Broomfield’s countdown to county

BROOMFIELD — On Nov. 15, 2001, the city of Broomfield becomes Broomfield County. What steps have city officials taken in making Broomfield its own county and how close are they?

“There’s a lot to do,” admitted George DiCiero, Broomfield city manager. “The first step was planning for all the capital facilities and supervising the construction. We’re making good, solid progress on those plans.”

Broomfield must first renovate and expand city hall to a city/county “municipal” building, county and district court facilities and a county jail.

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In fact, the budget for the city will balloon from about $100 million in 1999 to $160 million in 2000 when the construction begins. The city has to pay for the county facilities before county revenues can be collected, which means borrowing.

Construction will be financed with 25- to 30-year Certificates of Participation, COPs, a method of financing public facilities. The city carries a AAA rating with insurance, and the change in status to a county won’t change the bond market. Dain Bosworth is underwriting the $39.2 million debt service for the county.

The price tag has plumped from initial cost estimates primarily due to increased construction costs, especially for the jail.

“I think there’s so much construction work out there right now, you have to expect certain increases,” DiCiero said.

Meanwhile, revenues have increased. County revenue estimates projected in a 1997 financial feasibility study turned out to be very conservative. The growth of Interlocken business park and FlatIron Crossing mall will boost revenues from property taxes from the estimated $6.7 million to nearly $12 million.

The extra cash flow will fund improvements in some of the county buildings, such as upgrades to the new library, a second recreation center, a new soccer and athletic field complex, new open space acquisitions, and it will be used to retire the construction debt.

By 2001, with most of the capital expenditures out of the way, the combined city/county budget is estimated to level out at $120 million.

Colorado voters agreed by special ballot issue in 1998 to let Broomfield, a city of 38,000 people, become its own county.

“We’ve been attempting to obtain county services in our city so residents don’t have to drive to Boulder or Golden or wherever,´ said Kirk Oglesby, director of community and governmental affairs. “If you want to record a document, say a deed, you’d have to travel to the county seat. We asked Boulder County and Adams County to put satellite offices here, but we weren’t successful,” he said.

Although there is not a formal “transition team,” city department heads are all involved.

“There will be a lot of overlap between city and county employees and most people will keep their job as a combined “city/county” employee,´ said Oglesby. “The city already provides many county services including street maintenance, building inspection, engineering, and city attorney services.

“But there are some functions that only a county provides: assessor, treasurer, county clerk and recorder of deeds, a jail and several human services programs,´ said Oglesby. The city has hired a human services director to start overall planning and a new information technology director.

The jail will account for the majority of new county employees. Hotly debated at first, the majority of the controversy has died off since the county moved the jail to a site near Highway 128 – further from homes.

“It’s a non-issue at this point,” DiCiero said.

Managing growth and transportation will remain the keys to Broomfield’s future. Interlocken, a business campus of less than two square miles, really took off in 1998 when Sun and Level 3 located major operations there. Another 200 acres owned by development groups will most likely be used for more offices, hotels and retail. FlatIron Crossing, a 1.5 million-square-foot regional shopping mall anchored by Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, Dillard’s and Foley’s is set to open in August. The available land around the mall is quickly being developed by retailers as well.

“We’ve been working hard on the transit infrastructure. When we were negotiating with Westcor Partners about developing FlatIron, they told us the Storage Tech Drive/Interlocken interchange was inadequate, and that we needed a transit system like buses, zip shuttles which we’re trying to get funded,” Oglesby said.

The City of Broomfield participates on the Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority and is considering design, engineering and toll/fee feasibility questions for the road.

“The Parkway is a piece of the transportation puzzle that needs to come together for Boulder County and the Denver metro area,´ said Don Dunshee, economic development President. “We’re the only metro area in the U.S. that doesn’t have a completed circumferencial highway, so for business it’s extremely important.

“Next on the radar is working with businesses to rebuild the U.S. 36/ 287/ Wadsworth Boulevard interchange. It needs to be rebuilt to increase capacity and the city and the RTD have been working together with property owners to come up with a design. Next, the business community has to find ways to fund the reconstruction,” he said.