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As County leaders, we must protect our region. Our quality of life is directly connected to our commitment to build a tomorrow that preserves the best of today. This vision includes protecting our natural resources, utilizing our county’s resources in a fiscally-smart manner, and wisely planning for our future. Thank you for standing with us.
Parker Water Waits Until After Botched Election to Float Its Expected Rate Increase
If lottery numbers were as predictable as the anti-transparency majority on the Parker Water and Sanitation board, we’d all be floating in cash.
Conservative and fiscally responsible leaders campaigning for seats on the Parker Water Board earlier this year, forecasted that Parker Water would raise rates on its customers. They also correctly predicted that the Board would wait until after the election to avoid voter scrutiny of its questionable financial priorities.
And as night follows day, the board proposed a rate increase and held a public hearing on October 26 for citizens to comment. However, try to find the proposal on the Parker Water website and you won’t find anything except the one-page agenda for the meeting.
Many responsible public bodies post the entire meeting packet provided to board members online prior to meetings to increase transparency and accountability. This simple step in transparency empowers citizens to hold bureaucrats responsible to those they ultimately serve.
So, one wonders how average citizens could comment on a carefully labeled, “rate adjustment,” when the facts and figures were not made available online? Did citizens know about the proposed increase and have the opportunity to weigh in?
The incumbent board members subsequently approved the rate hike by a 3-2 vote, with the two reform-oriented members dissenting.
But given the district’s upside-down financial priorities, it’s not surprising that Parker Water’s leaders would want to keep its ratepayers in the dark.
Some reminders:
The district spent $51 million for a luxury headquarters for employees (including over $1 million in new furniture) but not a dime for new water resources to secure Parker’s future.
The district botched its 2023 election for three board seats, neglecting to send ballots to an entire neighborhood in its service area, and then required the disenfranchised voters to jump through hoops to vote.
The district has proposed a complex water plan – with a price tag of $1 billion and climbing -- that has significant questions about water quality, treatment costs and environmental impacts.
Two "reform-minded" Parker Water Board members are standing up for residential and business ratepayers, and, demanding more transparency from the board majority and longtime staff. Let’s hope they can change the culture at Parker Water to put the needs of customers ahead of bureaucrats.
Recent Headlines
Prohibition on thirsty, decorative grasses in Colorado gains early support among legislators
A draft bill aims to prohibit new installations of grass that sucks up too much water. It’s the latest action in a growing conservation movement in arid Colorado.
Those grassy medians in roads around Colorado might add doses of green to streets, but state water watchers say the turf sucks up too much water and that needs to change.
State officials, legislators, water managers and conservation experts are searching for ways to cut water use in face of prolonged drought and concerns about future water supply insecurity. One much-discussed option for urban areas: Finding areas of thirsty turf, like Kentucky bluegrass, that are purely ornamental and removing it. Legislators have proposed a bill that takes that approach a step further by prohibiting new installations of this nonfunctional turf starting in 2025, and the idea got an early vote of support last week.
…It will be introduced to the General Assembly in January.
The bill comes out of Colorado’s efforts to grapple with the impacts of climate change, the draft bill says.
The summer leaves have given way to bare branches, but the ski slopes haven’t yet filled with tourists—or snow. Soon, the flakes will begin to pile up, burying alpine valleys and recharging the Colorado River.
The river – which supplies water to tens of millions of people from Wyoming to Mexico – gets most of its water from high-altitude snow, two-thirds of which falls in Colorado. This winter’s forecast is unclear, but however it unfolds will have an outsized impact on the next few years of region-wide water management. Last year’s wet winter may have created more space for long-term negotiations about sharing the Colorado River, but if the region sees low snow totals in the coming months, policy analysts say things could quickly turn in the wrong direction and reintroduce some urgency to water management talks.
Did you know? Many Colorado communities are already finding ways to reconfigure landscapes in more water-efficient ways. Colorado water officials recently ended the first year of $1.5 million in local turf removal grants with nearly 40 applications for the money. Broomfield, Fort Collins, Grand Junction, Aurora and Castle Rock are just a few cities with efforts to restrict, remove or otherwise cut down on water used by thirsty landscaping.
Upcoming News from DCFF
Every other week, DCFF will report on important news and challenges impacting our community. We hope you will stay engaged and connected with us.
