Erie election may serve as referendum on town's existential issues

At least 17 Erie residents have pulled packets to potentially run for an open mayor seat and three Board of Trustees positions in the town's upcoming spring election.

Those candidates' — at least two of which are sitting trustees — philosophies on a bevy of existential issues facing the town in this moment and, in turn, how they resonate with Erie's roughly 25,000 residents, could serve as a proxy battle for town's collective direction.

The names of citizens who have expressed interest in running — though haven't necessarily have filed a formal petition — include: Peter Olivola, Kit Lammers, Liz Locricchio, Ryan Allen Knott, Adam Haid, Mackenzie Ferrie, Rachel Folger, Bill Gippe, Barry Luginbill, Michael Evans, Barbara Nichols, Ira Liss, Jennifer Jobe and Christiaan van Woudenberg for a trustee seat; and John Ahrens and Trustees Jennifer Carroll and Dan Woog for mayor, according to town records obtained through a public information request on Friday.

A future Board of Trustees is likely to see issues already present in Erie — questions over oil and gas regulations and growth management, among others — increase in extent and with perhaps greater urgency, rather than new issues wholly new to the Front Range, officials suggest.

The election may serve as a referendum on such issues, as a growing opposition along eastern Boulder County's fringes to fracking could spur a change in the current guard.

Conversely, a pushback against those calls for greater regulation is seen from Erie's Weld County half, where oil and gas development manifests less politically, but rather as a necessary part of economic growth, in the hearts of voters.

Over the last year or so, town leaders have approached decisions on fracking with an eye on regulation, ushering in landmark setback and odor ordinances that have already drawn a lawsuit from Crestone Peak Resources.

"The people I see arguing in this area have two approaches," Carroll, herself a proponent for more stringent oil and gas regulation, said Thursday. "One side wants to do nothing and give it to the state; the other wants to ban fracking outright.

"Oil prices are going up. We're going to have a lot more interest from companies in getting minerals out of the ground (in Erie)," she added. "The biggest issues we've seen are noise and odor, and the more people we add to Erie, the more likely we'll have drillers closer to home."

The current candidate pool to date holds a sample of opposing opinions on how to approach oil and gas regulation; on the board itself, Woog and Carroll often lean toward more stringent regulation.

"As a town," Woog said on Tuesday, "dealing with energy production is an area where we simply have to do better. Our current go-it-alone strategy has seen the town focus on optics and gimmicks. We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an operator agreement and an odor ordinance and neither has done what we were told they'd do.

"Ask our neighbors who live near Pratt and Waste Connections if they feel like the operator agreement protected them. Ask our neighbors in Erie Village or Kenosha Farms if the feel like the noise BMP in the agreement did anything for them. Ask anyone in Erie if they feel like the odor ordinance protected them in any way. I have, and the answer is a resounding 'no.'

"In fact," he added, "the only thing Erie taxpayers have gotten for our efforts is the invoice — to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Also at the forefront of voter and candidate minds is an issue of development. A countywide issue, Erie residents have seen new construction sprout up almost monthly.

Between 2010 and 2015, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released in March, Erie's population, not including Weld County, increased by 1,108, to a total of 9,517 — a 13 percent surge.

It's a microcosm of the growth occurring at the county level, and with the increase in people has come the need for housing.

Between 2009 and 2016, the town gained 1,907 units for 1,458 new households within its borders — most by developers with an eye for maximizing profit through dense "urban sprawl," locals have often argued.

With more than half of the board up for grabs, an overhaul of the town's current trajectory is entirely possible, officials say. Any dissention among future trustees, be it on oil and gas regulatory efforts or legislation geared to continue ushering in fast growth, could prove troublesome for any lasting efforts.

Erie residents still interested in running for one of the open seats in the spring election may file petitions by Jan. 22, according to officials.

Erie polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 3.

Anthony Hahn: 303-473-1422, hahna@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/_anthonyhahn