We founded a city to put voters first, rather than have them be an afterthought to the wishes of staff, contractors, and developers. That idea is the guiding concept for the amendments. We live in a community with a smart but not always fully engaged electorate. The problem has been one of engagement, and the City must shoulder much of the blame here.
When voters are not engaged, we end up allowing things like the purchase of city council seats by outside money groups, as happened last year. These amendments are part of the solution of better and stronger engagement. More needs to be done.
Great writing, as usual. Ya know, this idea of a donut surrounded by "districts" is what sank the tax base of Monmouth, Illinois, in the 1970's. They couldn't access property taxes from the surrounding area and therefore, the schools had to do without a lot of basic services. I imagine fire and police had the same problem. Castle Pines will be a real closed community in a few years without basic services, or really expensive services.
I need to correct my earlier assertions. It looks as if the tax base would be sound and contribute to the town of Castle Pines and Douglas County would provide schooling and the sheriff and I'm not sure of the fire district, but that would also not be affected by these annexations.
We founded a city to put voters first, rather than have them be an afterthought to the wishes of staff, contractors, and developers. That idea is the guiding concept for the amendments. We live in a community with a smart but not always fully engaged electorate. The problem has been one of engagement, and the City must shoulder much of the blame here.
When voters are not engaged, we end up allowing things like the purchase of city council seats by outside money groups, as happened last year. These amendments are part of the solution of better and stronger engagement. More needs to be done.
Great writing, as usual. Ya know, this idea of a donut surrounded by "districts" is what sank the tax base of Monmouth, Illinois, in the 1970's. They couldn't access property taxes from the surrounding area and therefore, the schools had to do without a lot of basic services. I imagine fire and police had the same problem. Castle Pines will be a real closed community in a few years without basic services, or really expensive services.
Thank you very much for this report!
I need to correct my earlier assertions. It looks as if the tax base would be sound and contribute to the town of Castle Pines and Douglas County would provide schooling and the sheriff and I'm not sure of the fire district, but that would also not be affected by these annexations.