A $550 million bond plan and annual $27 million tax increase for Denver infrastructure is expected to get approval from a City Council committee today, despite lingering uneasiness.
Denver voters will have the ultimate say on the package, but the ballot questions must first go through the City Council’s legislative process. Barring an unforeseen challenge, the plan will move out of the Finance Committee today and on to the full City Council.
Several council members continue to worry whether cultural programs in the bond will suffer because the package includes nine questions – eight that would pay for an infrastructure bond and a ninth that would raise the property tax rate 2.5 mills to pay for future maintenance.
Because the similar projects have to be grouped together and because the city has a bond capacity of $480 million over the life of the bond, a $70 million grouping to expand cultural facilities is seen as vulnerable.
“The public agrees that we need to do something about our major infrastructure,” said Floyd Ciruli, whose company, Ciruli Associates, recently polled likely voters on the bond plan. “The tricky part here is what is left. You can make a great case for them (the cultural projects) … but nonetheless it is new” and would increase taxes, he said.
Mayor John Hickenlooper’s office plans to present the eight bond questions as a single package of “critical” projects – one that would cost the average homeowner an additional $12 a year if passed.
But at least one City Council member said she would present the bond as seven questions that mend the city’s infrastructure without increasing the tax rate and an additional question to improve cultural facilities for $12 a year.
“I’m going to be pointing at that and saying, ‘This is how it is,”‘ Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. She said she prefers the cultural projects go to voters at another time because it would make it “far easier for the public to understand.”
City Councilman Charlie Brown worried that multiple ballot questions with significant price tags will be hard for voters to digest.
“I think the biggest challenge of this package is asking voters to say ‘yes’ nine times,” he said. “It defies human nature.”
Councilwoman Jeanne Robb and council President Michael Hancock said there is always going to be apprehension when discussing the large numbers associated with a bond issue.
“I expect that we will move it out,” Hancock said. “We all had our swing at this, but I think it is in our best interest to start moving on this thing and get it to the voters.”
With the approval of the committee, the package would be before the full City Council on first reading Aug. 13. Voters would have their say on the November ballot.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
