Ed Rodgers, district attorney for the 11th Judicial District (Frémont, Chaffee, Park, and Custer counties), was leaving office soon anyway on account of term limits, and his replacement will be elected in November - either Republican Molly Chilson of Salida or Democrat Rocco Meconi of Cañon City.
However, Rodgers decided to resign early, and that led to some head-scratching. Instead of waiting until his term ends in January, Rodgers resigned effective Sept. 21 to take a position as a children's representative (guardian at litem) with the El Paso County District Attorney's office.
So a replacement had to be found, to serve from Sept. 21 until the newly elected DA takes office.
For many elected offices, the appropriate party's vacancy committee names someone to fill out the term. That's what happened in House District 61 (Lake, Summit, and Eagle counties) when Gary Lindstrom of Summit County was named last summer to fill out the term of Leadville Democrat Carl Miller, who took a seat on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
However, the DA is different; it's entirely up to the governor to make the appointment to fill out the term. Since Owens is a Republican, the logical appointment would have been the Republican candidate for DA, Molly Chilson.
Owens couldn't appoint her, though. State law requires a DA to have practiced law in Colorado for at least five years, and Chilson's anniversary doesn't come until Oct. 25 - in time to serve after the general election, but not to be appointed now.
Chilson told us that as nearly as she could determine, this has happened once before, and in that case, the governor appointed the state attorney general to run the DA's office for the short interval.
That could have created more complications in this election year. The attorney general, Ken Salazar, is a Democrat, and is also running for U.S. Senate.
So what happened?
On Sept. 16, just as we went to press, Owens made the logical appointment: Kathy Eberling of Cañon City. She has been assistant district attorney in the 11th District since 1989, and will serve as district attorney until January.