Prairie dog supporters outraged over Castle Rock’s decision to proceed with an outdoor mall have solicited a plan to sweep out the town council by recalling three members this year and targeting the other four for defeat in 2016.

A five-page document obtained by The Colorado Statesman lays out a detailed campaign strategy, including canvassing, phone banks, bulk mail and earned media, for replacing the seven-member council by forcing a recall this year and then backing opposition candidates in November 2016.

Whether the recall effort will go forward is up in the air, given this week’s turn of events. A petition to force a vote on the zoning ordinance governing the property was withdrawn Tuesday after WildLands Defense reached an agreement with Alberta Development Partners, developer of the Promenade at Castle Rock.

Castle Rock resident Stacey Rogers, who had gathered signatures on behalf of the petition, said Thursday she hasn’t heard what will happen with the recall, but believes that WildLands will drop the effort in the aftermath of the deal.

“It seems to me, and again this is speculation, that they [WildLands] got what they wanted. They don’t care any more,” said Rogers.Deanna Meyer, Colorado director of WildLands Defense, did not respond immediately to messages for comment.

Ira Bunch, the campaign strategist who drew up the document, said that he crafted a number of campaign plans in February and March, but didn’t know whether a decision had been made on whether to move forward with a recall.

The recall plan would be aimed at town council members Jennifer Green, Renee Valentine and Brett J. Ford, who were elected in 2014. The other four seats are up in 2016.

“I was on retainer for a month to write a number of plans that were scenarios so that they could sort of digest that information,” said Bunch. “I actually don’t even know what conversations they had around those plans or what those decisions were.”

Bunch, targeting and program director for America Votes Colorado, said he took the job in his role as an independent contractor and not as part of his work with America Votes, a progressive advocacy group created in 2004 by liberal political operatives.

As part of the deal, WildLands agreed to drop its petition to force the council to rescind or hold a referendum on the zoning ordinance. The town council had been slated to vote Tuesday on whether to place the issue on the ballot.

Alberta Development also agreed to help relocate remaining prairie dogs on the outdoor mall property and form a “prairie dog mitigation task force.”

“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement that will meet a variety of community needs, including a significant contribution to wildlife conservation in the Castle Rock area,” said Don Provost, Alberta founding principal, in a statement.

Still, the last-minute deal frustrated foes of the zoning ordinance as well as prairie-dog advocates, who had wanted WildLands to follow through with the referendum.

“What’s going on. Did someone get paid off???” said Debi Patrick Stalker on the Facebook page, Save the Castle Rock Mall Prairie Dogs.The manager of the Facebook page, which is run by WildLands, responded by saying, “There was, and is, no way to stop this development.”

“The question became whether or not, whichever way the council decided, the ultimate resolution would be better for prairie dogs or not,” said the page manager. “Some involved wanted to put the question to the council irregardless of the ultimate outcomes for the land and the prairie dogs. Most wanted what was best for prairie dogs.”

As a result, “After thoughtful consideration, and consistent with our mission, we decided that it would be more beneficial to prairie dogs and prairie ecosystems for our efforts to secure a prairie dog preserve in Douglas County.”

Rogers said she was so upset by the petition’s withdrawal that she apologized publicly at Tuesday’s council meeting to the people who signed petitions. The signatures had already been declared sufficient.

“I apologized because I got 26 percent of all of the signatures, and I lied to them as it turns out,” Rogers said. “Even though I read this and it was all about zoning, it was used for a different purpose.”

Town council member George Teal said that wildlife advocates had at one point called for $25 million to settle the matter. Tuesday’s deal has been estimated at a much lower six figures.

Alberta spokesman Paul Raab declined to comment on the speculation, saying that that the “agreement is confidential and the parties will continue to honor that commitment.”

“Rumors regarding the monetary component of the agreement are grossly inaccurate and are from sources with no knowledge or basis for any comments,” Raab said in an email.

Prairie dogs are neither endangered nor threatened – in fact, they may be hunted on private land year-round in Colorado – while their extensive underground colonies are a source of headaches for builders and property owners.

But some residents were outraged after learning that prairie dogs were being removed to make way for the Promenade, a $177 million, 166-acre commercial and residential development north of the Outlets at Castle Rock at Meadows Parkway.

Even though prairie dogs are common in Colorado, their advocates have been known to hold up or even derail development projects, as Teal knows all too well. He recalled a similar brouhaha 30 years ago in Greeley, where he grew up, after what he described as the “prairie dog liberation front” kicked into action.

“That one went a lot different than this one that we’re wrapping up,” Teal said. “I was going to high school with farm families who lived on the outskirts of Greeley and who were opening their land to development, and I had friends who went from being super rich one year to by the time they graduated-I mean, one of my buddies, the economic slide his family had really took a toll on him. He didn’t even graduate from high school.”

Developers pulled out of plans to buy the farm land, leaving some family landowners facing foreclosure, he said.

“The area is all auto dealerships now. There’s a big King Soopers, Starbucks strip mall, that kind of thing,” Teal said. “[But] all the people who owned those family farms like ever since the 1860s – none of them saw a penny of that.”

The Promenade land was owned by millionaire Jack Vickers, but the prairie-dog situation has created alarm among the farmland owners in the Castle Rock region, Teal said.

One landowner’s motivation is “strictly the fact that the grandkids are all coming up to college age,” Teal said. “This is one family that is not really cash rich trying to do what they can to provide for the next generation, and they were very, very concerned about how this was going to work out with the Promenade. Because they too have not just prairie dogs on their land, but also other wildlife.”

Despite the agreement, prairie-dog advocates have already turned their attention to another development, the Terrain, a residential community that is already about half completed.

Still, Teal thinks the recall threat is probably over, at least for now.

“I think they’re probably happy with what they got,” Teal said.

– valrichardson17@gmail.com