Missing petitions lead to suit
Group aiming to limit drilling says company left state with 15,000 voters’ signatures
A group working to get a measure on Colorado’s November ballot that would make it illegal to operate oil and gas wells within 2,500 feet of an occupied building says a company it was paying to gather signatures for the initiative has taken seven boxes of signed petitions and left the state.
Activists with Colorado Rising have filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court against Direct Action Partners Inc., a signature gathering company based in Oregon. The suit, a Replevin claim aimed at wrongfully taken private property, seeks the return of seven boxes of signed ballot petitions for Initiative 97. The would-be statewide ballot measure seeks voter approval to set new, muchgreater minimum well setbacks from homes, schools and water sources.
The seven boxes contain petitions with between 15,000 and 20,000 voter signatures, Colorado Rising claims. The group is seeking to collect more than 98,000 certified signatures to get its measure before voters this fall. Former Democratic Colorado attorney general candidate Joe Salazar is representing Colorado Rising in the case.
Officials with Direct Action Partners, meanwhile, say the issue is an ordinary contract dispute it is in the process of resolving with its client.
The controversy began when Colorado Rising officials met with Direct Action Partners earlier this month because they were unsatisfied with the company’s service and were prepared to move on to other petition collections contractors, said Suzanne Spiegel, a volunteer organizer with the group.
“They basically mismanaged the campaign and could not fulfill the contract,” she said.
Spiegel said the meeting with Direct Action Partners president Michael Selvaggio was meant to address getting back the petitions in his company’s possession and obtaining other paperwork that needed to be provided to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.
“We got a call next day the office had been closed down and everyone had been fired,” Spiegel said.
In subsequent phone calls with Selvaggio, Spiegel said she learned he had taken the boxes to Oregon. She alleges he has demanded Colorado Rising pay bills it has already paid and asked the group to sign a form releasing Direct Action Partners from liabilities such as back due employee
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pay. He has also allegedly asked the matter be kept quiet.
“He is holding (the boxes) for ransom, basically,” she said.
Colorado Rising claims to having recordings of phone conversations with Selvaggio that confirm their allegations.
In an email to The Denver Post on Thursday afternoon, Selvaggio called the controversy “a run of the mill contract dispute.”
“We are working on a resolution with the campaign,” he wrote. “Commenting now would be improper and only serve to sensationalize an ongoing discussion. We’re happy to give a statement at the appropriate time.”
Spiegel did not say Thursday how many signatures Colorado Rising had collected toward its goal, but said she is confident the campaign will reach its goal.
“We want those 15,000 signatures back, of course, because it will increase our buffer,” she said.
A similar measure failed to make the ballot in 2016 after supporters were unable to gather enough signatures.