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Voters to decide fate of proposed county wide service May 3
Colorado County Commissioners approved the creation of the proposed Colorado County Emergency Services District No.1, additionally approving to add the item to the May. 3 election ballots at their recent meeting this past Monday, Jan. 27.
Voters will now have the final deciding power in their hands, controlling the fate of the ESD’s creation within their respective municipalities after commissioners concluded the creation could benefit the county’s fire departments and aid in their sustainability.
If the proposed item passes in May, the creation of an ESD board to maintain all ESD related items would subsequently follow suit. The responsibility of board appointments will fall on the hands of Colorado County Commissioners, which will allow the board to provide training, giving the “power to request budgets” to each of the 10 departments in the county and allow those departments to submit budgets to the board.
According to Columbus Volunteer Fire Department President and Captain Brian Emmel who spoke at the meeting Monday morning, the ESD board would be able to set a tax rate that they see fit, but the power again would ultimately land in the hands of voters, who would be able to dictate, if the initial creation of the ESD were to pass, what the specific tax rate would be.
“In this case, if we pass it at 10 cents on $100, it’s only up to a maximum of 10 cents on $100,” said Emmel. “If the voters determine its best at seven cents on $100, then that’s going to be the tax rate, tax to act and that’s adjustable each year. If we set it lower now, we’ll have to go through this whole process again, through voters’ approval, to get it up to 10 cents. My suggestion is we approve it at 10 cents now and let the voters have a choice. The ESD board creation takes each one of you out of the fire service, takes each one of the cities out of the fire service, to where they can focus on their constituents, and the ESD board focuses on maintaining fire service for the county.”
Although commissioners voted to create the county wide ESD, the ESD will only be sustained in the “extra territorial jurisdictions” of Columbus, Weimar and/or Eagle Lake if and only if the voters within those respective “municipal units” reach a majority vote to approve being included in the ESD’s boundaries. The next Colorado County Commissioners court meeting will be held on Monday, Feb. 10.
