County will vote on having five commissioners

By Dan MacArthur
Correspondent

In a surprise move that partially placated critics and angered one of their own, Larimer County Commissioners agreed to place an additional option before voters for expanding the board from three to five commissioners.

Each of the three options call for increasing property taxes by 0.082 mills --or about $1.50 a year on a $230,000 home--to finance the estimated $250,682 cost of creating the two new positions.

The ballot issue will be in two parts. First, voters will consider the tax increase. Next, they can vote on one of three options regardless of how they voted on the tax question. Those options are to establish:

• Five districts with commissioners required to reside in their respective district but elected at large.
• Three districts with three commissioners required to reside in their respective districts. The two other commissioners could live anywhere in the county. All five would be elected by voters of the entire county.
• Three districts with three commissioners required to reside in their respective districts and elected by voters of that district. The other two commissioners could live anywhere in the county and would be elected by all voters in the county.

Currently each of the three commissioners must live in his or her respective district, and they are elected at large.

The commissioners in a 2-1 vote on Aug. 24 agreed to add the third option of electing three commissioners from districts, arousing the wrath of Commissioner Glenn Gibson. Previously the commissioners had proposed placing only the two at large election options on the Nov. 2 ballot.

"If you thought about doing this earlier, why wasn't I told about it?" Gibson protested. "All of a sudden at the last minute we're adding another one. I say no."

"I don't think it's new, we've been discussing it all along," responded Commissioner Tom Bender. While he and Commissioner Kathay Rennels said they did not support election by districts, they said voters should have the right to decide.

"I just don't think this is good government, doing something at the last minute," countered Gibson. "I believe three commissioners are more effective, more efficient."

Gibson also expressed concern that the proposal could dilute the representation of his Loveland-dominated district because of the prospect that four of the five commissioners could be elected from the Fort Collins area--the largest voting bloc in the county.

That prospect was one of the motivations behind the petition drive two years ago by Citizens for 5 Commissioners. The ad hoc group collected 9,500 signatures asking that the question be put before voters. The commissioners apparently agreed to the ballot measure but backed out after it was too late for citizens to formally present the petitions and force a vote.

While she conceded the revised proposal is an improvement, Citizens for 5 Commissioners co-chair Gina Janett said she still finds the associated tax increase so objectionable that she was uncertain whether she could support the ballot issue. "If we had better money managers, the money for this would be found in the budget," she insisted.

Janett said she also would was disappointed that the commissioners didn't include the only remaining option for increasing the number of commissioners--creating five districts with commissioners elected by voters of each district. The commissioners previously said they could not support that option because it could lead to greater parochialism with commissioners concerned more about their districts than the overall welfare of the county.

But Janett contended that such a system is the only way to ensure balanced urban/rural representation.