Bruce Baker

Westminster City Council

Is keeping Westminster a beautiful suburb impossible?
What happened to the promises to lower water rates?

Westminster is run by the We-know-best, clever, arrogant, professional staff of the City.  The elected City Council is willfully blind to the brazen manipulation that staff exerts over elected officials.  As a group the City Council will not exercise control over the staff. City Council accepts flawed and out-right dishonest reports and recommendation from the staff. The result of this terrible situation is that the wishes of the residents are being ignored, the financial resources of Westminster have been directed into wasteful and foolish projects, taxpayers/rate-payers are being ripped-off and many of our neighborhoods are being methodically dried-out and degraded

In the City Election of November 2021, there were five of the seven members of council up for election by the voters.  This was caused because the city had been in an uproar over water prices.  In 2018, by using a lie about the condition of the Big Dry Creek Sewer Interceptor(  ) City Council enacted very high Water rates.  By August of 2020 the effect that high water prices had inflicted on many Westminster was profound.   A group of Westminster citizens, The Westminster Water Warriors, took action to force Council to restore our dried-out neighborhoods.  After imploring Council to lower water rates, the Water Warriors circulated Recall Petitions to remove Mayor Atchison, and Council Members Seitz, Skulley and Voelz from office because they flatly refused to lower the water prices.  Council Members DeMott, Seymour and Emmons(Smith) were not marked for recall because they said they wanted to lower water prices.  

I see the election of 2021 as a clear call by the voters to support all neighborhoods by enacting lower water prices.  None of the incumbents, in favor of the high water prices, were re-elected.  Councillor DeMott, who favored lower water prices, was re-elected.  With the exception of Sarah Nurmela, every winner in the November 2021 promised lower water prices.

However the 6 of 7 Council members that spoke of lower water prices have not meaningfully fulfilled that promise.  Worse still is the huge debt that this council is on the verge of taking.  This debt alone could add $2.00 or more per thousand gallons to the hard cost of providing water.

I think water prices should be similar to what other cities on the Front range charge for landscape water: Denver at $4.47, Ft. Collins at $3.90, Pueblo at $3.18, Broomfield @ $3.33.

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So what happened?

I think Council lacks the moral courage to meaningfully live up to the promises we made the voters. I think this lack of moral courage comes from several sources.  Councillor Ezeadi made a phony promise.  He never intended to lower water prices.  His statement about lower prices for working people was meaningless.  Four of my colleagues that I thought would join me in lowering prices (and in February of 2022 did lower prices) have abandoned their promises.  Here are the reasons I think they will not keep their promises.  Number 1- Council is scared of claimed bad consequences staff has overstated.  Staff have mislead Council many times by omitting information, using selected information and by using misleading information.  Number 2-  Council is not willing to critically evaluate the work-product of city staff.  Council refuses to hold staff accountable for the  shoddy and misleading work product that Council has been given.  Number 3- In light of the shoddy information given by staff, individual Cpouncil members are not willing to do the research and work to gather the information needed to evaluate the situation.  The reality that I see at the Semper plant is that with proper maintenance Semper can work safely and efficiently for decades to come.  Number 4- Council is showing willful blindness to the effects that price has on useage.   If Council allows the the borrowing of nearly two hundred million dollars to build the unneeded plant on Westminster Blvd, that debt alone will add about $2 per thousand gallons of water to water rates.  Number 5- Although the Council requested a second opinion, we never got one.  The designers of the Water 2025 plant pretended to give a second opinion.  That is preposterous.  Designers rarely criticize their own work.  The Option 4, the plant on Westminster blvd, approved by Council on April 24, 2023 is a carbon copy of Water 2025 with 2/3rds the price and only 1/2 the capacity.  It is worse than Water 2025.

What can be done now?

Water for our lawns and trees will cost $6.78 per thousand gallons in Westminster.  Today there is a huge profit for the city in that price.  However, when Hundreds of millions of dollars are borrowed to build an unneeded,  15MGD water plant on Westminster Blvd, Option 4, most of that profit will go to interest and repayment of debt.  Thousands of Westminster residents will no longer afford to take care of their landscapes.  Bankers will collect interest and as price reduce consumption the  "extra" water becomes available for high-density apartments.

Elections are in November of 2023.  After all the work to elect this new council only to be betrayed, it would be easy and understandable to give up on lower water prices.  It is easy to say lower prices can't be done.  However the very Destiny of Westminster is at stake.  Is Westminster going to be a safe, inclusive community where nearly every resident can participate in the beauty of our City?  Or is beauty and water only for the Rich?  If three, straightforward, passionate members are elected to Council things will change.

Do not accept any candidate that will not specifically, with hard numbers, promise to lower water prices and reject the crushing debt of unneeded water plants.