An El Paso County District Court has denied a request to freeze Dennis Stern’s role as mayor in Palmer Lake, calling the motion an overreach of judicial authority.

In the denial, Judge David Prince said that a court interfering in the legislative actions of a municipality violated legal principles “that have been established for more than a century.”

The lawsuit was filed in December by Roger Moseley, a current member of the Palmer Lake Board of Trustees and an elected colleague of Stern. Stern was appointed mayor of the small town north of Colorado Springs last year after the resignation of Glant Havenar.

Moseley came to the board thanks to a recall election last September in which two other trustees were removed from office. Stern was originally among the trustees who were being recalled, but his name was taken off the ballot when he was appointed mayor.

Moseley said he was unhappy with the result of the recall attempt.

“I thought it was inappropriate to throw away…recall petition signatures,” he said.

Moseley claims that Stern, in verbally resigning as mayor pro tem but not as trustee, was not qualified to be appointed mayor. Stern’s role as trustee was listed vacant and later filled by an appointee.

Moseley said he was not trying to remove Stern from the town’s board of trustees, only from his role of mayor. He said since Stern’s previous trustee position has already been filled, the process for that could be “very rough.”

“Right now, there really isn’t much of a point,” he said.

Moseley’s attorney requested that the court grant a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against the town and Stern. With the motions denied, the case remains active without a final decision reached.

The trustee has another active lawsuit with the town over its financial handling of grant money in previous years, which was dismissed and then revived in appeals court in October.

In suing a board he is a part of, Moseley said he was avoiding any possibility of financial gain and had steered clear of executive sessions about the lawsuits. In the refiled appeals case, the town of Palmer Lake previously received over $12,000 in reimbursed attorney fees from Moseley and co-plaintiff Martha Brodzik, according to court records.

Stern said that the lawsuit represented “a weird situation, if anything.”