Small towns, big jobs
What reporting on three West Slope city councils has taught me

For the past year and a half, I’ve been reporting weekly on municipal government in three rural Western Colorado towns. Delta is the largest, at just under 10,000 people. Paonia has a population of 1,500 and Crawford only 400. For all three, the closest big city is Grand Junction, from 40 to 70 miles away.

When I first covered local government decades ago, I saw town councils as an opportunity for grandstanding but little else. The position of mayor didn’t seem to matter one way or the other.

But I’ve come to understand that the job of a council member is challenging and important. You don’t just waltz in to say yea or nay. The task demands attention to detail and a grasp of everything from high finance and road repair to solutions for the unhoused. It’s also time-consuming and basically unpaid.

The three towns all face failing water systems and roads, due primarily to inadequate budgets and decades of deferred maintenance. The Biden Administration’s $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 offered a lifeline for these 150-year-old municipalities, which hustled to put together successful proposals. While the Trump Administration didn’t claw back grants already awarded, it hasn’t offered further funding.

Each town faces water insecurity, and both Paonia and Crawford have ongoing or recently completed capital projects to rehabilitate springs and replace storage tanks and pipes.

Delta faces some $40 million in upgrades for its water and sewer systems, but the city’s current focus is the grant-supported $13-million rejuvenation of its Main Street. Running for 13 blocks along U.S. Highway 50, it’s dotted with empty storefronts. The council hired consultants to study possibilities of rerouting water pipes from the center of Main to alleys close to the business strip and upgrading the system. But, after months of indecision, Delta opted for the status quo even though the water system is 60 years old.

“The pipes are basically okay,” City Manager Elyse Casselberry said. But when they spring a leak on Main Street or elsewhere, there’s a freakout from the Delta Council, followed by sighs of relief when the break is repaired.

As for the towns’ deteriorating roads, many must be entirely repaved, a major expense that requires state and federal funding. Paonia’s streets are notoriously potholed, but repaving must wait until water pipes running beneath them get repaired first.

The economics of town government are challenging. Crawford, with an operating budget of $250,000 and a staff of four, debates expenditures as small as $500. Just down the valley, Paonia’s payroll alone is $1.4 million, and its $6 million budget – as prepared by Town Administrator and Treasurer Stefen Wynn – is complex and detailed.

During a recent budget session, one Paonia trustee was so overwhelmed by spreadsheets that he suggested each department should simply be presented with a total and told to work within it.

“I strongly disagree,” Mayor Paige Smith said, who then gave a civics lesson on fiduciary responsibility.

“Just a thought,” said the trustee.

Delta, meanwhile, is undergoing a budget overhaul, trimming staff and departments, cutting recreation center hours, cancelling projects deemed inessential and even trying to sell its parks. The City still holds large fund balances, created in part by as-yet-unspent grants. But as any good town manager knows, a city should live within its means. Casselberry cut $2 million from her first draft, and the 2026 budget is now about $53 million, including capital projects.

A recent boon to all the towns is hefty sales tax revenue from mail order purchases, primarily from Amazon. The tiny Crawford post office reports 300 to 500 packages per day.

At each town’s meetings, I’ve watched council members exercise self-control and perseverance, even as public comment periods grew heated. I may grow impatient in the third hour of a tedious meeting – will it never end? – but the mayors, be it Christian mental health counselor Chris Johnson from Crawford or former environmental regulator Smith from Paonia, remain energized and determined. 

Even Delta Mayor Kevin Carlson, a funeral director discouraged by what he calls constituents’ “negativity,” remains steadfast. It’s a sworn duty, and the mayors and their councils fulfill it to the best of their abilities.

The least I can do is cover it.

Marty Durlin is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She grew up in Delta and reports for public radio station KVNF and the weekly High Country Spotlight.