Get informed and vote

LINDA ROCKWELL

candidates who are running can require a lot of sleuthing.

simple form to self-nominate for the board of any district.

Most of Je co’s special districts are run by civic-minded people who give freely of their time to serve their communities. I think of all my friends who have ably served on the Evergreen Park and Recreation District board, making tough decisions about how to allocate limited resources among many di erent types of users spread over a large geographic area.

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Why go to all this work? Because someone is spending your money, perhaps on projects you wouldn’t approve of. Because someone may be embezzling your money or running up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Because someone may have you paying huge sums in interest on debt he owns.

About 10 years ago, the volunteer re chief of the Inter-Canyon Fire Protection District was found to have spent over $600,000 on personal items like guns and guitars. e citizen board had not been exercising its oversight responsibilities, yet some of them continued to serve for years. Why? Because no one ran against them, and the elections were cancelled. is happens more often that not. It’s even true for one of the largest of Je co’s 200-plus special districts, West Metro Fire Protection District. It serves nearly 300,000 residents and collects almost $71,000,000 per year in property taxes. Last year 461 people voted in the election. is year no one is contesting any of the seats, in spite of how easy it is to get on the ballot. One need only le a e district is then given the authority to tax future homeowners to recoup its investment. Most of the time this results in a win-win.

Beware, though. When you are looking for the districts you pay taxes to, give special attention to any Metropolitan District on the list. Since TABOR was passed in 1992 there has been an explosion in the number of metro districts, a type of special district usually formed by developers of vacant land. ey have the power to sell bonds to build roads, sewer lines, and other necessary infrastructure.

However, the laws are so loosely written that some unscrupulous developers commit property owners to extraordinary amounts of debt in perpetuity, with such secretive and convoluted legal structures that no ordinary citizen could gure out how to untangle the mess. Some developers buy the bonds themselves instead of putting them on the market, thereby personally receiving the interest payments being made by taxpayers. It can be a huge challenge to homeowners who want to take control by serving on the boards. Ask the people who live in Solterra. en take the time and e ort to cast an informed vote on May 2—and honor the original Tea Partiers.

Not far away, near Bear Creek Lake Park, Red Rocks Centre has issued $45 million in debt with a 43-year repayment schedule. e mill levy is 86. at’s $86 annually on each $1,000 of assessed valuation. To compare, most of Je co’s cities are in the single digits. For most of our re districts, it is about 12. e school district’s is 40. Future residents’ taxes will be almost double those of people in older established neighborhoods. If you’d like to know more, check out metrodistrictreform.org. ere’s a link to an especially interesting article called e Publicazation of Private Business. Click on Voter Resources at lwvje co.org for for guidance on how to track down the information you need.

Linda Rockwell moved to Evergreen with her family in 1982 and now lives in Lakewood. She got involved in local land-use issues in 1984 and in the Democratic Party a few years later. She served as chair of the Je co Democrats from 1993 to 1997. Good government and principled politics remain her passion.