Western Slope and southern Colorado voters were given some of the state’s most unusual choices this election.
In Aspen, Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a 6-foot-6, low-key local icon and recent alcohol-rehab alumnus, trounced his first challenger in 20 years, Rick Magnuson, a tough-on-crime civilian community-safety officer and performance artist.
Braudis picked up a little more than 85 percent of the vote.
The 41-year-old Magnuson’s uphill campaign garnered attention when he outed a recovering Braudis at a Sedona, Ariz., rehabilitation facility by leaving a fake message for the sheriff to call back a local newspaper editor. Magnuson later said he regretted the trick.
And one of Magnuson’s turns as a performance artist was a 12-minute video with a rear view of him masturbating in the Mojave Desert. It aired on community television but made national news.
Magnuson countered that the race should be about his determination to strengthen enforcement of drug laws through the use of undercover officers. Braudis says undercover work is dangerous and creates public mistrust.
The 61-year-old Braudis, a former drinking buddy of the late legendary journalist Hunter S. Thompson, is adamant that the “war on drugs” is a waste of time and money. But he says he has kept the peace in Pitkin County, where violent crime is rare.
But Aspen police left the sheriff out of the loop when they planned drug raids at two local restaurants because, as Aspen’s mayor indicated, officers weren’t sure they could trust Braudis.
In Telluride, voters had to decide whether to advance the town’s 25-year quest to convert 793 privately owned pastoral acres at the town’s gateway into public open space. Voters were asked to authorize debt if $20 million to fund the purchase through condemnation. With only two of seven precincts reported this morning, those in favor were leading with roughly 60 percent of the vote.
And, in a first-of-its-kind vote on renewable energy in the state, Carbondale asked voters to allow the town to issue up to $1.8 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds to build and operate two large-scale solar systems, including one that would be the state’s largest. And 81 percent of Carbondale voters approved.
In Colorado Springs, Douglas Bruce, father of the 1992 far-reaching amendment called the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, advanced two measures to cut the city’s taxes and limit city debt that he called minor cuts and common-sense debt management. But voters rejected Bruce’s Issues 200 and 201 with roughly 62 percent majorities.
Bruce, an El Paso County commissioner, transformed local governments across the state with TABOR, which restricted spending and taxing. City Council members termed the like-minded city measures “catastrophic,” saying they would not allow for police or firefighters in growth areas unless other services are cut.
Staff writers Nancy Lofholm and Erin Emery contributed to this report.
