Here are some anonymous opinions sent to my site about three ballot issues in the upcoming Longmont election.
AGAINST Longmont Issue 2C: Open Space Sales Tax Extension
Extending this tax until 2034 would be the height of fiscal irresponsibility in view of the tight city budget. Longmonters are already heavily burdened with three open space sales taxes from Boulder County. The last thing the city needs is to go into $31 million more debt with repayment costs of $59.5 million to buy bonds for additional open space. There are far greater spending priorities. This tax was narrowly passed by voters in 2000 with a term of 20 years. The issue should be brought back to the taxpayers when it expires in 2020, not now.
AGAINST Boulder County Issue 1A: Open Space Sales Tax Extension
After 89,000 acres purchased, three sales taxes and nearly $200 million debt, it's time to put the brakes on Boulder County's runaway open space program. The commissioners have devoted far too many resources toward open space, resulting in money being siphoned away from vital county services such as infrastructure, public safety and social services. Excessive open space in Boulder County has proved to have many unintended consequences, most notably unaffordable housing in Boulder. The average sale price of a 3-bedroom home in Boulder is more than $525,000. Boulder also has a weak business climate due to high sales taxes and stifling environmental restrictions. The new Twenty Ninth Street retail center performed poorly in its first year. Broomfield formed its own county several years ago to allow dynamic projects like FlatIrons Crossing and the Broomfield Event Center to flourish. Defeat of Issue 1A would allow this portion of open space sales taxes to expire at the end of 2009 and help to reduce the stranglehold that open space madness has on the county economy.
AGAINST Boulder County Issue 1B: Transportation Sales Tax Extension
Issue 1B is an unneeded extension of a redundant transportation tax. A hefty 1.0% Regional Transportation District (RTD) sales tax is already assessed in Boulder County for transit needs. Road projects are also funded from state and federal sources. In the 2007 Boulder County budget, the commissioners granted a disproportionate $46.2 million for Open Space Funds compared to only $15.2 million for the Road Fund. County voters soundly defeated a similar "transit and trails" sales tax a year ago. The same should be done for this unnecessary sales tax extension.
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11 comments:
There is no redundancy in rasing transportation funds until road projects are built and there is a surplus left over. Hasn't happened, won't happen.
While I heartly agree with Chris on defeating more taxes, I disagree with a few statements.
The county and towns in the county who raise funds for parks & open space use those funds for POS, not something else. It's not being redirected to roads and bridges and other infastructure elements. POS funds got to POS. Siphoning a designated tax fund is illegal in many ways by statute, but TABOR kicks them all by constitutional amendment.
However, counties and cities can and do take monies from their general funds to support POS. Therefore, if the voters don't vote for POS issues put to the ballot by commissioners and city councils, then they should have a pretty high expectation that those governing bodies will find the money elsewhere.
Voters could attempt to send a strong message by wide margin defeats, but don't count on it. They have an agenda, they've proven they have this agenda, and they are going to fund it over your flat wallet.
Boulder (city) is bankrupt. Figuratively and in reality. They have little money, they've chased away commerce and industry through high taxation. Next comes the moral bankruptcy, when it raises the taxes to offset the continuing loss.
The commissioners have labored for years to get the L towns to emulate Boulder by increasing tax revenues. And how would that help them? Easy - let them barter IGAs and revenue sharing.
Not only do the L towns get a reward for this socialism from the BoCC, but guess which town gets the most help - the B town.
Let's reward failure with more. Vote for all the taxation we deserve. Give the BoCC and Boulder a pat on the back for this great plan. We'd better vote for all the POS we can afford, otherwise all the roads will become dirt trails leading to and from POS.
I don't believe Chris took a position. This stuff was "anonymous" to begin with.
You get what you pay for in government. It's a simple libertarian principle that I believe in.
Paul is correct that there is a distinction when taxes are dedicated to specific funding needs. When I vote for open space, I get open space. When I vote for transportation, I get better roads faster.
Frankly, I could not care less if Boulder learns any lessons or earns ridicule as a socialist outpost, it's not part of my equation when I look at 1A and 1B.
