COLORADO SPRINGS — Before the first legal retail marijuana is ever sold in Colorado Springs, it could be repealed due to an impending April ballot measure put forth by City Councilman Dave Donelson.
Donelson, who is up for reelection in District 1, defended his move in a one-on-one sit-down interview with KOAA. He said voters were confused by the wording of Question 300 on the November ballot and believed the results could have swung the other way.
Less than three months ago, Springs voters approved the sale of retail cannabis for the first time ever through Question 300, which allows medical marijuana dispensaries to apply for retail licenses.
The city council also placed Question 2D on the ballot, which would have permanently banned recreational pot altogether.
Donelson admitted city council contributed to the confusion he said existed, but denied it was intentional on the council’s part.
Tuesday is the deadline for city council to add any measure to the April municipal ballot. Though public comment is welcome and many in the community are likely to turn out against the move, a city council spokesperson said they have enough votes to advance the 300 repeal question regardless.
Below is the full transcript of the sit-down interview between Councilman Donelson and Senior Reporter Brett Forrest It has been lightly edited for clarity. The full video interview is posted as well.
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BRETT FORREST
Help me understand what is the reasoning to put this repeal question of ballot measure 300 on the April ballot when citizens just voted to approve it less than three months ago.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
That's a great question. And I wish I didn't feel like we needed to do it, but I do feel like it is the right thing to do, and that's why I'm doing it. We are not trying to block the will of the people. In fact, I'm trying to find out what is truly the will of the people.
Because I can tell you, in my district, District One, both measures passed. Ballot question 300, which said yes to recreational sales of marijuana, but it said it in a way which was very confusing. There was a lot of language in there about penalties for recreational marijuana. It never said recreational marijuana sales by itself. It was always in the terms of allowing a medical marijuana shop to apply for a license, so that language can confuse people.
Then we also put 2D on the ballot. That was a charter change, which would ban recreational marijuana. How can both of those things pass in my district by more than 1000 votes each? That means that people were voting both to ban recreational marijuana sales in the city and simultaneously on the same ballot, they're voting to allow recreational marijuana sales. Do you see why? I think there was some confusion.
BRETT FORREST
I see that in your district at least, but overall, 2D failed, 49%. 300 passed, 54%. So I mean to put it bluntly, are you saying the voters, the constituents, just aren't smart enough to understand the difference between the two?
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
No, and I've answered emails exactly like this. I think most voters knew, knew what they were doing, but let's say 5% were confused. That's enough to swing the whole election. And then we are about to enact, we're about to allow recreational marijuana sales in the city of Colorado Springs, when it really wasn't the intent of the population, it wasn't the intent of the voters, right?
If a salesman tricks you into buying something that's not your intent, you got tricked. So for that reason, I think it is perfectly correct to go ahead and we are moving along as a city implementing ballot measure 300, right? Ballot question 300. People are maybe, they already have started applying for licenses. All that is happening.
My suggestion is that let's be sure. This is a big change for Colorado Springs. We are going one step closer to becoming Denver South. Before we do that, let's be truly sure that it's the intent of the people. So we put a ballot question on the upcoming April ballot, and that question will be very simply phrased. It won't be confusing, like ballot question 300.
It's essentially going to be: “Do the citizens of Colorado Springs wish to repeal ballot question 300, which legalized recreational marijuana sales for the first time in the city of Colorado Springs?” That's it. No way to get confused. There aren't statements in there about penalties for sales or penalties for giving it to someone under 21. It's pretty direct.
If that repeal does not pass, if the citizens say, “No, we don't want to repeal it,” I'm done with this question. I'll have my answer. Okay, I've heard from citizens after the ballot after it passed, it said I voted the wrong way, right? I voted yes on both thinking that one banned it, the other was penalties. If it was ever passed, people don't vote yes and no on the same ballot to legalize recreational marijuana unless there's confusion.
I don't think it's right to, for the first time in our city's history, to allow recreational marijuana sales when there's a question, “Was it really the intent of the people?”
