A wolf sanctuary’s bid to ask Larimer County voters to approve its expansion plans was scuttled last month because of legal restrictions.
This means the courts are the last hope that the sanctuary has toward making more room for abandoned and abused wolves and wolf-hybrids, said the facility’s co-founder, Frank Wendland. “You think you have some rights and then you dig into it and you don’t,” Wendland said today.
WOLF’s founders submitted a ballot-petition proposal last month, asking that voters lift restrictions placed on the sanctuary, located in the rugged Rist Canyon are of rural Larimer County. The county commissioners in February voted down doubling the number of animals allowed at the sanctuary, which is set at 30.
But the county attorney rejected the petition proposal as an “unauthorized question.” Wendland discovered that few citizen-initiated petitions are allowed to go forward in Colorado counties.
Colorado Counties Inc. — an advocacy group — said that’s because the Colorado Constitution provides little leeway for county residents who want to make changes through the ballot box.
“As the constitution makes no mention of initiative power at the county level, the courts have consistently ruled no such power exists,” the organization says.
The few citizen-initiatives that have been allowed in non-home-rule counties include raising taxes, changing the number of county commissioners and establishing a special district, according to Colorado Counties.
Wendland said WOLF was prepared to gather as many as 12,000 valid signatures to make sure the initiative would have made the August ballot.
WOLF’s lawsuit against the county — which claimed its decision against expansion was arbitrary — is still moving forward, Wendland said.
