$2.00
Week of April 6, 2023
ADAMS & JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
WestminsterWindow.com
VOLUME 78 | ISSUE 24 Emily Brooks, a Westminster resident, speaks to council on March 27th during public comment regarding the revised Comprehensive Plan that was passed on March 13. “I’ve heard more repeated concerns for dogs having a place to poop rather than people having an affordable place to live,” Brooks said, regarding a comment made by Mayor Nancy McNally at the March 13th meeting.
City Councilors took some heat – and some praise – for their vote on a comprehensive plan that seeks to decrease Westminster’s residential
SEE WILDFIRE, P7
SEE COUNCIL, P8
density in favor of commercial developments at the March 27 meeting. “To the five of you, your vote two weeks ago on the 2040 Comprehensive Plan was anti-family, anti-children and anti-seniors,” Amber Hott, a Westminster resident who plans on running for a council seat in the 2023 election, told councilors. Hott said with the council making a decision to limit zoning in the city, it affects the free market’s SEE PLAN, P5
Report charts course for mitigating wildfire risks Tribal partnerships are seen as key to effort BY ERIC GALATAS PUBLIC NEWS SERVICE
As wildfire seasons in Colorado and across the American West become longer, less predictable and increasingly destructive, a new report aims
BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN
to provide an equitable roadmap for protecting communities, watersheds and wildlife. Rob Addington, Colorado forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, said engagement with tribal nations, who have been successful stewards of lands for thousands of years, will be critical to address the scale of the challenge. “Developing tribal partnerships and really looking to tribal knowledge, ecological knowledge
Comprehensive Plan a done deal for Westminster BY LUKE ZARZECKI LZARZECKI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Governor wants fix as competing nonprofits offer their solutions The Colorado legislature’s inaction so far this year on a long-term fix effort to address rising property tax bills has prompted two fiscal policy nonprofits — one conservative and the other liberal — to propose competing ballot measures that would dramatically reshape the state’s financial picture. The policy battle is a repeat of what happened at the Colorado Capitol last year, when the same groups, neither of which have to disclose their donors, initiated property tax ballot measures when the General Assembly was slow to act. They backed down only when lawmakers passed a Band-Aid bill giving property owners two years of temporary tax relief. Property tax revenue funds schools and local governments, meaning that any discussion about how they should change carries extremely high stakes. The stakes have only increased since Colorado voters in 2020 repealed the Gallagher Amendment, which prevented residential property tax bills from getting too big but, when combined with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, strangled local government budgets. Rising property values across Colorado after the COVID-19 pandemic began have caused property tax bills to jump, too. Coloradans will get new property assessments from their counties starting May 1. Colorado’s property taxes are among the nation’s lowest. But a big increase in property tax bills will really affect people with fixed incomes, such as retirees, who bought their homes when they were worth much less and weren’t expecting such a large financial burden. Gov. Jared Polis and Democrats, who control the Capitol, say they are committed to coming up with a long-term fix this year.
PHOTO BY LUKE ZARZECKI
Residents voice opinions on density-reducing long term plan
Battling property tax bills could be settled at ballot
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 13 | CALENDAR: PAGE 14 | SPORTS: PAGE 20
T BEFSTHE O T S E B
2023
VOTE NOW through APRIL 15th WestminsterWindow.com