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This hasn’t exactly been the most electrifying election season Jeffco’s ever seen. Races for the top spots in Lakewood, Arvada, Wheat Ridge, and Golden are all more or less uncontested, and as a result, there’s been less focus than usual, even, for downballot races for Treasurer, Clerk, and City Council positions. Sure, candidates have begun rolling out yard signs, but voters won’t really start paying attention until ballots arrive on their doorsteps, and even then, they still probably won’t know much about those for whom they’re voting.

In Wheat Ridge, there are campaigns for City Council in three districts, a campaign for city treasurer, and a remarkably competitive campaign for city clerk. City clerk is one of those odd positions that you wouldn’t really expect to be elected; it belongs more to a bureaucratic functionary than to a politico. In Wheat Ridge, the city clerk journals all council meetings, officiates and maintains custody of all official city documents, certifies all ordinances and resolutions passed by council, publishes all notices, proceedings, and so on and so forth. It’s an administrative position.

Needless to say, it’s a position that could really mess up the entire city if occupied by the wrong person. That’s the problem with directly electing an administrator; the City of Wheat Ridge may end up with the person best able to win an election, not the person best able to coordinate all the mechanisms that keep the city going.

Cue the four — yes, four— candidates running for city clerk in Wheat Ridge this year, and you may start to worry a little bit. Leah Dozeman, Lenny Ortiz, Deanna Davia, and Maureen Keller will all be appearing on the ballot this November. None of the candidates are really remarkable, but we think that Dozeman might be the worst of the bunch.

You may have seen Leah Dozeman’s yard signs popping up around the city. We’ve heard she’s done a pretty good job at canvassing; she’s knocked the doors you need to knock in order to win, and she’s getting her name out there. The problem with Dozeman, then, isn’t that she’s running a bad campaign. The big problem with Leah Dozeman is that she’s 21 years old, and the City Clerk position would be her first job.