North Weld towns hungry for tax dollars

The small towns dotting the plains of north Weld County are the new, last best places in Northern Colorado drawing jaded residents from elsewhere with their quiet streets, small-town lifestyles and dollar-stretching home prices.

And like their counterparts in southern Weld County — Johnstown, Milliken, Evans — these tiny municipalities are reaching for new sources of sales-tax revenue to help preserve the good life people who move there are seeking.

But simply growing rooftop numbers in Eaton, Ault, Pierce and even tiny Nunn won’t pay the bills, say local officials, because large numbers of the newcomers commute to work in southern Wyoming and elsewhere in Northern Colorado.

That means they likely shop and spend in other communities as well. And that spells trouble for town coffers that must ante up for repairs, maintenance and construction of infrastructure to support burgeoning populations.

Property tax not enough

“There are a lot of people up here,´ said Eaton mayor Keith McIntyre. “We can no longer provide the services our citizens want based strictly on the taxes coming in from real estate and particularly from residential real estate.” It takes sales-tax dollars, he said.

The economy in north Weld County reflects that of much of the rest of the state, said Don Cadwallader, Eaton assistant town manager. “Like most areas of the state, it could be better,” he said. “We’re not in dire straits, but we definitely need some commercial and industrial growth in the northern part of the county to help sustain our communities.”

Fred Bauer, president of Farmers Bank in Ault, said his institution has grown from $40 million in assets to $70 million in two years. “That’s a reflection of a nice agricultural community,” Bauer said. “There’s a lot of agriculture in this area. Probably 60 percent to 65 percent of our business is agriculture.”

Meanwhile, the bank also has opted to “diversify into more real estate and construction lending,” Bauer said. “There’s some of that in our area as well.”

Pointing to economic forecasts that call for the Front Range economy to remain strong for the next 10 to 15 years, Bauer notes that north Weld County is well-situated to benefit from the region’s economic growth.

Ault is about 19 miles from downtown Fort Collins and 12 miles from downtown Greeley, Bauer said. “It’s a nice location. We get the benefits of being on the edge of what’s happening without having to live in the middle of it.”

With railroad facilities, and major roadways that include Colorado Highway 14 and U.S. Highway 85 crisscrossing north Weld County, transportation infrastructure is in place for business and industry.

Ample work force available

An ample work force is there, too, Bauer said. Officials note that if residents can commute to Greeley, Fort Collins and other places to work, the reverse would also be true. People can commute from those places to work in north Weld County as well.

They recently nearly had the chance. Owens-Illinois — which opted in September to build a new plant in Windsor — looked first at Eaton, Cadwallader said. “That got us to realizing that we are not ready yet for a corporation to just come in and start because we don’t have our site done.”

Eaton has a zoned industrial park that has not yet been developed, Cadwallader said.

Eaton, Ault, Pierce, Nunn and Grover might be population centers, but the region’s total population adds up to much more than the number of souls living within these towns’ limits. McIntyre said a market survey recently completed for a developer interested in bringing a major grocery to the area found that between 16,000 and 20,000 people live in north Weld County.

If a big chain grocery can be found to anchor the commercial portion of a new mixed-use development in Eaton called Maplewood, that could create a shopping center that serves much of northeast Colorado, Cadwallader said. “That would then increase the business traffic here in town a lot, and that’s what we need.”

The sales-tax revenues such development could generate would go a long way toward helping pay for several “quality-of-life” projects the town currently has shelved due to lack of funding, Cadwallader said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of small businesses join the area’s largest employers — Agland and Harsh International — in fueling north Weld County’s economy. They include feed mills, a bean-receiving station, small construction companies and several downtown retailers, even a full-time doctor and a part-time chiropractor, Bauer said.

Ag base still strong

In fact, the North Weld County Business Alliance — a fledgling economic-development group for the region — estimates that between 350 and 500 small businesses are operating there.

Agriculture remains strong in this part of the county that is still considered one of the richest ag counties in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Close to half the state’s cattle are found in Weld County, and it’s looking like a good year for cattle, Bauer said.

“Livestock prices have gone berserk,” he said. “We’ve hit new plateaus on prices for fat cattle and feeder cattle, so that bodes well for us.” Bauer said the dairy industry is recovering from a recent slump and that agriculture in general looks good.

Businesses and industries that hinge on the region’s deep agricultural roots would be natural economic-development interests, Bauer said. Businesses that add value to ag products or “vertically integrate” the food market would be ideal additions to the north Weld economy.

“Anything that relates to agriculture or food production would be welcome as well, but we’re not limiting it to anything,” he said.

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