By Peter Jones
Doug Clark
Four months after announcing that he would not seek re-election to the Littleton City Council, former Mayor Doug Clark has declared his candidacy to serve on the Arapahoe County Board of Commissioners.
Clark will vie for the Republican nomination to represent the county’s District 1, which includes the cities of Littleton, Cherry Hills Village, Englewood, part of west Centennial, Bow Mar, Sheridan and some unincorporated areas.
“It seemed like a good opportunity. I hope to bring some experience in local government,” he said. “I’m going to continue with the tradition of the county being very frugal and efficient, while at the same time providing services that are necessary and appropriate.”
If elected next November, Clark, 55, would replace outgoing term-limited Commissioner Susan Beckman, a Republican who like Clark launched her political career on the Littleton City Council.
Although Clark has served three terms on the council and was elected by his colleagues in 2007 as Littleton’s mayor, the commissioner post would be his first venture into partisan politics and full-time government administration.
The candidate finished his second term as an at-large councilmember last month. He had previously served as a District 4 representative in the 1990s.
Unlike the city council, whose members are chosen in nonpartisan elections and serve on a part-time basis, candidates for commissioner endure the rigors a party nomination process, and if elected work as full-time legislators and administrators.
That is largely because counties, unlike comparatively homegrown city governments, are essentially extensions of the partisan-run state government.
“The county commissioner is the only position I can think of in government where you do both the legislative and the administrative at the same time in the same job, which is interesting to me,” Clark said. “On the council, everything you do is centered around getting three other votes.”
The commissioners’ administrative functions include management of county departments, many of which are direct extensions of state-sanctioned public services. Clark says he has particular interest in Arapahoe County Human Services and the department’s Homemakers program, which helps elderly or disabled residents remain in their homes as long as possible.
“That’s advantageous because it’s cheaper to keep somebody in their house than it is to put them in a nursing home,” the candidate said. “The longer you keep them in the home, the happier they are and the more tax money that can be saved overall.”
Clark supported the voter-approved continuation of Arapahoe County’s Open Space sales-and-use tax, a ballot issue placed on November’s ballot by commissioners on a 4-1 vote and one of the few tax measures to pass this year.
“I would have preferred if they’d structured it differently,” he said. “It didn’t make sense for the Open Space tax to be shared back to Littleton because any park we have we return back to South Suburban [Parks and Recreation District] anyway. I was advocating for a different structure.”
Although Clark has not officially held a full-time government position, he has come close as Littleton’s mayor, a position that is often called into what often amounts to more than full-time hours. In addition to running council meetings, Clark has been the liaison to Arapahoe County Mayors and Managers, the Littleton Audit Committee and the Metro Mayors Caucus, among other responsibilities. He was a governor appointee to the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District Board.
This will be the candidate’s first foray into courting support from activists within the Republican Party as part of a process that includes caucuses, a party assembly and a GOP primary in advance of the November election.
“The first thing is to get past the nomination process,” he said. “I’ve got to contact all the people who go to caucuses and there’s only a bazillion of them.”
Although District 1 was once a safe haven for Republicans, evolving registrations and demographic shifts have turned it decidedly purple in recent years.
Three years ago, Beckman, a well-known party moderate, defended her seat against a far lesser known first-time Democratic candidate by 6 percentage points.
As Clark points out, that contest was on the 2008 presidential ballot that saw Democratic wins at various levels of government. He says the political winds have yet to set and may depend on who becomes the Republican nominee for president.
“In some sense, your fortune is coupled to what happens at the national level and what the mood is,” the candidate said. “But any Republican or Democrat not only has to win their own party, they have to win the unaffiliated voters – which makes an interesting distinction from the primary to the general.”
Clark has lived in Arapahoe County for more than a quarter century. He is married and has two adult daughters.
Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty has also announced her intent to seek the Republican nomination. The Villager plans to profile her candidacy next week.