BRETT FORREST
So to push back a little bit, is it your job to decide what's confusing? What the intent was? Because the people, by all facts, did vote yes. So why is it you feel that maybe 5%--I mean, that seems like a number that's probably kind of made up–How do you know that that many people were actually confused?
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
I don't know the number, and it's not my job to decide that “Oh, the people were confused. So let's repeal it.” That's up to the citizens, right? And it's not my job necessarily. It's just, I think it's my duty on city council if I think we're about to enact legislation that really the citizens didn't intentionally pass it. It got approved. But again, if there's thousands of citizens who are voting this yes and no on the same ballot. I guarantee you there were some that voted yes on ballot question 300 thinking it was like a series of penalties, thinking it said that, “Well, if this comes into effect, should these penalties be there?” not knowing that they were actually voting yes to legalize recreational marijuana sales. Do I get to decide that? No, the voters are going to decide that when they turn in their ballots on April 1.
And like I said, if it turns out that the repeal fails, I'm done. I'm done with this. I will be and citizens, other citizens, will know that “Hey, that really is the will of the people.” And I'm fine with that. If the question had been clear on the November ballot, I wouldn't even be doing this. If the question had been essentially what I just asked: “Do the citizens want to legalize recreational marijuana sales?” I wouldn't do this, because I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. It would be like, “Hey, if you voted yes on that, you should have known what it meant.”
BRETT FORREST
But do you think city council contributed to the confusion by adding 2D at the same time? And Was that intentional?
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
Yes, and no, I think it did add to the confusion. And, and, no, I don't think it was intentional. I think the desire–And if you go back and watch the footage of the debate before that–I believe I said, “I don't really think this is a good idea to do this, because it will confuse people.”
We need one question up or down. You put two questions on there. It starts to get murky. Do I think it was done to, like, make it all confusing? No, I think the council members who really wanted that to get on the ballot, and I did vote to do it, but the ones who really brought it forward and wanted it thought it would pass. They thought it would pass.
BRETT FORREST
So with that in mind, do you say City Council does take some of the blame for making this confusing?
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
Yes, I would say so by having two ballot measures on there. However, we're now past that. Okay, let's say, yeah, “City council made it extra confusing.” Now I have to figure out, well, should I just stay quiet? Let it, let it just be implemented. I don't think that's right. Okay, I know it. It concerns some citizens. I hear this, that, “Oh, you're trying to block the will of the people.” If I was confident that was the will of the people again, if it had been, if 300 had been written clearly, even if 2D had been on there, but 300 had been written clearly, 300, I wouldn't recommend putting a repeal of 300 on the April ballot.
I do that because 300 isn't clear, and we should look at the language together. It's not clear. It's clear for you. Maybe it's clear for me what it meant. It's clear for the advocates that were in the room, you know, a week ago saying, you know, the supporters for legalization of recreational marijuana, they understood it. But for regular people who are busy and they've just gone through all these judges, they don't know any of these judges, and they filled out all that part, all these other pieces on the ballot, then they hit these two questions, 2D and 300, it's not clear, right?
I'll grant you that for tens of thousands it is. They can, they can sort it out. Like the lady that cleaned my teeth the other day when I went to the dentist, she said she went with 300, she went online and did research to figure out what it meant, because she wasn't sure. And this is a woman who kind of follows politics, you know, she's into this stuff. That's a big mistake we make that we think people follow this stuff like we do that are kind of in the business. They don't.
Since then, I've had a citizen send me an email, and he said, “You guys should write this stuff at the eighth grade level.” We don't understand these questions. It should have been. And he said he made it very simple, “Should recreational marijuana sales be authorized in the city?” And I agree with him, it should be, but it wasn't.
BRETT FORREST
So I'll re-ask the question from earlier then. Do you not think that 280,000 constituents are able to read and comprehend and use outside sources to understand what they were voting for in November?
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
I think we may have gotten a result. It passed. There was not the intent of the majority of the citizens passing. It might have been the intent of, let's say, 90% of the ones who voted for it, or 95–I chose 5% to make it a small percent. I don't know what the percent was.
I think there were thousands that voted yes on 300 not intending to legalize marijuana if we put confusing questions on the ballot, and you can tell it confused some voters, because again, both passed in District 1, both passed in District 2, both passed in District 6. That doesn't make sense. So what do we do about that?
