Highlands Ranch – Leaders in Highlands Ranch have a credibility campaign to wage between now and sometime next year, when voters are expected to decide whether to consolidate the subdivision’s four governing boards.
Proponents must convince a majority of about 50,000 would-be voters that creating a seven-member board for the entire community will save money and streamline government.
While most of the elected leaders favor the move, and a survey and public meetings have given a positive response to the concept, skeptics have emerged since the board approved a public vote last week.
District 4 board member Tim LaMacchio supports consolidation but questions the management-driven effort to “sell” it.
In February, he read a statement to the boards and management that questioned “so many past contractions and manipulations of information” to accomplish the goals of staff and powerful board members while stifling questions from others.
“I guess I’ve seen too many decisions made that weren’t in the citizens’ interest, but in the interest of local government,” he said Thursday.
He cited an initiative in 2002, when leaders pressed ahead with Referendum 5A, a proposed tax increase, even after a survey showed a large majority of the voters would oppose it. The measure ultimately failed by 3-to-1 margin.
Last year, the board was told that consolidation would net an annual savings of $1.7 million for taxpayers. But once the board agreed to survey the community and hold public meetings on the topic, the savings “began a rapid and radical downward spiral.”
Now, the advertised savings is $45,000 a year, from reducing the number of board members from 20 to seven, as well as legal fees and other costs associated with maintaining four boards instead of one.
“The only thing that’s sure to get smaller is representation,” LaMacchio said.
General manager Terry Nolan said the $1.7 million figure was based on the possibility of reducing property tax rates, but that figure depended on continued growth, the effect of state tax restrictions and lower interest rates on debt if consolidation occurred. The numbers have since been refined to include only the savings sure to result.
“The boards have been informed of these refinements as they have occurred,” he said.
Highlands Ranch resident Tom Hardy said the relatively small savings for a community of nearly 81,000 did not seem enough to justify changing the form of government. “That really smells odd to me,” he said, over lunch in the Highlands Ranch Town Center on Thursday.
But Sharlene Walters, a new resident, favors fewer elected officials and less government. “It won’t be perfect, but no government is,” she said. “This seems like a good idea, but I could be change my mind if it starts looking like a bad deal.”
Some board members have suggested cutting property taxes before the election to convince voters that consolidation is a money-saver, but even a slight cut would depend on growth and other factors, Nolan said.
The boards could consider the tax cut at either their December or January meetings, he said.
Meanwhile, some proponents say they will have to convince voters that consolidating boards is not a prelude to incorporating into Douglas County’s largest city, a move some say would raise taxes to pay for police and other municipal services.
“Whether we consolidate or not does not mean that incorporation is any more likely or any less likely,” said Nolan, who would not give his opinion on consolidation.
Highlands Ranch already looks and feels like a city, with its new Town Center, its new Civic Green Park and now the possibility of a single seven-member governing board that would, in most regards, do the work of a town council.
“I have no doubt that someday it will happen,” District 2 chairman Gil Butler said of incorporation. “But I wouldn’t like to see it happen until after we reach buildout” in 2011.
Currently, the state’s largest unincorporated community is divided into five metro districts, each supervised by a five-member board. Under the proposal, four districts would consolidate into one board. The fifth district is made up of undeveloped land controlled by the developer.
The consolidation plan only needs an academic blessing from the courts and the County Commission before it goes to voters in May or November.
Former board member Pat Tomlan said administrators are angling for a smaller board to limit opposition to their policies. Though voters eventually would elect the seven members to a consolidated board, the 20 current board members would select the first seven to serve.
Tomlan said residents should assume the seven would be friendly to the current administration.
“Taxpayers should be suspect of consolidation,” Tomlan said. “Not because of worries about tax increases, but because they will have no voice in who gets chosen for the (first) board of seven.”
Nolan said he would have no role in choosing who serves on the board.
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
