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1 Amendment 1's objective is to prevent governmental entities 2 from enacting taxing and spending increases above Amendment 1's 3 limits without voter approval. See F.T. Havens v. Board of 4 County Cornm'rs, 924 P.2d 517, 522 (Colo. 1996).7 Guided by this 5 objective, we now determine whether irrigation districts are 6 local governmental entities within the meaning of Amendment 1's 7 election requirement. Irrigation districts were created "to provide means . . . for bringing into cultivation the arid lands of the state and making them highly productive by the process of irrigation." Anderson v. Grand Valley Irrigation Dist., 35 Colo. 525, 532, 85 P. 313, 315 (1906). To accomplish this objective, the legislature authorized irrigation districts to levy and collect special assessments at the expense of those landowners whose lands were serviced by irrigation waters. See ~ 37-42-126 to - 127, 10 C.R.S. (1997). However, legal authority to levy and obtain collection of special assessments does not transform an essentially private 7 See also City of Wheat Ridge v. Cerveny, 913 P.2d 1110, 1124 (Colo. 1996) (observing that Amendment l's purpose" is to place in the electorate, not government officials, control over state and local government finance, spending, and taxation"); In re Ballot Title "Amendment 1", 900 P.2d 121, 123 n.l (Colo. 1995) (noting that Amendment 1 "was adopted by the electorate to protect citizens from unwarranted tax increases"); Bickel, 885 P.2d at 226 (holding that the principal purpose of Amendment 1 "is to regulate the manner and extent of state and local taxation and spending'); Submission of Interrogatories on Senate Bill 93- 74, 852 P.2d 1, 8 (Colo. 1993) (recognizing that" [a] central purpose of Amendment 1 is to require voter approval for certain state and local government tax increases"). 8