The difference between a city and a town?

DEAR READERS >> With town board elections coming soon, here’s a column from October of 2019 regarding the difference between a city and a town in Colorado.

——— Sometimes, I have a question that sticks with me, something that I wonder about — something I’m unable to answer with a quick Google search. And recently, I’ve had one of those questions. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve asked myself: What is the difference between a town and a city?

Like many, I assume, I thought for a long time that it was based on population, with smaller municipalities being towns and larger ones being cities. But a colleague of mine mentioned one day that, in fact, that is not the case.

I was intrigued. So, just like I do with all my wonderful readers’ questions, I decided to call an expert, and I thought I should share the answer with you all today. I contacted the authority on the issue of local laws, ordinances and such, the Colorado Municipal League, and ended up speaking with Sarah Werner, their spokeswoman.

What she confirmed was, that my suspicions about towns being smaller and cities being larger were not entirely misplaced — according to her, for the most part, that’s how it is.

“Traditionally, the legislative classification of statutory municipalities as cities or towns is based on population,” she wrote in an email. “A town has a population of 2,000 or fewer; a city has a population of more than 2,000.”

She said, though, that “towns or cities that have gained or lost population, but have not reorganized as cities or towns, respectively, will be exceptions to this rule as reorganization is optional.”

That’s how municipalities like Mead, which have seen much growth in the past couple decades and are well past the 2,000 mark, still organize themselves as towns, with a board of trustees as opposed to a city council.

If, she said, the municipality is a “home rule municipality,” meaning that it can pass laws that govern itself and which most of Colorado’s population lives within, they can designate for themselves whether they are a city or a town. She added that they usually follow the guidelines based on population.

Another interesting tidbit that Werner provided, was that, for the first century of Colorado’s history as a state, towns weren’t self-governing.

“Up until 1970 it was impossible for a municipality to go home rule unless it was a ‘city’ and it had a population of at least 2,000,” Werner wrote. “In that year, the Constitution was amended to allow any size municipality to choose home rule.

“So all of our home rule municipalities that have chosen to call themselves a ‘town’ in their charter basically date from 1970.”

Both Parker and Castle Rock, she wrote, are examples of towns that have far outgrown their name since that year, with populations of around 54,200 and 62,300 respectively, based on 2017 information from the United States Census Bureau.

I don’t usually get to enjoy being at least partially right, but this week, I will.

If any of you readers out there have interesting questions and quandaries like the one I just answered, I encourage you to email me at johnnie@timescall. com. I’m always up for a challenge.