In Tuesday’s special district election, astute voters will notice right away that incumbents outnumber challengers. Of the seven districts holding elections, 16 incumbents are challenged by only nine newcomers. That tells us two important facts. First, constituents apparently feel that most of the time, the incumbents do just fine, or at least well enough that few people want to contest their right to hold their seats. Second, despite the fact that Coloradoans voted for term limits, they don’t have any great desire either to throw the incumbents out of office or to put forth the effort required to serve in an elected capacity themselves.

Four of the special districts are asking voters to exempt them from the term-limit provisions of the Colorado Constitution. In three of those districts, only incumbents are running; in the other, there’s one challenger. Term limits should be repealed because they don’t serve us well. In rural communities, there’s simply not enough talent and time to go around, and there’s no reason to toss out directors who’ve learned the business and have angered no one.

That’s not always the case, of course. Sometimes controversy comes with the territory — the Montezuma County Hospital District and the Cortez Sanitation District come to mind. In those cases, voters need to do their homework and decide whether the incumbents are performing well. Just as the absence of criticism may simply mean no one is paying attention, its presence may be evidence that board members have taken courageous stands. A board that always votes unanimously may not be addressing tough issues, and the community always benefits when all sides are represented on the board, even though that may engender debate and even, occasionally, harsh words. While that may make us uncomfortable, it’s the way of things: thousands of constituents don’t add up to just one constituency.

With that in mind, we’d endorse the incumbents — James ‘Rick’ Beisel and Lois Rutledge — in the Montezuma County Hospital District race. They represent an important segment of the community. Of the remaining candidates, Remigio Candelaria seems to have put the most time into researching the issues and demonstrated the most intent to move forward. He works at the hospital, and that would be a new twist in the makeup of the board, but the MCHD board isn’t involved in the day-to-day management of the hospital, so there’s no good reason to bar him.

Another important issue that comes up in every special district election is deBrucing: releasing a taxation entity from the revenue limits of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. That’s another constitutional amendment enacted by the voters, who have since then exempted nearly every agency that’s requested those limits be lifted.

TABOR limits handicap small communities because growth happens in fits and starts, and sometimes large infusions of capital are required to fund it. What happens when a fire district that’s been limping along on a tight budget suddenly needs to build a new substation and buy trucks to equip it? What happens when a sanitation district needs to build new treatment facilities? They may still need to go to the voters for a bond, but they’re ahead of the game if they’ve been banking revenue for the past few years rather than letting TABOR ratchet their mill levy down as the valuation of the district increased. This way, taxes go up less and the bill gets paid.