It’s been 33 years since Aurora voters last agreed to raise the city’s sales tax to pay for city services or projects.
The Aurora City Council is poised to ask voters this fall to break that funding drought. It’s set to take a final vote Monday night on three measures for the November ballot that would raise $264.5 million through bond sales to pay for dozens of projects across the city.
“There’s going to be 65 projects that we’re going to ask funding for,” said Councilman Curtis Gardner, who has worked for more than two years heading up a task force to determine what city priorities should receive funding.
Dubbed the bond issue is split into three buckets: transportation infrastructure, public safety and community facilities. Among the , if voters say yes, are a new fire station for the fast-growing southeast section of the city, a new recreation center in the city’s northeast and expansion of a stretch of overcrowded Gun Club Road to four lanes.
Also on tap would be a new library branch for the city’s northeast quadrant, improvements to two library branches, trail and road enhancements at the Aurora Reservoir, and replacement of the Peoria Street bridge over Sand Creek.
“The Peoria bridge was built in the early 1960s and has a 40-year lifespan,” Gardner said.
The bonds would be paid back through a 0.325% increase in Aurora’s sales and use tax, which amounts to just over 3 cents per $10 purchase.
That would mean the total sales tax shoppers would pay at stores in the Adams County portion of Aurora would go from 8.5% to 8.825%, Gardner said. In the part of the city that falls in Arapahoe County, the sales tax would jump from 8% to 8.325%.
The tax would sunset in 30 years. The council approved sending the measures to the ballot on a first reading earlier this month.
Five prior efforts to raise money through tax hikes of various stripes have failed at Aurora’s ballot box going back to 2005. But Gardner doesn’t think that will happen this time.
“One of the reasons it failed in the past is that there were no specific projects proposed,” he said. “People want to know where their money is going.”
Polling conducted earlier this year by Keating Research, Gardner said, showed that the Build Up Aurora ballot measures have solid support. And recently approved tax measures in the city indicate that voters are willing to open their wallets when they think the cause is worthy.
In November 2024, voters passed a $1 billion bond for Aurora Public Schools to build three new schools and complete other renovations and expansions. The Aurora districtap $30 million mill levy — which will go toward general building maintenance, mental health services and teacher salaries — also passed.
In that same election, voters — many living in Aurora — released Arapahoe County from imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
“Aurora voters have not always been averse to tax questions,” Gardner said.
The vote in Aurora will come just a year after voters in Denver passed a $950 million bond issue that was split into five ballot measures, with the money allocated to transportation and mobility, parks and recreation, health and human services, and housing.
Patrick Waggoner, the president of the Aurora Library Board of Trustees, said he is thankful for the approximately $24 million from the new city bond issue that would be spent to remodel the Mission Viejo and Central branches and build from scratch a new library near the Aurora Highlands neighborhood.
“There is absolutely nothing by the airport or south of it, or by Buckley (Space Force Base) — and that’s where all the growth is,” he said.
It was less than a year ago that Aurora closed two branches because of budgetary issues — bringing its branch count from seven to five. Waggoner is relieved that if the Build Up Aurora measures pass, the city will have one new branch to serve people.
“It’s like this third space, in this day and age, that provides the ability to check out a book, use a restroom for free, look for a job or take a class,” he said.
For Aurora Fire Rescue, the nearly $40 million that is identified in the ballot package for its facilities is a godsend to Justin Dodds, the president of Aurora Firefighters Protective Association Local 1290. The money would pay to refurbish two fire stations and build a new one in the underserved Southshore and Blackstone neighborhoods in southeast Aurora.
The union represents Aurora Fire Rescue’s 430 firefighters.
“The city of Aurora is continuing to develop out east, and we’re short of fire stations,” he said.
Response times to the southeast part of the city are not meeting standards, Dodds said.
Meanwhile, Fire Station 4, at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street, recently closed due to gas leaks. Dodds said the station was built in 1966 and was supposed to have a useful life of 25 years.
He hopes the money from the bond issue can help Aurora Fire Rescue stay ahead of the city’s growth, rather than just scrambling to keep up with it.
“We should be building stations at the same time communities are going in,” Dodds said.
