Citizen-initiated ordinance to redefine the uses allowed in Walsenburg's detention-center zoning district

The ballot names Sections 16-4-700 and 16-4-720 of the municipal code and the Criminal Detention Center (CDC) District they govern, and does not say what the amendments change. The city's Ordinance No. 1221 prints the full ordinance, which rewrites both.

In the code as published through April 2025, Section 16-4-700 permits, by right, a "Criminal detention center and/or penal institution" and parking incidental to it, without defining either term; the zoning chapter's definitions article defines neither. The ordinance keeps both uses and adds three lines:

• Criminal Detention Center means "a secure, state-authorized location for holding individuals suspected of or sentenced for crimes."
• Penal Institution means "a secured facility designed for the confinement, punishment, and rehabilitation of individuals convicted of crimes."
• "Neither definition shall be extended to include federal incarceration of immigrants under federal policies and procedures".

Read as written, the definitions also limit a detention center to one that is state-authorized and a penal institution to people convicted of crimes. Section 16-4-710 allows no conditional uses in the district. Existing lawful nonconforming uses remain subject to Article 3, Division 4, which also allows some changes between nonconforming uses with findings by the Board of Zoning Adjustment.

Section 16-4-720 now lets four retail marijuana uses into the district with a special use permit: stores, cultivation facilities, products manufacturing and testing facilities. The ordinance replaces that list with one sentence: "No special uses beyond those enumerated as uses permitted by right are allowed in the Criminal Detention Center (CDC) District."

The ordinance takes effect 30 days after the election results are certified. Its severability clause keeps the rest in force if a court strikes any part, so the state-authorized test would survive a ruling against the immigration sentence alone. If the measure fails, both sections stay as they read today.

The district's permitted uses date from Ordinance No. 874 of May 1996; the marijuana special uses were added by Ordinance No. 1058 in April 2015. Supporters tie the measure to the Huerfano County Correctional Center, which Colorado Newsline reported in September 2025 is owned by the private prison company CoreCivic, has 752 beds, and was operational until 2010.

In July 2025 the center appeared on a list of possible U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention sites that the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Colorado obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. CoreCivic then listed detention officer jobs in Walsenburg "contingent on contract award," Newsline reported, citing the Colorado Sun. Walsenburg's interim city administrator, John Galusha, told Newsline that September: "The prison is permitted and has every right to open, as far as we’re concerned."

The zoning chapter says its regulations "are not retroactive in their application to existing buildings and uses," except under its nonconforming-use article. That article lets a lawful use continue after a rule changes; where a nonconforming use of land "ceases for any reason for a period more than six months," later use must conform. How those rules would apply to the correctional center, if it lies in the district as supporters say, is for the city to decide, and for a court if the decision is disputed.

On June 26, 2026, the deputy city clerk found the petition sufficient, with 206 qualified signatures where 109 were needed.

State law gave the council 20 days to adopt the petition's ordinance without alteration. Ordinance No. 1221 records that the council "considered the petition’s ordinance at its regular meeting held July 7, 2026, and failed to adopt" it. The council passed Ordinance No. 1221, which refers the unaltered ordinance to the November 3 ballot, on first reading on July 7; its second reading was on the August 4 agenda, and the question is on Huerfano County's certified ballot. Ordinance No. 1221 states that the petition's ordinance "does not increase taxes or create debt" for the city.

Walsenburg's registered electors decide it by a majority of the votes cast on it.

In letters to the World Journal, Daniel Connell wrote on August 20 that the change "would not allow the defunct Detention Center to be used for Immigrant Detention," and urged a yes vote. Sally Moore of Pueblo argued on September 24 that the center's capacity of "more than 750 people" would strain a city already under Stage 3 water restrictions in a drought.