Voters in Westminster may get the chance this November to tinker with the very gears and guts of democracy.

The City Council is weighing a proposed ballot measure that would split Westminster into three pieces — each to be represented by a council member with closer ties to city neighborhoods and the people who live and work there. If voters sign off, it would spell the end of decades of exclusively citywide elections in this suburb of 115,000 northwest of Denver.

“I believe wards can be more equitable and offer better representation,” Councilwoman Claire Carmelia said. “Voters can reach out to their specific representative who understands their area of the city.”

The council’s first vote on a referred measure setting the new governance model is set for a special meeting Monday, with a final vote pegged for Aug. 26.

If the measure passes, Westminster would establish a hybrid model of representation. It would add two seats to its seven-member council. Of the nine total seats, three — two council members and the mayoral post — would continue to be filled through at-large elections in which all city voters have a say.

But the majority would be elected from three newly created wards in the city, with two council members per ward. The change potentially could prompt a dramatic shift in focus among those elected to lead the city.

The state’s three largest cities — Denver, Colorado Springs and Aurora — use a blended approach of district and at-large representation on their city councils, as do Pueblo, Greeley and Grand Junction. Westminster’s move would leave Boulder as one of the only large home-rule cities in the state still electing all of its council members at large, according to a tally maintained by the Colorado Municipal League.

Many of the state’s smaller towns and cities still subscribe to the all-at-large council model, including Edgewater, Fruita and Aspen. But in the spring, fast-growing Elizabeth in Elbert County shifted to a ward-based system of government. Town staff said such a change “proposes to increase direct accountability between citizens and elected officials, while at the same time ensuring a consistent balance of power between neighborhoods and subdivisions within the town itself.”

Obi Ezeadi, a first-term Westminster councilman and only the second Black member of the body, has long advocated for the city to shift to a ward system. Having politically concentrated pockets could benefit parts of the city that have been overlooked in the past, he said, especially the older and less affluent southwest area that’s known as Historic Westminster.

At-large elections also cost a lot of money to launch and run, Ezeadi said, potentially dissuading potential candidates of lesser means from tossing their hats into the election ring.

“What an all-at-large system does is dilute representation, overlook local issues and lessen the accountability of council members,” Ezeadi said. “My hope is to bring equity to historically underrepresented areas.”

Pros and cons to both approaches

But a ward-based system isn’t without its faults.

Municipal government experts have cited a sometimes-resulting focus on hyper-local and parochial politics, where the interests of the wider city are subsumed by concerns often defined by a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) sensibility.

A 2020 paper from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research even found that switching a governing council from at-large to district representation can lead to less new housing construction, with 21% fewer home permits approved in the cities the paper looked at. That’s an issue that is particularly troubling for a growing region already dramatically short of housing.

Author Evan Mast, now an assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, wrote that the differences in constituency size mean ward-based and at-large representatives “face very different incentives.”

“Within the ward containing a proposed development, a higher percentage of people will be affected by the project’s concentrated costs than in the town as a whole,” Mast wrote. “This means that the average opinion of the project in the ward may be lower than in the town as a whole, making ward representatives less likely to support housing developments.”

But the ward system of government rose in popularity in response to an ugly chapter in American politics, according to Monmouth University political science professor Scott Hofer, who wrote a 2018 paper on the topic while a graduate student at the University of Houston.

“In the United States, at-large elections were popular for local elections; especially as a mechanism to ensure that a bloc-voting white majority could deny black citizens the opportunity to choose representatives of their choice in local governments,” he wrote.

The Voting Rights Act in 1965 broke that logjam and resulted in greater minority participation in politics, Hofer wrote, spurring more communities to turn away from exclusive at-large voting. But while ward-based systems are favorable to minority candidates, Hofer’s research found that at-large systems tend to lead to more women serving in city halls.

That’s why, he said, many communities across the country today aim for the mixed approach that Westminster is considering Monday.

“The hybrid model seems to be popular,” Hofer said in an interview. “The justification is you get the best of both worlds.”

He said ward representatives, with their smaller constituencies, are seen as being closest to the people, while at-large council members, who can take a wider view of city affairs, are seen as the “watchdogs” for the city’s fiscal health.

Carmelia, the Westminster councilwoman, likes that blend.

“If we don’t have representatives looking out for the best interests of the entire city, certain projects could get shot down,” she said.

Westminster’s council last year approved a new water treatment plant that invited no shortage of controversy. And in recent years, Colorado’s eighth-largest city has seen loud and boisterous fights over municipal water rates, recall attempts on four council members and the sudden resignation of longtime Mayor Herb Atchison in 2021.

Last month, City Manager Mark Freitag resigned after just two years in the position.

Boulder rejected change in setup

Whether a change in governance structure would make for smoother sailing at Westminster City Hall won’t be known until a change is in place. Boulder, the only other big Colorado city still exclusively electing its council at large, has no plans to change.

Voters there rejected a ballot measure that would have pivoted to a ward-based system 21 years ago.

“I do feel the system is working well enough,” Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said. “And if it ain’t broke, there’s nothing to fix.”

Brockett said most of Boulder’s racial and ethnic minorities are spread evenly throughout the city, meaning no single ward would necessarily capture Blacks or Latinos as a voting bloc. And the city’s strict campaign finance rules, which limit contributions and total spending in order to qualify for city matching funds, puts an electoral campaign “in the reach of many.”

The road to Westminster’s Monday vote has been long and twisting. In the fall of 2021, voters rejected a question asking whether they wanted the city to create a commission to explore the issue. Two years later, the voters reversed themselves, restarting the process.

Awards advisory committee brought to the City Council three options for overhauling its system of governance. Last week, the council narrowly rejected a wards-only approach, allowing the hybrid proposal with an expanded council to take center stage.

If the measure reaches voters and passes in November, the 2025 election will be the first time Westminster residents choose their leaders based on the new system.

Dino Valente, a member of the wards advisory committee and the longtime owner of Valente’s Deli, Bakery & Italian Market in south Westminster, says he doesn’t like the option the city is considering this week. With a hybrid approach, he worries that if all three at-large council members happened to come from the same part of the city, the geographic diversity promoted in a ward-based system would be scotched.

“I will not endorse something like that,” Valente said. “It’s not good governance.”

The proposal also is seen with a wary eye by Nancy McNally, who’s in her second stint as mayor of Westminster. She feels the system works well as is — no matter that just about every other sizable city in metro Denver has moved away from all-at-large voting.

“This is Westminster, Colorado,” she said. “I don’t give a rip about what others are doing. We don’t have to make a decision just because others are doing it.”

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.

Originally Published: August 19, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.