Steve Pomerance

Last Friday morning, I was asked by some folks to take a look at the details of Proposition 110, the 20-year 0.62 percent state sales tax increase that would fund transportation projects. In the portions of the proposed law that would give counties and cities 40 percent of the revenues (with half going to each) I noticed the following phrase, “(1) After paying the costs of the Colorado state patrol and any other costs of the department (CDOT) exclusive of highway construction, highway improvements, or highway maintenance, that are appropriated by the general assembly …,” followed by the allocation rules for the counties and cities. So it’s clear, this phrase is embedded in the current statutes, and the drafters of Proposition 110 simply included it and made it apply to Proposition 110’s revenues. Then I looked at the portion of Proposition 110 that allocated 45 percent of the proceeds to the state. I was surprised to find that this phrase was specifically removed. And it was not ...

By  MATT BENJAMIN ,  ED BYRNE ,  ALLYN FEINBERG ,  MARK MCINTYRE ,  STEVE POMERANCE ,  EVAN RAVITZ ,  TYLER ROMERO ,  MICHAEL SCHREINER ,  JOHN SPITZER  and  VALERIE YATES We urge city of Boulder voters to vote  yes  on Ballot Question 2G, which reads, “Shall Sections 38, 45, and 56 of the City Charter be amended pursuant to Ordinance 8274 to allow the Boulder City Council to adopt ordinances that permit use of electronic petitions and to permit on-line electronic signing or endorsement of initiative, referendum, and recall petitions?” The city of Boulder’s Campaign Finance/Elections Working Group unanimously recommended this to Council, who unanimously voted to put it on the ballot. (The initiative, referendum and recall processes are the elements of direct democracy. The initiative is where a group of citizens gathers enough signatures to put a proposed piece of legislation on the ballot and asks the voters to ap...

Some seriously flawed initiatives to pay for transportation and schools are on the ballot: Proposition 110 raises our taxes for 20 years, but generates only enough money to meet a fraction of the growth-related transportation needs generated during that time. Proposition 109 borrows $3.5 billion for roads, to be paid off by diverting our existing taxes from other uses. Amendment 73 constitutionally changes our tax rates and raises an excessive $1.6 billion per year to fund education costs, yet completely ignores the almost half a billion dollars per year cost of building new schools to address our growing population. None of these initiatives makes any attempt to address the underlying cause of these huge funding gaps: Colorado’s growth is not paying its way. If we actually required new development to fully mitigate its impacts, most of the need for these tax-and-debt increases would go away. I realize that the idea of requiring developers to solve the problems that they create i...