Like the thing that we can still do is put it on the April ballot and be a simple to understand question. “Do you want to repeal ballot measure 300 which legalizes marijuana sales in the city of Colorado Springs?” If that passes, I need to be quiet, and that's the will of the people, and I'm done. I won't argue about it anymore.
I think it's wrong if we don't do that, because we are about to allow what is potentially not the will of the people. They voted that way, but if you confuse people, yeah, maybe you can confuse them in the checking Yes, when they would really check No if they understood what it meant.
So I think it is the right thing to do, one final check. If the repeal fails again, then we've got our answer. We're settled. Done. If that repeal passes, I think it validates what I'm saying that there was confusion. And when you make the question clear, we get a clear answer, and the answer was different than when they had a confusing question.
BRETT FORREST
But you can't really compare the two elections, can you? Because the last election similar to this one was 83,000 turnout. So, significantly lower. So it's not going to be a true representation of what was voted on in November.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
You ask all the good questions, Brett.
What other option do I have there? I can't call for a full blown presidential election again in April. I only have the election we have, so I'm going to use the one that we have. That's all I have.
Once we actually issue the licenses to people like which would happen later on in–what are we talking, April? I don't think there's any putting the genie back in the bottle at that point, because then they have property rights. You try to take those back. That's a mess.
So the only election between now and then is the April city council election. So that's all I have. Are the voting, are the numbers going to be different? Yes, they are. Let's go back to this in 2022. A clearer question about legalizing recreational marijuana sales, and we're only talking sales, was on the ballot. And do you know how that turned out?
BRETT FORREST
Yes, but also I wasn't here at the time, but from my reading, it was split up into a tax question and a sales question, right? Well, and I remember at the time people said they were also confused.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
And that may be, but the question that asked, and it was 60 words long, unlike 200 words–which it was in ‘24–the ‘22 question is much clearer. That failed, essentially, 55% No, 45% Yes. Two years later, the question is three times as long, with a whole bunch of penalties and it doesn't say repeal the prohibition like it did two years previous, and it passes miraculously, 54-46 or whatever.
BRETT FORREST
You could attribute to change in demographics.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
Somebody brought that up to me already, and I said, “Yeah, I mean, I'll accept your point.” But the more I think about it, I don't think we had that much population turnover in two years.
In fact, we talked about that with an annexation, and it was like 4000 people in one year and 3000 in the other year, I think. And that's total populations.
BRETT FORREST
Well, there's also, I mean, also changing views, you know, not just new people coming, but changing views is possible.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
And that's why give it back to the voters to decide. Council shouldn't decide it, but I think it's fair to put it on the ballot for voters to decide if it could be a presidential election coming up in April. I'd be happy for that, because what I really want is to really understand, to be able to give the voters a simple question so they understand, and the council can say, “This is the will of the people. It truly is.”
There's no doubt that there was confusion and maybe the voters really didn't. I don't even really like the way that sounds, because it sounds like I'm kind of trying to be tricky, and I'm not. I'm trying to discern what the voters really intended the result to be. Did they truly intend to legalize recreational marijuana sales for the first time in the city of Colorado Springs? If it happens again on this 100% you know, and I, I accept that that's fine.
I wish it was clear in the election from November. I agree with you the numbers. There's more that voted yes on 300, they voted yes on that. But I don't know how other people think about this. But for me, if you write a question which is deceptive, and you get people to say yes to it, it's not fair, you know.
BRETT FORREST
But deceptive is in your view, right? Not everyone's going to say that question was deceptive.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
Report on the language in the ballot and compare it to the 22 language, and look how there isn't a list of penalties, which a lot of people, when they read that–It's lawyerese in the first few sentences. And that's where it says medical marijuana shops will be allowed to apply for licenses, which is clever, because it doesn't say legalize recreational marijuana. Just says they can apply for these licenses, already established ones.
