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Straight talk from Watkins' mayor to Black Forest

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Contributed by: Donna Hartley on 2/3/2007

Recently I had a very informative and lengthy conversation with the mayor of the now dissolved town of Watkins, Colorado. Because Black Forest seems to be bombarded with impassioned pleas to incorporate the Forest to "save it's charm and beauty from the uncaring county commissioners and anti-nature types assaulting the area," I sought out the mayor, Professor John Schmidt, a teacher at a local state college, for his perspective. He said he'd been following the developments in the papers on the movement here in Black Forest and he strongly advised against it.

He was rather unimpressed with the letters and editorials from the incorporationists as he said they had heard all of the same excuses for incorporation in Watkins. While sharing his experiences he reminded me that he had come to the mayoralty awhile after the town had incorporated. In the end it had boiled down to a costly "feel good" venture that had protected them from nothing. His first piece of advice was to "never, never incorporate." I asked him to elaborate with anecdotes of his experiences and we continued from there.

He told me that the people pushing for incorporation will be paid for their time and money if incorporation goes through. There is a state statute that says they will be reimbursed and Watkins had to pay enormous amounts of money to various people "who came out of the woodwork with receipts" after the election. Right now the incorporation committee as I understand it, has two lawyers, a consulting firm, a public relations firm, a computer specialist and other assorted people working for and contributing to their effort. Tiny Watkins paid out thousands for receipts presented. I can only wonder what our bills will look like if we take that step. I didn't realize that our debt is now accruing and has been all along!

He went on to say that the county commissioners would be only too happy to "double dip." This means that the county taxes will never go down but with the new town additionally paying for what the county is now responsible for (road maintenance, law enforcement billing, etc.), the commissioners will have our extra tax dollars freed up for other areas. We will pay twice for services that we already pay for. He also pointed out that he's seen the figures in our papers and the pro-incorporation people are vastly underestimating or "low balling" many of the proposed costs. On top of the proposed costs he discussed hidden costs and Home Rule which turned out to be quite a problem for Watkins.

Home Rule charters, he said, "allow the local politicians tremendous flexibility almost without boundaries." The mayor and the trustees could decide many things for you without your permission. They could decide you are allowed one horse per property and what to impose in taxes. There is no chance for disagreement and they could levy franchise fees at any time. There could be 3% fees on phones, utilities, public services and other assorted things such as propane deliveries. He said that even though they had no say in this, the tax on propane deliveries started "a monstrous fight." (I could only guess that this was terribly popular with the retired folks on fixed incomes as well as other recipients of propane.)
Mr. Schmidt asked me at one point if our county commissioners were really that bad that we would put this kind of power in anyone's hands. Furthermore he knows that we have no real business base to support a town and he agreed that Colorado Springs would not want to annex us for that reason.

We then started looking at the huge "hidden costs" that no one in Watkins had anticipated. For starters there were the IGA costs or Intergovernmental Agreement contracts for city services. You need a baseline of long term historical date of law enforcement, roads, etc. They have 1700 residents or 500 rooftops in Watkins, as he called them. (That is quite a bit fewer than we have at about 4,000 homes.) Before you can project costs you have to look at the long term historical data to see what was needed in the past.

Another thing that he brought up was animal control. Every call was a $100 charge and that alone ran $1,000 to $2000 a month. Code enforcement is not covered by the IGA and code enforcement bills were charged by the hour. It ran them thousands of dollars.
Cirsa Insurance fees for the tiny town of Watkins were $30,000 to $35,000 for the bare bones. Every town and city has to be insured. Watkins, like every other town, needed a town administrator and that job cost is $80,000 to $100,000 plus benefits per year for this person. A town clerk is a must and that runs $50,000 to $60,000 plus benefits per year. A town attorney is necessary and
that costs whatever the going rate per hour is in your neighborhood.

Here I had to chuckle as Professor Schmidt told me that the attorney was so expensive that they had to pass an ordinance saying that only the mayor, clerk and town administrator could contact the town's attorney. No one else was permitted to call him as the legal fees alone easily ran $100,000.

As we continued he noticed that there was mention of a proposed bond here in the Forest. He said that we should never, never go to a bond. A new community will never get a good rate on a bond anyway as it is considered a high risk. If a community bonds itself and then decides to unincorporate, a judge will assess every property owner and it will be added to his mortgage payments. The bond must be paid off.
Centennial, he pointed out, is about 20 million dollars in debt, which must be paid and they will most likely raise taxes continuously trying to catch up. Furthermore, I have since spoken to a resident there and he says his street as well as the others in his area haven't been plowed in a month. I am sure that with this year of heavy snow that they are really enjoying this. Frankly most of the people I've talked to in Black Forest feel the county is doing a good job in spite of our heavy snows this winter.

Incidentally, Watkins paid the bill to their consulting firm for their comprehensive plan to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars. State law says you have to have this plan and a firm to draw it up for your town. You cannot operate a community without one of these for roads, parks, schools, commercial properties, etc.

So Black Forest, we know that our bills would be quite a bit higher than Watkins due to our larger population. The consultant working on the Black Forest Plan won't return my calls so I can't even guess at the bill. But are all of you retired folks on fixed incomes, those of you with growing families, kids in college or just ordinary working people, ready to hand over your financial futures so readily? Perhaps you'd better look at Watkins' bills, multiply, then try to figure what you will owe.

Donna Hartley

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