Regional voters mixed over tax initiatives

While citizens in Greeley supported a quality of life tax increase in Tuesday’s general election, Loveland voters defeated a proposed tax increase to fund transportation.

Meanwhile, Fort Collins will probably not know the outcome of its transportation tax for another week. As of Wednesday morning, the nays outnumbered the yeas on Issue 2C by only 15 votes, and there are still hundreds of provisional ballots to be counted.

Referred Issue 2C proposes a 0.25 percent increasing city sales and use taxes as well as a 1 percent construction excise tax, to be used for various transportation improvements including the extension of the Mason Street Corridor.

Jan Kuhnen, elections manager for Larimer County, said provisional ballots are issued when someone shows up at a polling location, but their name is not in the poll book. Poll workers will issue a voter a provisional ballot for several reasons, but the votes are not tallied until officials determine it is a qualified ballot. Kuhnen said that the office has 12 days to complete the determinations, but prefers not to take that long. A final count of all the qualified votes should be completed by Wednesday, Nov. 13, Kuhnen said, and may even be done on Tuesday.

In Greeley, voters approved Issue 2A, 55 to 45 percent. The issue will increase city sales and use taxes by 0.3 percent through 2022 to finance new recreational and cultural amenities and improve and renovate existing ones, including a recreation center, museum, downtown ice center, city swimming pools and several parks. The increase is estimated to raise $3.74 million the first year.

Loveland’s Issue 2B, which proposed a 0.25 percent sales and use tax for five years to fund transportation projects, was defeated 55 to 45 percent.

While citizens in Fort Collins wait to hear the outcome of the transportation issue, voters resoundingly passed an open space preservation issue with 65 percent for and 35 percent voting against Issue 200.

Voters’ approval of this issue preserves the existing 0.25 percent sales and use tax dedicated to acquiring and maintaining open space through 2030. The tax was initially approved in 1997 and is not set to expire until Dec. 31, 2005.

According to the Trust for Public Land and the Land Trust Alliance, Fort Collins is just one of 79 communities across the country to approve issues involving the preservation of open space and park lands in Tuesday’s election. Of the 99 local and state measures, the trusts said, 80 percent were approved creating approximately $2.6 billion in new public funding for open space and parkland protection.

For more information on the election results, visit www.kunc.org.

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