Click here to download the guide in PDF format.
For all Colorado voters: Independence Institute has also prepared recommendations for the statewide ballot. You can access them HERE.
Why we oppose Referred Question 2I
DPL is asking voters to approve a permanent mill levy increase that would raise $36 million in 2023 to expand hours, services, and salaries, and for some capital expenses. In 2012, Denver voters already removed TABOR limits on property taxes, in part for libraries, and since then the library budget has more than kept pace with inflation + population; the 2022 operational budget was over $63 million, including COVID recovery money. The library doesn’t say what will be done with the capital expenditure portion in future years. Proponents claim the mill levy override will provide a more stable funding stream than the city’s general fund, glossing over the fact that the city’s general fund fluctuates with the citizenry’s ability to pay.
Why we oppose Referred Question 2J
In 2020, Denver approved a 0.25% sales tax to fund climate change activities. Currently, because of TABOR limits, the city would be obligated to return $1.3 million to taxpayers. This question would allow the city to keep that money. Climate change is well above the city’s pay grade, and basic services are increasingly non-functioning. It also creates another layer of bureaucracy that will increase electric and gas bills for the average city resident. Paying higher taxes for the privilege of making it harder to heat and cool your home is a terrible deal.
Why we oppose Referred Question 2K
In 2020, Denver also approved a 0.25% sales tax for homeless initiatives. Like the Climate Tax, TABOR limits would require the city to return $1.3 million to taxpayers, and this question would allow the city to keep that money. The city is clearly flailing when it comes to dealing with the increasing homeless problem. Giving it more money, in excess of the over $100 million already allocated for this purpose, to spend on ideas that haven’t worked is just rewarding failure.
Why we oppose Referred Question 2L
Amusingly, this measure, which would impose a single-subject rule on ballot initiatives fails to live up to that rule itself, also dealing with deadlines for candidate qualification. In 2021, Denver moved up odd-year municipal elections from the first Tuesday in May to the first Tuesday in April; this measure would move back the deadline for candidates to qualify from 55 to 75 days. In two years, the deadline for candidate qualification would have gone from mid-March to mid-January in years following statewide and federal elections. The difficulty of competing with those elections for people’s attention benefits the politically-connected and makes it harder for outsiders to qualify.
In addition, the measure would create a single-subject rule, which has created several controversial decisions at the state level, and which would put title-setting in the hands of the increasingly politicized Clerk & Recorder’s office.
While the initiative process has produced a number of terrible ideas, it also remains the best hope for citizens to rein in the government, should they choose to do so. Taken together, the elements of this “ballot modernization” measure would tend to limit the people’s ability to do so, and for that reason, we oppose this measure.
Why we oppose Initiative 305
This measure is another in a series of taxes on landlords, following a licensing fee and then restrictions on short-term rentals, in one of the least affordable rental markets in the country, and a housing shortage. Leaving aside adding insult to injury in making landlords pay for services to help delinquent or negligent tenants delay eviction, this question would only tighten that market even further.
Why we oppose Initiative 306
This measure is another addition to the city’s recycling and waste fetish. With citizens having been forced into an additional “fee” for what has traditionally been considered a basic public service – trash collection – this proposal would tighten restrictions even further, forcing apartments, condos, restaurants, and sports arenas to offer recycling and composting. Not wasting is certainly better than wasting, but some portion of recycling ends up in landfill as it is, and it’s not as though we’re really running out of landfill space. With inflation already taking its toll, and companies unable to find workers, this seems like a poor time to add to the cost of rent and the cost of doing business.
Why we oppose Initiative 307
Yes, Denver deserves sidewalks, but this isn’t the way to get them built. Homeowners shouldn’t have to repair what amount to public rights of way – that much the measure gets right. But the assessment mechanism is bizarre and only loosely related to either the property value or the benefit of the sidewalk. As with so much else, in a $1.3 billion budget, it ought to be possible to cut some things out to pay for priorities. But it seems the city would rather leave those things unfixed so it can continue to cry poor. It’s unusual that we find ourselves on the same side of an issue as The Denver Post, but we applaud the editorial board’s rare outburst of good sense in opposing this measure.
PAID FOR BY PATH TO ZERO. REGISTERED AGENT: KATIE KENNEDY
INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE HAS ESTABLISHED THE ISSUE COMMITTEE “PATH TO ZERO” FOR ALL ADVOCACY RELATED TO THE PATH TO ZERO PROJECT, INCLUDING PROPOSITION 121.
