Former city council member Charlie Richardson filed a lawsuit against the city of Aurora and three Aurora residents who signed paperwork initiating a proposed ballot initiative to create a “strong mayor” system of government.

Colorado attorney Mark Grueskin filed the lawsuit — which alleges the ballot initiative violates election laws because it uses misleading language and does not adhere to single-subject laws — Saturday in Arapahoe County District Court.

It asks the court to make proponents rewrite the title and summary of the initiative.

Colorado election laws states that a “ballot title shall correctly and fairly express the true intent and meaning of the measure,” a standard that is not met, according to the lawsuit.

“The Title and Submission Clause are deficient in that they are misleading and fail to inform voters of several central features of the Proposed Charter Amendment,” according to the lawsuit.

These “central features” include the following:

• The increase in the mayor’s salary
• The removal of the mayor from city council
• The repeal of the city council’s power to pass an emergency ordinance for the preservation of public property, health, peace and safety
• Providing the mayor with veto power over legislation passed by the city council
• Changes in appointing authority
• Elimination of fiscal powers
• The creation of the position of chief of staff

The initiative violates single-subject laws as well, the lawsuit says.

The initiative’s “primary subject” is the change of Aurora’s form of government, but it also contains unrelated additional subjects.

A group of opponents of the initiative said they received reports from local residents who said people gathering signatures for the petitions were misrepresenting the proposal. Signature gatherers either minimized that the initiative would instate a strong mayor system or failed to explain that entirely, councilmembers said. It was sold to many during the signature gathering process as “Term Limits for a Better Aurora.”

Suzanne Taheri, representing the initiative’s proponents, said they will decide whether or not to intervene in regard to the lawsuit once the city files an answer on behalf of the proponents.

City of Aurora spokesperson Ryan Luby said the city is “evaluating next steps and is working to retain outside legal counsel to handle that.”

When it comes to the single-subject law, Taheri said she does not believe one existed at the time of the initiative.

However, there is a single-subject law written in Aurora City Code saying all ordinances must be confined to a single subject. In the city code, charter amendment initiative petitions must be in the form of an ordinance, so the law does, in fact, apply to the “strong mayor” initiative.

Still, Taheri said, the initiative complies with single subject.

“When we created the new offices, we had to set the terms and specify whether it was new offices or pre-existing offices and otherwise I think we would have ended up in a lot of litigation,” Taheri said. “Whenever offices change, or term limits change and people don’t specify that this is a new office, and these are the terms… it just leaves this unanswered question that causes a lot of litigation.”

When it comes to the title of the initiative, Taheri does not believe there was any misleading language.

“Titles generally don’t put in all the implementation details, they just put in sort of the top items that would be important to the voters,” Taheri said. “The voters can go to the Blue Book for the pro and con arguments and full text of the matter.”

The title itself is up to the discretion of the City Clerk, Taheri said.

“We didn’t set the language, the Clerk did,” Taheri said. “I would have preferred that she used the language we use on the petition, but we still think it was within her discretion to set the title.”

Within five days of filing, which was Monday, the city has to file an answer to the lawsuit on behalf of the proponents, Taheri said. After they file an answer, the court has ten days to hold the hearing and make a decision.

In Monday night’s city council study session, two other measures related to the initiative came up for discussion, causing heated debate among city council members and the mayor.

The first item, initiated by city council member Juan Marcano, brought forth discussion about the city council’s desire to oppose a mayor/council, or “strong mayor” form of government.

Marcano expressed his “disappointment” in the mayor’s lack of transparency in the process of putting the “strong mayor” initiative forward.

“That is your primary responsibility is to get folks together and to establish some kind of consensus and common ground and move folks forward,” Marcano said to Coffman. “You failed to do that and I don’t see how empowering your office is going to change that. In fact, it’s just likely going to make it a hell of a lot worse.”.

On several occasions, Coffman has pointed to Aurora’s growth as a need for a change in governmental structure, saying the city manager form of government worked well when Aurora was a smaller city, but it needs reform as the city grows.

“Now that we have the urban challenges of race, poverty and crime, I don’t think it fits,” Coffman said. “I think you need an elected official that is directly accountable to the residents of the city. We don’t have a leader that can help move a vision forward.”

The current system is working “great” for members of council, but not for the people of Aurora, Coffman said.

“We are a rudderless, leaderless city,” Coffman said. “I get that they want the current system to continue, but it’s just not getting the job done.”

Marcano said Coffman has not done the necessary work to make the change and criticized Coffman’s lack of investigation and analysis.

For Colorado Springs, changing their form of government was a “multi-year process” that included examining budgetary impacts and legal impacts, Marcano said.

“This is a very costly initiative that could potentially really be disruptive to city services,” Marcano said. “We have not had any of that thorough investigation or analysis here.”

A second measure regarding the single-subject requirements was also discussed Monday in the city council study session.

The measure would require that future ballot initiatives follow the same requirements in regard to addressing no more than one subject that state initiatives and city ordinances do.

The two measures will be voted on in city council’s executive session Monday.