Like so many “off-year” elections, there is more than meets the eye Nov. 1 when Colorado voters present their verdicts on hundreds of issues and candidacies.
It all starts with Referendums C and D, the only statewide ballot measures, but voters also face local decisions on everything from city taxes to marijuana laws to school board candidates.
Many of the local measures ask the same policy question posed by C and D: How much money will Colorado governments receive to support public services?
Push has come to shove for many Colorado cities this year. After struggling to make ends meet since the 2001 recession, some jurisdictions now find themselves on the brink of slashing vital programs.
One of the biggest battles in the metro area will be in Lakewood, where the city is asking voters for a penny increase in the sales tax, to 3 cents on the dollar. The city’s sales tax hasn’t changed for 34 years. Officials say the tax is needed to protect jobs and preserve services, and they project a $10.5 million budget cut over the next two years without the increase. Opponents say they believe the city simply overspends. If passed, Colorado Mills mall, Belmar Center and the new Creekside Center, which includes a Wal-Mart Supercenter, would be excluded from the new tax because they already charge shoppers a public-improvement fee ranging from 1.4 to 2.5 percent.
Aurora needs more police, and voters there will be asked to raise the mill levy so the city can collect $10.4 million a year. The money would also fund a library, recreation center and pools and museum. Without the additional revenue, Aurora city officials say they will be forced to close several facilities, including the Chambers Plaza Library and the history museum.
Denver voters will face three tax-related measures.
The city’s schools are asking voters to approve a property-tax increase to generate $25 million to fund a pay-for- performance plan for teachers, dubbed ProComp. The outcome will be watched closely by educators around the country because it’s a trailblazing plan that would base teacher pay on individual performance rather than just years of service.
Also on the Denver ballot is a proposed increase in the tax on hotel rooms from 9.75 percent to 10.75 percent. The revenue, estimated to be $4.2 million in the first year, would be used for marketing Denver to convention organizers and tourists.
And, Denver is asking voters for a 10-year release from the limits of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, meaning that the city could keep and spend revenue collected in excess of TABOR’s inflexible population-and-inflation formula. The measure also would allow the city to set a new revenue spending cap starting in 2015.
Denver officials expect city revenue to exceed the TABOR limit by $4 million to $5 million in fiscal year 2005. Revenue growth in the 2006 fiscal year is projected to be relatively flat.
Denver city officials say the main reason they are seeking the temporary release from TABOR revenue caps is not because they expect to be awash in excess revenue over that period, but to avoid having to return for another vote “when excesses may occur.”
Since TABOR’s passage in 1992, there have been 7,829 elections in local governments to override TABOR limits, with 7,507 – 96 percent – winning voter approval. (A quick refresher on TABOR: It requires that all proposed tax increases be put to public vote. It also limits annual growth in spending by the state, a city or any other unit of government to inflation and population growth. Any excess revenue is to be returned to taxpayers. But voters can override that latter requirement.)
Many other local governments are asking for TABOR exemptions, including Aspen and Boulder and Hinsdale, La Plata and San Miguel counties. San Miguel and Boulder counties are asking for permanent waivers.
John Straayer, professor of political science at Colorado State University, said that the potential problem with local tax issues appearing on the ballot alongside the state fiscal reform proposed in Referendums C and D is that voters might feel overwhelmed and be inclined to vote them all down. “You could hypothesize that when voters see a whole string of tax measures they could say ‘that’s too many,”‘ Straayer said. On the other hand, when local funding issues are targeted to a particular use, “those issues have a constituency behind them and they do better,” he said.
Michael Kanner, political science professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, said the danger in this odd-year election is that a low voter turnout will negatively affect tax measures. “That may have more of an impact than the number of initiatives,” he said. The outcome also will be “a function of the ability of each [side] to frame tax questions as either crises or against one’s self interest,” Kanner said.
Tax increase proposals won’t be the only items of interest when voters go to the polls.
Telluride and Denver, for example, are asking citizens to take a more laid- back approach to the possession of small quantities of marijuana. Eagle County, which includes Vail, is proposing a smoking ban of sorts. At least two counties – Boulder and Larimer – are asking voters to modify term-limit laws that will enable elected officials to remain in office longer. Roughly 160 school boards around Colorado will hold candidate elections.
In Thornton, voters will decide if a patch of ground at 128th Avenue and Quebec Street can be used for a big-box retail center after the city council changed the zoning to allow for it. The developer has not said what shops would go into the center, but some residents fear an anchor store might be a Wal-Mart.
Westminster voters know what their city has in mind for a rundown shopping center at West 72nd Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard – a Wal-Mart Supercenter – and many have already voiced their objections.
This will mark the third time in Colorado that a proposed Wal-Mart has gone before voters. In both previous elections – Fort Collins in 1999 and Greeley in 2002 – Wal-Mart won, pumping tens of thousands of dollars into the campaigns.
Telluride’s marijuana measure would designate prosecution of adults for possessing small amounts of marijuana the town’s “lowest enforcement priority.”
Denver’s marijuana initiative decriminalizes possession of one ounce or less for people over age 21. If passed, Denver would become the second city after Oakland, Calif., and the largest city in the nation, to legalize adult use. Police and many city officials aren’t wild about it.
But passage of the measure likely will be a moot point since it would conflict with state law. Denver Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell says police would continue to arrest marijuana users under state law.
In Boulder and Larimer counties, voters will be asked to extend the number of four-year terms that the sheriff and several other county elected officials can serve from two terms to three.
Since voters passed state term-limits laws in 1992 and local ones in 1994, 49 of Colorado’s 64 counties have lifted or expanded term limits for one or more elected officials. Most are in rural parts of the state, according to Colorado Counties Inc. “In smaller, rural areas, people realize government is part of their economic structure so they don’t want to fire the CEO unless they have to,” said CCI executive director Larry Kallenberger. “In urban areas, I don’t know that people see the connection between keeping elected officials and the economy.” But Kallenberger said he believes Boulder and Larimer, with more “progressive electorates,” might succeed with this year’s proposals.
On the question of smoking, Eagle County is taking the pulse of its voters, asking whether they are in favor of elected officials adopting regulations that would prohibit smoking in enclosed public places such as restaurants and bars. If the answer is yes, county commissioners would have the authority to go forward with smoking bans in resorts like Vail and Beaver Creek.
The 2005 elections pose a challenge to Colorado voters. The results will directly affect everybody – higher taxes if measures pass or reduced local services if they fail. But these kinds of elections don’t generate the same level of “noise” – TV ads, glossy mailings, phone bank calls and saturation media coverage – that mark presidential, gubernatorial and congressional election years and draw voters to the polls.
This year, the responsibility rests more heavily on citizens to educate themselves about the issues in their city and get themselves to the voting booth.
Julia C. Martinez is a member of the Denver Post editorial board.
