Loveland sends 3 questions to voters, delays vote on sales-tax issue

LOVELAND — Voters in Loveland will get to decide on Nov. 5 on three questions to voters — whether to allow marijuana dispensaries in Loveland, whether to make it easier for the City Council to hire or fire a city manager or city attorney, and whether the city can keep excess revenue for police, fire, parks and infrastructure needs.

However, the council on Tuesday night put off until a special meeting at noon Thursday final consideration of a ballot measure that would raise the city’s sales tax rate to make up for revenue lost when voters last year exempted tax on food purchased for home consumption.

All these ballot issues were passed on first reading by the council at its Aug. 6 meeting, and they were up for final approval on Tuesday.

Council members voted 7-2, with Patrick McFall and Dana Foley dissenting, to place the marijuana item on the November ballot. If passed by voters, it would permit the operation of a limited number of medical and retail marijuana businesses in the city and allow the city to impose a 5% excise tax on retail purchases over and above the city’s current 3% sales tax, with no set earmarks about where the revenue would go.

The measure passed after the council approved an amendment introduced by Andrea Samson that would prohibit dispensaries to operate in any area zoned for residences.

Loveland voters on three occasions have rejected allowing sales of marijuana in the city.

Samson, McFall and Foley were joined by Steve Olson in voting against the measure that would ask voters to let the council hire or fire a city manager or city attorney with a simple five-vote majority on the nine-member panel instead of the current two-thirds requirement. The minority in the 5-4 approval had also opposed it on first reading Aug. 6.

Samson, noting that, “I don’t believe this belongs on the ballot,” suggested the issue instead be referred to a commission that would review the Loveland city charter. That panel has yet to be formed, however, and acting City Attorney Vince Junglas told council members on Aug. 6 that forming such a commission could take up to nine months, and an amended city charter would need voter approval.

The council was unanimous in approving a ballot question that will seek voter approval of an exemption to the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights by authorizing the city to “collect, retain and spend excess revenues for police and fire, street construction and maintenance, and parks construction and maintenance for a 12-year period.”

However, consideration of ballot measures for the sales tax increase were delayed until a special meeting to be convened at noon Thursday after Junglas noted that requirements for publication of a public notice wouldn’t allow them to be considered Tuesday.

The council will vote Thursday whether to ask voters to raise the city sales tax by 1% — from the current 3% to 4% — beginning Jan. 1, and will debate whether to add a 12-year “sunset” provision. One option, approved on first reading at a special meeting Aug. 13, would contain no sunset or earmarks for how the revenue would be used. The other option, which contains a 12-year sunset, was not approved on first reading Aug. 13.

The council faces a deadline of Sept. 6 to certify content for the November ballot with Larimer County.

In other action, the council approved 8-1 a variance to the city’s sign code to allow developers of a Bass Pro Shops sporting-goods store at Crossroads Boulevard and Interstate 25 to add several large signs near the nearly 130,000-square-foot store as well as on its roof. The unlighted roof sign, facing I-25, would be about 6,270 square feet in size, prompting Olson to vote against the variance, contending that size was just too big.