerf for comments made about his state Senate run in a May 9 Board of County Commissioners meeting.

The state Elections Division motion to dismiss was granted on June 7. Integrity matters, the resident watchdog group behind the complaint, said in the filing that VanderWerf violated fair campaign practices when he mentioned what he planned to do if elected to Colorado Senate District 12 this November during a meeting on a housing development approval application.

The development, which would bring 20 single-family homes to dead-end Hay Creek Road, faced opposition from the public during the hearing. The board later unanimously approved the application.

Integrity Matters co-founder Dana Duggan spoke along with others against the plan on the basis that it violated county land use code designating how many homes could be built along a road with only one exit. She and others claimed the development would pose a fire evacuation risk.

During the meeting VanderWerf said that he thought that more information was needed to use fire evacuation modeling to make decisions on the development. He also said he would be pursuing that data as a state Senator.

“I don’t normally talk about this on the dais, here, … but I’m running for state senate, and it’s actually something I want to do. I feel like the state needs to do more modeling, and I feel like that needs to be a proposal for the state to build a modeling office. There are other states that have modeling offices, and they use them to great effect for a lot of different things.”

In a motion to dismiss filed last week, the secretary of state’s office recommended the rejection of the complaint on the basis that it did not specify a specific law violated and that VanderWerf’s comments fell within his right to free speech.

VanderWerf said last week that his comments were “perfectly legal.”

Duggan said that Integrity Matters planned to appeal the dismissal in court.

“We disagree with the decision and plan to pursue it,” she said.

A decision is also pending in two complaints filed by Integrity Matters against El Paso County Commission District 3 candidate David Leinweber, alleging he used his position as at-large Colorado Springs City Councilman to campaign.

The state Elections Division combined the complaints on June 4 and filed a motion to dismiss. That determination is due June 11.