Just a couple of observations. Since these taxes would terminate without voter approval to extend, they are actually tax increases. But the spin is they are "extensions". Shows how hard it is to eliminate an existing tax.
Also, I just attended my first Fastracks meeting. When Commissioner Domenico made her "plea" for endorsement of both extensions at the last council meeting, the transportation map she had did not show the Fastracks overlay. No way to tell how that figured in to the transportation stuff, as it will certainly change the traffic patterns of the county. I was thinking in some ways the county is trying to make it easier for folks to drive into Boulder while Fastracks was trying to make it easier for folks to get back and forth to Denver. Some sort of competition going on? (I was going to raise the issue but it was evident she was still not up to speed on all of this.)
Also I had a talk with an activist in Louisville who maintains that Louisville is broke. Well, if Boulder, Louisville, and Lafayette are having financial problems these days, is the money better served if it was kept in the cities? Heresy I know. But academics would actually have the discussion. A .1 percent here and there adds up to real money, as the proponents know. (After all, the city gov proposed cutting the library homework center by $7,000.) Haven't been able to figure out why we always have money for A but not for B. Maybe it just gets too complicated for some.
So for the purposes of TABOR, both 1A and 1B are a tax increase. Right, that's why we're voting on them.
Still, neither measure elevates taxes beyond their existing level. For someone who supported the Legacy extension in Lafayette and suggested the theme of "Extend It!", to emphasize that it was not a new tax, you sure are eager to paint everyone else who supports open space taxes into a corner, Kerry. We all know the lecture about opportunity costs by now (or if you're new here, it won't take long to find it in the archives), but that is simply not the way the tax structure works when voters approve specific funding for specific programs.
As to FasTracks, it won't make a dent in the traffic patterns of the County. Even the stats thrown out before the election on FasTracks projected that Boulder County has barely any more transit riders to gain from the rail service. I supported FasTracks for its larger metropolitan benefits, but whether or not you or I like FasTracks, it has very little to do with 1A or 1B.
Alex,
Just because I make some observations does not mean I am in opposition to the extensions. For some reason, these types of observations are viewed as criticism or opposition. Just trying to be somewhat intellectually honest. A standard technigue is to list the pros and cons. But it should not be alarming to anyone to make the point. In fact down at the state house there is a big uproar between the two parties on the governor extending a tax and opponents saying it's a tax increase. Probably going to the state supreme court.
As for what the voters are presented, the actual language doesn't talk to the alternatives. Proponents or opponents deal with that. But the basic fact is that if one is taxed, that money is not available for personal use. And folks would think a lot differently about income tax if rather than having it deducted from their paycheck if they had to write the check to the IRS at the end of the month.
Wouldn't it be interesting some future ballot initiative was to terminate tax A for tax B?
By the way, since now I am the city's RTD liaison and after attending my first meeting, I find it hard to believe putting a Fastrack railstation in Louisville is not going to change traffic patterns. That's also the public assertion of the city planner guy. Also my experience living on the east coast and midwest. McStain isn't building IP 17 without factoring the station in.
I think things are intellectually honest when a person who sees both sides represents that. I do occasionally wonder when we are going to hear a detailed take on why you support open space, if you still do, Kerry. That's all.
As to the notion that we must limit sales tax surcharges to the existing level, and thereafter only trade one tax for another... I don't know how much that has to do with voter behavior or the reality of our region. Sales taxes are higher in places like Thornton. I just don't think shoppers pay that much attention to those fractions of a penny that appear on the bill only after they've pulled the item off the shelf. At least, plenty of people seem to be shopping in Thornton.
It's an interesting proposition. But, again, you get what you pay for. I think even in this tax-adverse state, voters understand that when they do approve funding for good programs.
FasTracks is really another topic - I just don't think it has anything to do with 1A or 1B - but I will say that the potential traffic mitigation impact of FasTracks is undoubtedly swallowed up by the growth in background traffic. Maybe there will be some effect at rush hour, which I think is just wishful thinking in our neck of the woods, quite honestly (and when the mitigation effect is not based on displacing existing dispersed development patterns but putting in bus feeders and park and rides instead, where's the local decrease in traffic?), but that effect is a ding in the growth of traffic yet to happen, not a remedy for the transportation problems we already have on our slate.
