As Douglas County’s home-rule election gets underway, the battle is already red hot. Here’s what’s at stake.

As Douglas County’s home-rule election gets underway, the battle is already red hot. Here’s what’s at stake.

Douglas County is trying to do something no other Colorado county has done in nearly 50 years — adopt home-rule authority that would give the conservative bastion south of Denver more autonomy and powers of self-governance. But the road to that reality has been anything but smooth, with a rally last week in Castle Rock decrying the move, a tense town hall meeting at county headquarters that ended in shouts and jeers — and a lawsuit attempting to…