(Lamar, CO) -- A vote of 4-to-3 drew applause from a crowd Monday night at the Lamar City Council.
The council was voting on what to do with issues 2A and 2B, ballot initiatives on the November ballot from 2022 that would bring retail and medical marijuana to Lamar. The call for the action was necessary after Judge Michael Davidson invalidated the election due to an insufficient number of signatures required. According to the Lamar city charter, in order for a question to be on the ballot, the charter states 645 signatures were needed. Prowers county resident Belinda Sturges has been researching the topic and tells us the petition only had 200.
The council had the choice of whether to add it back on the ballot themselves or require the group, SoCo Rocks to recirculate the petition to gather the signatures needed.
Sturges tells us they could get it done and on the November ballot this year but it would be a tight deadline to meet. The petition must be complete 180 days before the next election. A special election could be held just for that issue of retail and medical marijuana in an off election year but the group bringing the ballot question would need to pay for that.
Monday night's crowd was at capacity and standing room only in the Lamar city council chambers. There was an overflow room with a live stream of the meeting to accommodate the interest.
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