There are several reasons to vote NO on Denver’s five bond proposals (Questions 2A through 2E).
Your property tax payments will increase:
- Although the property tax rate for debt repayment may not change, the total property taxes you actually pay will increase (a lot!), given the recent increase in property values.
- The city can increase the tax rate for debt repayment up to 30% without your vote.
Taxes now available to the city for spending in 2021 and 2022:
- $77.5 million — new economic recovery taxes.
- $308.5 million — state and federal taxes transferred to the city for spending.
- $386 million — TOTAL available for many of the proposed projects to be financed by this debt issue.
- $450 million — new bond taxes from this and four other bond ballot questions.
Adding the taxes listed above plus the new bond taxes will almost double city spending to $836 million. To paraphrase the late U.S. Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen: A hundred million here, a hundred million there — sooner or later it adds up to real money.
If you agree the city should wait and prudently spend available taxes before asking for $450 million of new taxes, you should vote NO on this ballot question.
— Douglas Windes of Denver’s Platt Park neighborhood. Windes is a retired government employee who worked on several bond issues and served as state cash manager in the Colorado State Treasury.
