After dozens of tied votes over the course of two hours, the Aurora City Council again postponed its effort to determine who will fill the temporary council vacancy to represent Ward Two after Councilwoman Nicole Johnston resigned.

During the council meeting Monday, 38 rounds of voting failed to appoint the temporary replacement, resulting in repeated 5-5 ties.

Council members Alison Coombs, Allison Hiltz, Angela Lawson, Juan Marcano and Crystal Murillo voted for Democratic candidate Ryan Ross, while council members Francoise Bergan, Marsha Berzins, Curtis Gardner, Dave Gruber and Mayor Mike Coffman voted for Republican candidate Steve Sundberg.

This delay comes after, during its last meeting on June 28, the council failed to fill the vacancy following 14 rounds of tied votes with council members supporting the same candidates.

“I think it’s going to be the same result (next time) but at that time, people are going to have to make a decision,” said Lawson, who introduced the motion to postpone.

The vote to fill the vacancy will now be held during the next regular council meeting on July 26. This is the last time council can postpone the vote, as Aurora’s city charter requires council fill the vacancy by July 29 — 45 days after Johnston’s departure.

Similarly to the last meeting, most of the council’s debate on Monday centered on whether or not the candidate who is selected to fill the vacancy needs to politically align with Johnston.

Aurora City Council postpones vote to fill Ward 2 vacancy after 14 rounds of tied votes

“A term on council lasts four years. So, the election that took place in 2017 is the election relevant to this appointment. I believe that we should represent those values that were expressed by the voters in 2017,” Coombs said in support of Ross, a Democrat who was backed by Johnston before she left.

To that, council members opposing Ross said the voters did not vote for him specifically and they cannot be sure who the public would choose between Ross and Sundberg.

In addition, the fact that Sundberg is also running to represent Ward Two in the general election in November was brought up by several council members, with many saying appointing him to the temporary vacancy would give him an unfair advantage over other Ward Two candidates.

During the meeting, Began and Berzins introduced motions to leave the vacancy open and allow voters to decide during the general election in November, violating the city charter. Those motions failed 5-5 along candidate lines.

“We’re letting our residents watch us be dysfunctional when we could just stop it now and wait until November and let the people of Ward Two decide who they want,” Berzins said.

“I strongly agree with the spirit of that but what you are basically saying is, ‘let’s violate the charter, it doesn’t matter.’ That’s unacceptable to me,” Marcano said in response. “I don’t want to set the precedent … that violating the charter sometimes is okay.”

Under Aurora’s city charter, the council is not allowed to pass the vacancy decision on to the voters like the Westminster City Council did earlier this month when it failed to decide who would fill its vacancy after 99 rounds of voting.

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City Attorney Dan Brotzman said the city attorney’s office likely wouldn’t serve the council with criminal charges for violating the charter, but the council could potentially be sued or forced to vote through court.

Earlier in the meeting, the council rejected an ordinance that would have removed the penalties in a section of the city charter to allow council to fail to fill the vacancy without facing repercussions. The ordinance failed in 4-5, with Bergan, Berzins, Gruber and Murillo voting no and Coffman ineligible to vote as mayor.

Johnston, elected in 2017, resigned on June 14 for a new job in Colorado Springs. Johnston is a progressive Democrat who was part of a wave of new candidates that transformed the historically conservative council to a relatively even split — with five council members leaning to the right and five leaning left.

Without Johnston, the council has three Republican members (Gruber, Berzins and Bergan), four Democratic members (Hiltz, Murillo, Marcano and Coombs) and two unaffiliated members (Gardner, who loosely identifies as libertarian, and Lawson, a former Republican).

Because of the council’s current split, the candidate who fills the Ward Two vacancy has the potential to make or break key council proposals in the near future. For example, Coffman’s urban camping ban that the council is expected to vote on next month.

During candidate interviews last month, Ross said he would not support the measure and Sundberg said he would support the measure. Johnston was a vocal opponent of the proposed camping ban.

On Monday, Democratic council members accused Republican members of taking advantage of the vacancy to try to shift the council.

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“I don’t think y’all have ever had an issue filling a vacancy … this is the first time we’ve had an issue because we have more diversity of thought on council,” Marcano said. “Some of y’all are trying to use this to win a majority that, frankly, you didn’t earn.”

During the last vote, Republican members also accused the Democrats of being hypocritical and equally partisan in their voting decisions.

Sundberg is the manager and operator of a family-owned bar and grill called Legends of Aurora. He told The Denver Gazette he wants to create a unified and business-friendly City Council.

Sundberg brings over 20 years of experience serving on nonprofit boards, including the Parks & Recreation Advisory Board, Leadership Aurora Board, Pickens Technical College Culinary Advisory Board and Colorado Restaurant Association Mile High Chapter Board.

Ross is a well-known community activist currently serving as CEO of the Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado and associate vice chancellor for student affairs, equity and inclusion of the Colorado Community College System.

In his application, Ross said he wants to bring his values of fairness, justice and equity to the City Council. He recently facilitated the city’s police reform task force.

If selected on July 26, the chosen candidate’s term will last until the general election in November.