The Northglenn City Council will review a request on Wednesday for an ethics complaint against state Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, tied to an April 3 meeting, in which people said the legislator showed up intoxicated and combative.

At issue in the April 3 meeting was the location of a mental health transitional living home in Northglenn. Of specific concern to residents was having sex offenders live in that facility. 

During that meeting, citizens who showed up to protest the proposed facility noticed that Winter was on her cellphone looking up stats. Winter was jeered and booed by the audience, and, at one point, Mayor Meredith Leighty asked her not to interrupt a speaker who was talking. 

The transitional home in question, which is comprised of two adjacent buildings located at 11255 and 11275 Grant Drive in Northglenn, can house 32 patients. 

The state is now changing course and will not allow sex offenders in the home, which is blocks away from an elementary school. Also not allowed in the home are people with a recent history of escaping other treatment facilities, individuals with recent assaultive behaviors, and people with behaviors that required restraints or who may require a locked facility. 

The ethics complaint pointed out that at the April 3 meeting, Winter “appeared to be intoxicated while sitting on a panel of the state and local officials answering questions from the community on the decision making that led to the siting.”

Winter was advised to find a ride home instead of driving. The following day, she announced she was entering rehab. It was done at home under medical supervision.

Winter stepped down as chair of the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee, although she retained her leadership role as assistant majority leader, a position she was elected to last year, despite widespread knowledge that she was struggling with alcohol issues.

Winter told Colorado Politics she has not seen the complaint.

“I apologized to the city and the citizens and am committed to repairing the relationship,” she said. “I recently enjoyed working with the city on (House Bill) 1107 which they had prioritized.”

The bill deals with judicial review of a local land use decision. 

The ethics resolution noted that Winter “appeared to have glassy eyes, slurred speech, and some individuals smelled alcohol on her breath, and as a result she also appeared at various times disinterested, annoyed, and combative.”

The resolution added that while the City Council “is sensitive to the disease of alcoholism, such a disease does not provide an excuse for Senator Winter’s conduct of showing up at a community meeting in an apparently inebriated state.”

The resolution added that Winter:

• failed to uphold her office with integrity in the public interest;   

• was disrespectful to her constituents and the people of the state of Colorado, as well as to herself;

• that she has lost confidence from the public, most damagingly from her own constituents that elected her to office; and, 

• that she has failed to watchfully guard the responsibilities of the public office and the responsibilities and duties placed on her as a member of the Senate. 

According to the complaint, on April 22, Councilmember Nicholas Walker requested the council’s consensus for City Attorney Corey Hoffmann to evaluate the process for filing an ethics complaint about Winter’s behavior.

Should the resolution pass, it would then go to Senate President Steve Fenberg for an ethics complaint under Senate Rule 43.