October 09, 2013 02:03 PM UTC

The Loneliest Number? 3

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• by: Colorado Pols

The citizen's group Jeffco 5 has been lobbying the Jefferson County Commissioners to consider a proposal to add two new county commissioner seats. As we wrote in August:

The argument for 5 commissioners is difficult to refute. Jefferson County has about the same number of residents as the entire state of Wyoming, and Wyoming has two U.S. Senators and one member of the House of Representatives on top of dozens of county commissioners. It makes little sense for a county the size of Jefferson to have a government controlled by just 3 elected officials, particularly when all are approved countywide; what ends up happening is that local constituencies (such as the mountain communities of Evergreen and Conifer) have no designated commissioner fighting for their concerns, since each commissioner is ultimately accountable to the entire county.

Two of the three Jefferson County Commissioners (Don Rosier and Faye Griffin) have been cool to the idea of moving to 5 commissioners, making absurd excuses about a lack of available office space as a primary argument to stay with 3 commissioners. They've tried to avoid the discussion, enough so that they have buried it in a planned Telephone Town Hall this evening. According to Jeffco 5, getting on the call list might be tough, so you'll want to call in yourself:

This Wednesday, October 9, from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m., the commissioners are conducting a telephone town hall to take feedback from Jeffco citizens about "priorities for budget dollars as well as the county’s mill levy, requests for added funding for the sheriff’s office, and an initiative by a group to increase the number of county commissioners." The call will go out to 100,000 randomly selected phone numbers, but you can also dial in to join the town hall at (877) 229-8493 using PIN 110646 (click here for more information).