Town of Dillon voters will be receiving their mail-in ballots this week for the March 4 special election seeking to recall three council members, Dana Christensen, Renee Imamura and John Woods. If you like intrigue, drama and personal vendettas, you can thank factious Dillon politics for the latest installment in the “Dysfunctional Dillon” soap opera. Dillon has a history of peptic politics interspersed with periods of voter apathy, where the town struggles to recruit council members. Currently, there are four candidates looking to replace three sitting council members, in a major community rift.

Last October, Dillon residents voted to override the Town Council’s approval of a Planned Unit Development (PUD) proposed by developer Jake Porritt and his team. The PUD encompassed several properties in the town core, from the bankrupt Uptown 240 condominium project to Pug Ryan’s Brewery, to high-end redevelopment of the Best Western Ptarmigan Lodge/Arapahoe Café property. While the Town Council may have gotten out over their skis when it comes to building public consensus for the redevelopment of downtown Dillon, a majority of council members opted to negotiate with the only development team in the room.

The concept was a major change for Dillon — and certainly controversial. Whether you liked the proposal or not, Dillon was able to reduce density, add workforce housing, and negotiate additional public amenities through the PUD process. This arrangement was nullified by the October 2024 referendum vote.

Not content with killing the Porritt Group’s proposed, large lakefront condo-hotel project, antidevelopment forces have now set their sights on recalling the remaining council members who voted to approve the PUD and the underlying metropolitan district that enabled the project to cashflow.

Recall provisions should be meant for removing public officials who have broken the law, embezzled public funds, or for serious ethical violations. Recalling elected officials who you disagree with (even though I can think of many) sets a terrible precedent! There is nothing to be gained from endless impeachments. Differences of opinion, vision and temperament should be debated and resolved through the regular municipal elections. If it only takes 17 registered voter signatures to hobble Dillon’s governance and critical function, a rebellious registered voter could host a quarterly keg party, gather 17 signatures, and force multiple recall elections per year. This paradigm needs to be reconsidered for the unity of the community.

Personal vendettas aside, the only valid reason to vote to recall the three current council members is if you do not want anything to happen in Dillon over the next decade. If you think other developers will rush in to pursue more palatable projects, whatever they may be, you are delusional. The commercial bonding companies, that can underwrite major redevelopment in Dillon, could blacklist Dillon projects.

During the Dillon Urban Renewal Authority community meeting last December, it was obvious the anti-Porritt, anti-development crowd does not understand metro districts and their tax and funding benefits. The underlying metro district has become a straw-man argument for all that is wrong with the proposed redevelopment plans. Without going into unnecessary detail, the primary reason for creating a metro district is so the new development can pay for all the necessary civil improvements to accommodate the development, such as street and pedestrian upgrades, water and sewer upgrades, parking structures, etc. Otherwise, the current town residents must absorb these costs.

I am skeptical the current plans for a grocery store in downtown Dillon will ever become reality, and the proposed project fails to animate downtown Dillon in any long-term beneficial fashion. However, the Porritt team has been pushed into a corner, where they need to recover some of their costs to date, and they need to work within existing zoning. Dillon voters now face a Catch 22 scenario of their own making.

At this point, the best course for Dillon voters is to stop the bloodletting. Vote to retain the current council members, provide some political stability that reassures potential financiers and developers that their efforts will not be invalidated after investing substantial time and money, and work to reopen a productive PUD discussion that can provide the desired downtown animation while preserving Dillon’s small-town vibe. Sadly, I predict a March 4 train wreck.

Bruce Butler's column "Common Sense Conversations" publishes biweekly on Tuesdays in the Summit Daily News. Butler is a former mayor and council member in Silverthorne, where he has lived for 20 years. Contact him at butlerincolorado@gmail.com.