William “Bill” Goodspeed, who died of acute leukemia Saturday at age 69, spent 22 years on the Northglenn City Council, establishing himself as the council’s longest-serving member despite a willfulness that frequently put him at loggerheads with the rest of the council.
Goodspeed was famously slow to spend money and perennially skeptical about sweetening development deals that he found contrary to the interests of his constituents.
“You wouldn’t throw your own personal money down the drain, and City Council should not make decisions to throw the public’s money away, either,” he said once at a council meeting.
Goodspeed, who owned a doughnut shop, frequently found himself at odds with the rest of the City Council during his service from 1984 to 2005. If a council vote split 8-1, almost invariably Goodspeed provided the dissenting voice.
“He oftentimes was the lone voice of opposition,” said Sheri Paiz, who still serves on the City Council. “I never got it out of him, but I told him I thought he’d do it just to make people think. He looked at everything so thoroughly and threw out the pros and cons of things.”
Goodspeed made his Colorado political debut in 1981, when he started a citizens group protesting a bond issue for a proposed wastewater-treatment plant, arguing that it would cost far more than the city’s estimate of $30 million.
He ran an eleventh-hour 1981 campaign as a write-in council candidate, winning 202 votes but not a seat.
The bond issue passed and, with a revised tab of $82 million, bore out Goodspeed’s baleful prediction.
Goodspeed ran for the Ward 1 council position in 1983, winning the seat. He successfully ran for office in four more elections before term limits forced him to retire last year.
The causes he shepherded included a half-cent sales tax that eliminated the capital fee on Northglenn residents’ water bills, the defeat of a proposed recreation center and supporting a 9/11 memorial near Broomfield’s civic center.
Goodspeed, a devoted dog owner who rarely missed the annual sheepdog trials in Meeker, also led the initiative establishing the Happy Tails Dog Park in Thornton.
Conservative constituents embraced his cautious evaluation of potential public transactions. They approved of Goodspeed’s insistence on meticulously observing every nuance of the city charter and Colorado law and enjoyed watching Goodman’s fellow council members struggle to retain their patience.
Survivors include his wife, Barbara Scholten-Goodspeed of Northglenn; sons Michael of Dedham, Mass., and Stephen of Worcester, Mass.; daughters Linda Antico of Lincoln, Mass., and Janice Aucoin of Sudbury, Mass.; and six grandchildren. The family suggests memorial donations to the Leukemia Society of America.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
