Woodland Park voters will decide three proposed changes to the city charter.

The measures were advanced to the ballot during the Sept. 4 meeting of the Woodland Park City Council. All three were recommended to the council by the Charter Review Committee.

The first would allow the city clerk 30 days to review signatures on a recall petition. Currently, state law limits the clerk to only five days, which the ordinance says is “an amount of time that is wholly inadequate for this task.”

When four recall petitions were submitted earlier this year, City Clerk Suzanne Leclercq said she had to enlist help from several city employees, which put other city business on hold.

“We as a community adopted in 2016 the state election statute and I don’t think we ever looked at this,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Catherine Nakai, who also chairs the Charter Review Committee. “Experience shows us that five days doesn’t get us an accurate and fair result.”

The second would change the residency requirement for the office of mayor or city councilmember to two years instead of the current one year. The measure would not increase the residency requirement for any other commission or board.

The motivation for the change is that it “will help assure that candidates and appointees have a greater knowledge of city and community issues and priorities.”

The third will allow the bylaws of boards and commissions to determine term limits. Currently the charter limits all positions to the lesser of two terms or eight years. This has proven to be particularly problematic for positions that have specific requirements to be eligible.

“These term limits have resulted in perfectly qualified persons being obliged to leave their public positions, while Council confronts a shortage of potential appointees for these positions,” the ordinance reads.

A resolution, also passed Sept. 4, allows Woodland Park to coordinate with Teller County to put the proposed changes on the ballot for Nov. 4 general election.

In other business

City council approved a five-year extension of the Top of Paradise master plan. The site, located north of Ponderosa Way and east of Majestic Parkway, is just over 40 acres and the current plan is for 38 single-family homes.