So yeah, you're like, “Okay, these places are already there. They can apply for some license.” Oh, look at all these penalties about recreational marijuana. I don't like recreational marijuana. These penalties are good. So if I didn't believe it was confusing, if citizens hadn't told me it was confusing, if the data doesn't say that citizens were confused, because you wouldn't have these three districts passing both. If people weren't confused, I wouldn't be doing this.
I like to do things that are like just almost purely popular with citizens. This is not popular with a good portion of citizens to put it back on the ballot. It's especially not popular with the ones who have financial interest in it. Right? They came and spoke pretty strongly at our last regular session, they'll be here in force on this upcoming Tuesday.
The reason I'm doing it is because I think it's right, and I don't mind taking a little bit of heat and being told that, “Oh, you're blocking the will of the people.”
Hell, I'm the councilman who's always looking out for the will of the people. I'm the guy that tried to get a height limit restriction downtown on the ballot, because I truly believe citizens want that on the ballot. And want to be able to vote on it. And I fought for that and lost and wound up getting censured because I pointed out who was taking large campaign donations from the developer doing that.
So I will do what I think is right, even when it's cost me a little bit in popularity and honestly, if it turns out that this repeal passes, especially if it's by a significant number, I would say that suggests I'm right. It's not the exact, it's not going to be the same numbers of voters. I'll give you that, but I don't have a way to make that happen.
And if I wait until for two years from now, for the next election, again, it'll be too late. Genies out of the bottle. You can't go back and put it on there. I think that's unfair, because then what do you do with these people who have put money into this. You can't do that.
BRETT FORREST
So you just mentioned the unpopularity this brings, and you're also running for reelection in April. Do you think this is going to impact your reelection chances?
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
Well, I think for people who are pro recreational marijuana, they might have liked my stance, say on building height limits. They might like my stance on, you know, I was the vote that stopped the Amara annexation. I voted no against the Karmen Line annexation. I have stood up for the neighborhoods around the amphitheater. I'm the guy who fought for Rockrimmon Library. I do all that stuff.
But there are some people that are almost one issue voters, and if you get in the way of marijuana, you know they're going to be no no no for Donelson. “He's evil.”
Now I'll run that risk, because again, I think this is right. I honestly think if people took the emotion out of it and just kind of looked at the data. I agree, more people voted yes, but look at the language. Is it possible people were confused? What is the explanation of people voting yes on 2D which bans recreational marijuana sales, says council can never allow that, only the people could in the future, and then they also vote yes to allow recreational marijuana sales? How does that–I'm kind of a logical guy. It just doesn't make sense to me.
BRETT FORREST
Well, we obviously can't answer for all these people who may have voted that way, but I think the election results did answer it, but sounds like we'll be doing it again in April.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
And I disagree that the election results answered it. If it had been a clear question, ballot question 300 had been written clearly as it will be on the repeal, I would accept it. I wish I didn't even have to do this, but I honestly think if I don't do this, it's really just out of fear of how much blowback will I get. I think when I, when I sit, you know, privately, and think about it, should someone do this? Should someone put a repeal on the ballot and verify that's the intent of the voters? I do because it's a big change for the city of Colorado Springs.
Right now, we have a different image than Denver does, right? Denver is more drug friendly. They have their downtown kind of atmosphere down there. Colorado Springs, more family friendly, right? More traditional, kind of traditional values. It's okay if that changes, but let's be sure that's really what the voters want, that's really what they're voting for.
They haven't been fooled by a cleverly written question which never really says legalize recreational marijuana sales and lists a bunch of penalties in it. I don't think that's right. I think that is–that's a horrible way to allow your city to be changed by tricky questions on a ballot. This will not be tricky. This is going to be right out there. It's going to be very plain. “Do you want to repeal 300 which allows recreational marijuana sales?”
I would think the voters, media would like that. “Okay, hey, they're actually going to put an understandable question on the ballot.”
It's not ideal. It should have been that way in November, but it wasn't so now I'm kind of left fixing something that I think is broke or confusing.
BRETT FORREST
All right. Well, thank you, Councilman. Appreciate it.
COUNCILMAN DAVE DONELSON
Okay, good. Good questions.
Email Senior Reporter Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@koaa.com. Follow @brettforrestTVon X and Brett Forrest News on Facebook.
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