A small town in south-eastern Colorado was recently declared abandoned after all of its local public leaders resigned amid a drinking water supply crisis.
The office of Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, announced the fate of Hartman on 29 July, a little more than a month after being advised in writing that the town “had lacked chlorine in its water for [more than] one month and the water was not potable and ‘smells horrible’”, according to public documents.
Hartman resident, landowner and voter Jessie Simmons had also written to Griswold’s office that “the town … had been under an order to boil water for months”, documents said.
The documents added that Hartman “had no board of trustees or town clerk, was unable to hold a [local] election, and owned infrastructure critical for the treatment or delivery of water to residents” that – barring a successful appeal – would become the responsibility of surrounding Prowers county’s government.
Hartman had a population of fewer than 60 at the time of the 2020 US census – before it was declared abandoned under a Colorado state law allowing for the dissolution of incorporated communities which can no longer maintain a government.
Colorado’s Denver Post newspaper described the administrative failure of Hartman as having “no analog in recent state history”.
I think this was poorly explained in the article, their other legal mechanism would be to elect a functioning city government. In the absence of this, they can legally declare the city abandoned so that they are administered directly by the county (regional) government.
As long as the city exists, the city is typically responsible for utilities within the city limits. The city government is responsible for requesting aid and coordinating repairs to the water infrastructure. There seem to be some sort of local politics issue where they are unwilling to elect local officials to do this, may be people on the other side who want the city to be declared abandoned. By abandoning the city they can appeal directly to the county government to help repair the water system.