I neither agree (n?)or disagree with those comments sent my way.
But the comment "When I vote for open space, I get open space", if only that were true. I'm sure some people (not you Alex) think OS is like the Natl Park System, we pay for it, we get the use and benefit of it. I see and hear about way too much OS that is off limits to those of us paying for it. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a total scam.
Boulder (the true Wrongmont) has been morally bankrupt for years and the rest of us in this county pay for it, in money and embarrasment.
One of the things buried in Will Toor's extension of the county POS tax is rather minor and most people seem to miss it. I think that Alex missed it (not a slam), because it is rather hidden. Toor wants to convert some trackage into a bike trail. That's nice for Will, who wants to put everyone on a bicycle.
Despite my rather vocal opposition to Fastracks in 04, I am a proponent of rail. I simply didn't want RTD to run the show. It is the most corrupt special tax district in Front Range history. According to the Rocky, the project is now $3.7B over budget. 19 cities and counties illegally donated our taxes to lobby us to vote yes. BoCC commissioner Paul Danish, as well as others, went ballistic when this was discovered - after the fact. Paul was no longer in a position to do anything about it, and to my knowledge no one was ever prosecuted for stealing tax $$$ for selling us this package.
Back to our buddy Mr. Toor and Alex's idea that voting for open space gets us OS. Do we get OS alone, or OS at the expense of rail as well?
Rails to Trails was morally bankrupt in the 1970s as much as it is now. But that's my opinion. However, pulling out rails to get more OS pits OS proponents against rail proponents. By the time we all figure that out it will be far too late.
I wonder how many people know that there is a rail line that goes from Smith Rd and Quebec into Boulder County? Can you recall the rail fly-over on I-25 just north of the Erie exit? CDOT widened I-25 and removed the rail with the promise of reconstruction. That never happened. Now we're told that new tracks with new rights-of-way are needed to get to Boulder from Denver. Look forward to eminent domain for this boondoggle.
Toor likes his bike and thinks that ripping up track for OS is the ideal. Let's pay for his plan and for rail at the same time. Geez, what's he smoking?
The National Association of Railroad Passengers (I'm a member) is pushing for a north-south run of passenger and freight from NM to WY along existing UP and BNSF track that runs right though Boulder County. But the county wants to rip up the rails and make them into bike trails.
Alex - if you vote for OS you will get it, but you will also end up paying for rail with eminent domain and filling the pockets of the preferred contractors of the Fastracks project. Promise. Not now, but sooner or later - when our buddies at RTD tell us that they too need an extension of their tax on the unfinished project.
Then the BoCC is going to ask that we convert linear trails into rails.
Read the fine print before you color in the dots on your county ballot. What a shocking concept!
What's wrong with a bike trail? NARP is a fine orginization, but you seem to target federal visibilty or rail issues. Have you made any local presence felt? Anyway, we are many years from having those tracks used by a train of any sort. There is nothing wrong with putting it to use for the citizens who have a ravenous appetite for trails.
Paul, you seem to have missed my October 4 post under the topic "County Taxes on the Ballot" (as of this post, still up on list of most posted topics at right).
I have looked at all the current rail plans and do not see the UPRR line from Erie to Boulder considered for the Wyoming/Ft. Collins to Denver or Boulder corridor. I'm well aware of all the northern Colorado rail alignments and history, and gave you my qualified agreement about rails to trails on October 4. (Though I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "morally bankrupt" - what's moral about the issue at all?)
But the UPRR segment that is the subject of County issue 1B (not 1A as you insinuate and incorrectly attribute to some of my analysis) is not slated to return to rails ever. Or, even if it is possible that SW Weld and Thornton will build out enough to justify continuing the UPRR north back to Boulder, the trail improvements in question will be long paid for and depreciated by then.
Paying to make trail out of rails doesn't make sense if rail preservation is a need in the foreseeable future. But that is not the case here, the potential use is so far out that today's conventional rail technology is almost guaranteed to be outmoded.
And we do need east-west trail connections in the County for bikes and pedestrians.
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