Secret Ballots, Shrinking Boards, and a Quiet Policy Change: What's Happening at the Bayfield Planning Commission
A review of public meeting records raises questions about open meetings compliance, ADA obligations, and the timing of governance changes affecting public participation.
The Town of Bayfield Planning Commission makes decisions that shape how the community grows: approving subdivisions, reviewing land use applications, and recommending zoning changes to the Board of Trustees. It is one of the most consequential volunteer bodies in local government, and it is supposed to operate transparently. A review of Planning Commission and Board of Trustees meeting records raises questions about whether it has been doing so.
A Vote By Any Other Name
On June 9, 2026, the Bayfield Planning Commission was asked to recommend one of three applicants for appointment to fill a vacancy on the board. Rather than conducting a recorded roll call vote, Town Planner Derrick Slocum distributed anonymous post-it notes to commissioners and asked each to write down their choice.
His words, captured in the meeting recording and transcript, were: “Can we do a secret ballot so to speak. I’ll give each one of you guys a post-it and you just write the name of the person that you wish to be moved on to the trustees.”
The result: Paul Black receiving three votes, James (JJ) Sanders receiving one, was announced. No individual commissioner’s vote was recorded or made part of the public record. Colorado’s Open Meetings Law, C.R.S. § 24-6-402, requires that formal action by public bodies be taken at open meetings. Secret ballots, by definition, are not open. The individual votes of public officials on matters of public business are themselves public business.
What makes this more significant is that it was not an isolated incident. Slocum cited the precedent for the process. That this same secret ballot procedure was used at the December 3, 2025, meeting when commissioners recommended Bucky Ransford and Vaughn Morris for appointment. At that meeting, the chair described the process using nearly identical language: “kind of like a secret ballot.” Two secret ballots in six months. Both called secret ballots on the public record.
At the June 9 meeting, where the secret ballot took place, Slocum presented a proposed amendment to Section 2-3 of the Land Use Code that would reduce Planning Commission membership from seven members to five.
A review of Planning Commission and Board of Trustees meeting agendas and minutes going back through the current code’s adoption in 2021 reveals no prior public discussion of reducing the board’s size. The proposal appeared at the June 9 meeting as fully drafted redline language, suggesting it had been developed outside of any publicly noticed meeting.
The stated rationale was quorum reliability. Reducing from seven to five lowers the quorum threshold from four to three, making it easier to hold meetings when attendance is low. At the very meeting where this rationale was offered, three members of the public had applied for the available seats and only one was recommended to the Board of Trustees. The full seven-member board could have been filled at this meeting. The Planning Commission has been a seven-member board without any quorum issues until 2024; through many elections and Mayor’s.
The reduction was recommended by the Planning Commission on July 14, 2026, and approved unanimously by the Board of Trustees on July 21, 2026. A member of the public spoke up during the July 21 meeting asking the board to reconsider and leave the membership at seven, noting that there ARE interested residents. Two additional applicants existed in June; but this fact and public comment was ignored. Public comments were almost skipped entirely by the mayor and the commentor on Zoom had to interrupt a motion to speak. Public comment sections being ignored or skipped over are a regular occurrence at the Board of Trustee meetings. The board voted 6-0 (1 absent) to approve without any discussion of that comment. From the recording online; you cannot make out the name of the person making comment or hear exactly what they had to say; the transcript, nor closed captions caught the entire comment.
The commission discussed public participation via Zoom, referencing Ordinance 485, “Section 2-1(a)(1)g”, which appears at the top of every meeting agenda. That ordinance gives the Town Manager discretion to restrict remote participation to members of the public who have indicated “at minimum 36 hours in advance” their desire to participate remotely, the specific agenda item they wish to address, and their name. Commissioner Morris raised the provision at the July 14 meeting, noting that a school board he was familiar with had implemented the same kind of advance notice requirement and simply announced at the start of meetings that no remote public comment would be heard if no one had given prior notice.
Slocum indicated he would make note of the practice going forward. The implication is clear: members of the public wishing to participate via Zoom at future Planning Commission meetings may find themselves effectively barred if they have not submitted notice 36 hours in advance. The actual text in the municipal code and Ordinance state that this provision to “restrict” is only allowed when there is a “declared emergency”. Sec. 2-1. (d) (7) in the current municipal code posted online. The text used in the Ordinance has not been updated in the code, since the passing in 2022.
Ordinance 485 has been part of the Town’s code for years. The 36-hour advance notice requirement for remote public participation has never been enforced and censorship could be considered. Members of the public have participated via Zoom at Planning Commission meetings without providing advance notice throughout the period reviewed for this piece. This takes away the remote attendee’s ability to speak “on the fly” but does not affect those who are able to attend in person.
What makes the July 14 discussion notable is the contrast it creates with what occurred one week later at the July 21 Board of Trustees meeting. When Ordinance 521, the board size reduction, came before the trustees for a vote, a member of the public spoke during public comment asking the board to reconsider reducing the commission to five members, citing the existence of interested residents, including the person who spoke up being interested. That comment was made by someone online and to our knowledge; no advance notice was required and no 36-hour window applied. The board heard the comment and voted 6-0 to approve the reduction without any discussion of the comment. Restricting remote access to public comment through a 36-hour advance notice requirement, while simultaneously not applying that same requirement to in-person participation, creates an unequal access condition for individuals whose disability or caregiving responsibilities make in-person attendance difficult or impossible. Under CADA, that disparity in access to a place of public accommodation on the basis of disability is a discriminatory practice. C.R.S. § 24-34-601(2)(a)
On July 23, 2026, two days after the board vote formalizing the five-member structure, the Town posted an announcement that the Planning Commission is seeking a new member.
On July 14, 2026, the Planning Commission voted 5-0 to recommend adoption of new bylaws that limit commissioners to attending no more than two meetings per year remotely. Additional remote attendance beyond two meetings requires approval from the chairperson, submitted no less than 24 hours in advance. During the discussion, Commissioner Morris raised the ADA implications directly: “we have to be sure there’s not going to be some sort of ADA thing that we need that we have to worry about... do you have to allow access in order to not get sued?” Morris later added: “I’m just playing devil’s advocate to be honest with you because of some situations we already know about without being too deep in the record.”
No documentation of a formal ADA review of the remote attendance policy was presented at the meeting. Slocum’s response was that the town attorney should be comfortable with it. The commission voted to recommend the bylaws. The Board of Trustees approved them unanimously on July 21.
Under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, public entities may not impose eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out individuals with disabilities from fully and equally participating in services, programs, or activities. Accommodation requests under the ADA are handled through a designated process, by properly trained staff: in Bayfield’s case, through the ADA Coordinator identified in Resolution #672. They are not subject to discretionary approval by a volunteer chairperson. Adopted recently, as there was no ADA coordinator prior to this resolution being passed.
The Town of Bayfield’s own adopted ADA grievance procedure, Exhibit A to Resolution #672, describes a confidential process between the complainant and the Title II ADA/Section 504 Manager. It contains no provision authorizing a planning commission chairperson to make accommodation decisions.
Readers are encouraged to review the source materials (public records) and reach their own conclusions.