Commissioner seeks Clear Creek sign-on to multi‑jurisdiction forest improvement district effort

Commissioner George Marlin urged the Clear Creek County Board of County Commissioners to endorse joining a multijurisdictional effort to create a forest improvement district to fund forest mitigation and water‑source protection.

Marlin, who chairs the Clear Creek Watershed Forest Health Partnership, told the board the watershed serves more than a million downstream users but that Clear Creek’s roughly 9,000 residents cannot fund the work alone. He said national partners — Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy — have committed facilitator funding for a two‑phase process that begins this year with stakeholder mapping and fundraising planning and could lead to ballot measures in 2027–28. Marlin suggested a very small sales‑tax rate (he cited 0.1% as an illustrative example) that, because of the large regional tax base, could raise substantial funds for mitigation.

Board members asked about likely partners and boundaries. Marlin said the minimum viable partnership would be Clear Creek County, Gilpin County and the City of Golden, with Jefferson County and municipalities such as Westminster and other urban jurisdictions encouraged to join because they rely on the watershed. Commissioners also discussed outreach, logo inclusion on a partner invitation letter, and the staffing and meeting cadence Marlin said phase 1 would require (approximately six months, meetings every two to three weeks).

The board did not take a final vote on creating the district; it instead agreed to allow staff to include the county logo on the facilitator invitation and to participate in the phase‑1 process, with additional presentations and formal approvals to follow.

The county manager and conservation partners will return with more detailed materials and a proposed role for Clear Creek County before any ballot or taxing decisions are made.