Surveyor Staff

The Surveyor requested information from the Town of Berthoud, in a Colorado Open Records Act request, regarding the final expenses of the Sept. 10 election for ordinance 1265 from “Vote No on Sept. 10” and “Democracy Berthoud,” the two registered committees that campaigned during the election.

The “Vote No on Sept. 10” committee spent $6,514.96 in order to inform the public of their views on the ordinance, which they saw as a measure that would tie that hands of trustees and lead to unintended consequences for the town. The group’s top donors were Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Hindman and his wife Laurie Hindman with $2000 in donations followed by Town Trustee Brian Laak and wife Isabelle Laak with a $1500 donation. Town trustee Maureen Dower was the third highest contributor with a donation of $744.17.

“Democracy Berthoud” campaigned in favor of ordinance 1265, which would have limited the amount of money the town board would be able to spend in excess of $2 million unless there was a three fourths majority of the trustees approving, as well as preventing trustees from pursuing any type of funding that voters had rejected within a two-year time frame, and received $1,658.47 in contributions.

The official results of the ballot election held last month for ordinance 1265 were made public on Sept. 24 after the extremely close results triggered an automatic recount. The final count showed the ordinance had failed to pass with a thin margin of only two votes − 1,216 in favor of the ordinance and 1,218 against.

The following are the amounts contributed to each group.