The Douglas County Lantern: The Petition to Expand the Board of Douglas County Commissioners

What would it do? What are the costs? What’s the timeline? And more.

Democrats and Republicans don’t agree about much in Douglas County, but the “3 to 5 Petition” has rare, bipartisan support in the county. The goal of the petition is to let Douglas County voters decide whether the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) should expand from its current three members to become a five-member board.

Organizer Angela Thomas describes the petition as a grassroots, bipartisan effort, and says, “We have volunteer circulators who are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents working all over Douglas County to collect signatures.”

Those volunteers aim to collect more than 15,000 signatures between now and mid-July. If they succeed, Douglas County voters will decide in November whether to expand the BOCC to five members — and how that expansion would work.

What would the petition allow voters to decide?

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