Halloween has passed, plans for turkeys and Thanksgiving are underway, and some of us are looking at flight schedules for the holiday season.

All this means the 2018 year is near its end.

For us, the end of this year is bittersweet. We have spent the last 11 months celebrating 100 years of stable water service, innovation and foresight. We may not be as old as our friends at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, who in 2017 celebrated 150 years as an organization, but 100 years is still pretty good.

We’ve celebrated our 100-year milestone in many ways, including a good ol’-fashioned employee picnic, a proclamation from Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Gov. John Hickenlooper declaring Aug. 6 to be “Denver Water Day” across the city and the state, and the opening of a time capsule sealed 40 years ago in the lobby of our Administration Building.

The work the people of the Mile High City did so long ago to create a water provider for their fast-growing city culminated in a vote on Aug. 6, 2018, when Denver residents voted to purchase the Denver Union Water Company and form what is today known as Denver Water. To this day, Denver Water is a public agency funded by water rates and tap fees, not taxes.

On Nov. 1 that same year, the newly elected Board of Water Commissioners officially took over operations of the water system, paying Denver Union Water Company nearly $14 million in money raised by selling bonds to investors.