Elk Creek Fire puts consolidation questions on the November ballot

BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Whether three re departments along U.S. 285 should consolidate de nitely will be on the Nov. 7 ballot for Elk Creek Fire Protection District voters.

e Elk Creek Fire Board on Aug. 10 approved 4-1 putting two questions on the ballot. e rst asks whether the Elk Creek Fire Protection District should consolidate with the Inter-Canyon and North Fork re departments. e second asks whether Elk Creek voters want to increase property taxes by 5.97 mills to 16 mills to fund the new Conifer Fire Department.

While that increase sounds high, Elk Creek voters have already been paying 2.5 mills of the 5.97 mills for the past 10 years. However, that 2.5 mills stops this year because voters approved that property tax amount only for 10 years.

at’s not all.

e board also unanimously agreed to have the re district’s attorney draft language for a third ballot measure that would allow Elk Creek to keep that 2.5-mill property tax in the event consolidation doesn’t pass. e board will have a special meeting before Sept. 8 — the date all initiatives must be submitted to Je erson County to be on the ballot — to discuss and vote on whether to put the third measure onto the ballot.

In addition, more than a dozen

More On Consolidation

The Inter-Canyon Fire Protection District board on Aug. 9 approved putting consolidation questions onto the Nov. 7 ballot. The North Fork Fire Protection District board will meet on Aug. 16 to vote.

For consolidation to occur, voters in all three fire districts must approve consolidation and the property tax increase. If one of the six ballot measures doesn’t pass, consolidation will not take place.

re district residents spoke to the board, going back and forth on whether consolidation was good for Elk Creek. ose saying it was a positive move agreed that volunteerism was decreasing, so a consolidated department would be good for re ghters, response time to emergencies and all residents in the three re districts. ose against said Elk Creek residents would suffer because Elk Creek’s emergencyresponse resources would be spread over a larger area, and since the population center among the three re districts is in Elk Creek, those property taxpayers would fund more of the larger district.

One speaker suggested that the re department should host a debate to provide the pros and cons of consolidation before voters ll out their ballots.

Consolidation ballot measures

Fire Board member Chuck Newby,

The Elk Creek Fire board has approved the ballot language to ask voters whether they want the department to consolidate with Inter-Canyon and North Fork fire departments. Inter-Canyon already has approved the ballot language, and the North Fork board will vote on the issue. FILE PHOTO BY DEB HURLEY BROBST who voted against putting consolidation on the ballot, said he believed Elk Creek was going about the consolidation question the wrong way.

“I have been calling for a consolidation study and a consolidation plan that would start with a needs assessment,” Newby said. “I can’t support this resolution because we have not done such a consolidation planning activity that involves the community.”

He also said demographically, Elk Creek is very di erent from the other two districts, and because the largest percentage of the population is in Elk Creek, property taxpayers there would subsidize most of the department.

In addition, because re ghters and equipment would be moved around to accommodate the nearly 400-square-mile new department, “I am convinced that the proposed consolidation/merger of the re districts would run the serious risk of substantially degrading the re protection and emergency medical services for the residents of the Elk Creek Fire Protection District.” e other four board members did not provide comment about the two ballot measures before voting yes.

Third ballot measure

Newby is concerned that if voters don’t approve consolidation and the tax increase, the district will lose about $750,000 in revenue in 2024 when it loses the 2.5 mill that is sunsetting.

According to Fire Chief Jacob Ware, 2.5 mills is about 14% of the department’s $5.38 million budget. e district could ask voters for a property tax increase in November 2024 and receive the money in 2025 if it is approved.

“I think it’s very important that we protect the sunsetting 2.5 mills irrespective of whether consolidation does or doesn’t happen,” Newby said. “Our obligation is to protect that revenue.”

Other board members said they wanted to make sure that the ballot measure was written in such a way that it didn’t confuse voters.

It’s August, which means it’s back to school for millions of children and young adult Americans. August also presages Banned Book Month: September.

Unless you live under a rock, you’re aware that open reading and the free exchange of ideas are under withering re in an ongoing crusade against the First Amendment. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022. It was the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. at nearly doubles the 729 challenges reported in 2021.

Also in 2022, a record 2,571 unique titles, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles in 2021, were targeted for censorship. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color. Of the reported book challenges, 58% targeted books and materials in school libraries, classroom libraries, or school curricula and 41% targeted materials in public libraries.

The top 13 targeted books:

1) “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe

2) “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson

3) “ e Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison