“Go for it.”
That was the position of most of the more than 40 speakers at a Boulder County commissioners’ hearing Tuesday afternoon about the status of the county’s environmental sustainability programs and whether the county should ask voters this fall for a new countywide “sustainability tax.”
Survey measured voters’ support for Boulder County sustainability tax
Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy Inc. asked 603 registered Boulder County voters whether they’d vote in favor of or against a new county sustainability tax, “if the election were held today.”
When a sample of 305 of those voters were asked whether they’d favor a new 0.15 percent county sales tax — 1 ½ cents on every $10 purchase — to help fund sustainability programs, 60 percent said they’d vote for it, 36 percent said they’d vote against it, and 4 percent said they were undecided.
When a sample of 298 of those voters were asked whether they’d favor increasing county government property taxes by 0.75 mills — raising property taxes by about $7 for every $100,000 of a home’s assessed value — to help fund sustainability programs, 53 percent said they’d support it, 39 percent said they’d oppose it, and 8 percent said they were undecided or not sure.
Commissioners Cindy Domenico, Deb Gardner and Elise Jones eventually directed the county staff to proceed with work toward preparing a sustainability-tax ballot question, although there will be a number of more steps and possible county board votes ahead before the final ballot language can be approved.
Still undecided is whether to ask voters for a sales tax or a property tax, the size of such a tax and what specific programs the commissioners might promise voters it would pay for.
Jones said she’s leaning toward a sales tax and that as for specific programs a voter-approved tax might fund, none has yet been spelled out because “we wanted to get (the public’s) input before we put together a plan.”
Sustainability consultant Adam Stenftenagel said: “Boulder has been a world wide leader in sustainability and we need to continue to lead the way throughout the world.”
Stenftenagel was one of several people who argued what they said is a need to continue and expand on county-funded or county-subsidized programs targeting energy conservation, energy-use reduction, home weatherization, recycling, composting, alternative forms of transportation, water conservation and the promotion of locally produced agricultural products.
“Every home” in the county “should have an energy-efficiency retrofit,” Stenftenagel said.
Bob Drake of Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy Inc. told commissioners that a poll his company had done for the county indicated that if the election were held now, “a sales tax would have a pretty good chance of passing.”
Getting a smaller level of majority support in the poll was a the idea of a property tax to fund sustainability programs.
Nederland Mayor Joe Gierlach and Boulder City Council member Tim Plass were among the speakers supporting the idea of a sustainability tax.
“I encourage you to move forward in putting it on the ballot,” Gierlach said. Plass added that would be “the right thing to do.”
Not everyone speaking at Tuesday’s hearing was a fan of the idea of a new tax, however.
Rural Lafayette resident Murl Etter, one of unincorporated Boulder County’s residential subdivision property owners, objected to the county considering a sustainability tax after having assessed most of the costs of rehabilitating subdivision roads on the owners of 10,900 such properties.
“Now you want to stick it to the 10,900 property owners with a sustainability tax,” Etter complained. He suggested that before the commissioners ask voters in November for such a tax, “why not first ask if we need the tax or whether we want more taxes?”
Longmont resident Tracy Post said the timing is poor for such a tax-hike proposal.
“The economy’s not any better, regardless of what your polls say,” Post told the commissioners. She said she’d read the county’s sustainability plan and that “it has good parts,” but that “for me, there’s not enough in it to support a new tax.”
One man charged that most of the people speaking in favor of a sustainability tax were from businesses or organizations that would financially benefit from the county’s spending of the tax’s revenues.
But former Longmont City Councilman Dan Benavidez, the vice president of Eco-Cyle’s board of directors, commended the commissioners for “your leadership, your courage” in even considering such a tax proposal.
“This is what we need in east Boulder County” to help fund facilities that would encourage composting and the the reuse of hard-to-recycle materials, said Benavidez, who promised that if the commissioners do put a sustainability tax question on the ballot, “I’ll be down in the trenches working for you.”
Marilyn Hughes, another Longmont resident and composting advocate, said, “Nobody loves taxes, but you have to pay for the things that you want.”
Lyons town trustee Dawn Weller said that community’s board hasn’t yet taken a formal position on the potential county tax proposal and is waiting to see more details about what the county may put on the ballot.
Lyons town employee Jeremy Matsen said — that without speaking for or against a specific sustainability measure — the sharing of such a county tax’s revenues with Boulder County’s cities and towns could help local communities meet their own sustainability goals and help fund their own projects.
The Board of County Commissioners has until August to formally decide whether to put a tax question or questions on this year’s general election ballot and the language such proposals would include.
Domenico commented on “the excitement in the room” during Tuesday night’s hearing on the potential tax question, and what she said seemed to her to be “overwhelming support for the idea” — among Tuesday night’s crowd, at least.
Gardner said the emails and letters the commissioners got before the meeting, along with the speakers there, “were vastly in support of a sustainability tax.”
Contact Times-Call staff writer John Fryar at 303-684-5211 or jfryar@times-call.com
