If you are breaking the law, here in Colorado, you might be arrested by the police or a Sheriff’s deputy, and charged with a crime. We have established a system to apprehend lawbreakers.
Unless, of course, the people breaking the law work for the government. In many cases of government corruption, we have no easy system for apprehending the criminals.
The only way a private citizen can effectively challenge illegal actions by our government officials — other than simple making an appeal to common decency — is by filing a lawsuit and taking the government to court.
Regarding the TABOR notice for Ballot Issue 1A, I did make an appeal, publicly, to the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, to meet with me and address the election fraud I feel was perpetrated by County staff over the past two weeks.
No response.
I also appealed to County Manager Derek Woodman, without any satisfaction.
So I filed a petition yesterday in District Court, asking the judge to address the apparently election fraud.
As we know, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners have placed a tax increase measure on the ballot. Ballot Issue 1A would increase taxes by an estimated $6.5 million in the first year (2023) and very likely by a larger amount in subsequent years — totaling perhaps $85 million over the next decade — so the BOCC was required to compose and mail a letter that met the requirements of the ‘Taxpayers Bill of Rights’. The TABOR was approved by Colorado voters in 1992, and states that the required letter include very specific information. The three most important parts are the ballot title, the government’s spending over the past five years, and any arguments ‘For’ and ‘Against’ the issue that were properly submitted by registered voters.
It’s actually a pretty simple document. One might think it would be difficult to screw it up. But we are, after all, talking about Archuleta County.
The ‘TABOR notice’ is scheduled to be mailed tomorrow, Friday October 7, by County Clerk Kristy Archuleta. Ms. Archuleta provided me with a draft of the letter last week, and I was surprised and shocked to find that most of the properly submitted arguments ‘Against’ the ballot measure had been, basically, censored by Designated Election Official Derek Woodman — who also serves as County Manager, and who has been the main promoter of the proposed sales tax increase since June.
Additionally. Mr. Woodman included ‘For’ arguments in the TABOR notice that were never properly submitted to him.
Our local weekly newspaper, the Pagosa Springs SUN, summarized the apparent election violations this way, in today’s issue.
Some Archuleta County residents have expressed concerns over the pro and con statements relating to Ballot Issue 1A that will appear in the TABOR Notice.
Specifically, the residents are expressing concern over the use of a survey completed by Magellan Strategies to formulate the pro and con statements.
According to Colorado Revised Statute (CRS) 1-7-901, which covers the receipt of comments concerning ballot issues, each political subdivision “shall accept written comments concerning ballot issues.” It further states, “All comments filed in writing will be received and kept on file with the designated election official for the political subdivision submitting to its eligible electors the ballot issue to which the comments pertain. However, only those comments that are filed by persons eligible to vote in the political subdivision submitting the ballot issue to its electors must be summarized in the ballot issue notice. The filed comments shall be retained by the designated election official as election records.”
The statute further explains that, to be summarized in the ballot issue notice, “the comments shall address a specific ballot issue and shall include a signature and an address where the signor is registered to vote …”
CRS 1-7-903 states that, for referred measures, the designated election official shall summarize the files comments in favor of and in opposition to the ballot issue for the ballot issue notice.”
I discussed Mr. Woodman’s failure to follow election law, with County Clerk Kristy Archuleta, wondering if the TABOR notice could be corrected before tomorrow. Ms. Archuleta was sympathetic to my concerns, and subsequently met with the BOCC staff to discuss remedies, but the BOCC staff did not want to address the apparent violations of law, she told me. So the faulty notice will presumably be mailed tomorrow.
Here are the ‘Against’ arguments that should have been summarized in the TABOR notice, but were censored by County Manager Derek Woodman. (Perhaps the SUN will share these arguments with their readers next week?)
Arguments Against Ballot Measure 1A
1) Since 2016, the amount of sales tax collected by the Archuleta County government has practically doubled, from $9 million in 2016 to an estimated $17.6 million in 2022. During that same period, rental housing costs have also doubled, gasoline prices have doubled, food prices have increased, and inflation has more than tripled. Archuleta County employees have received salary increases, and the County has borrowed money to build a $19 million jail that the voters rejected twice at the polls. Now the County is proposing to extract even more money from struggling families, by increasing the County sales tax rate from 4% to 5.5%. That’s a 37.5% increase in the local sales tax rate, on top of the 100% increase in sales tax revenue since 2016.
2) The estimated sales tax increase for 2023 will be approximately $6,500,000, and the tax is perpetual and will increase with inflation, year after year. There are about 6,500 households in Archuleta County. The new tax, in 2023, will average about $1,000 per household. Since 2018, local households are now paying County sales tax even when they purchase items online.
3) The County and Town governments hired a Front Range strategy company to conduct a survey, to find out what problems the voters are most concerned about, because the governments didn’t know. But they had already chosen the $6.5 million tax amount, before they saw the survey results. The survey confirmed that only 4% of likely voters “strongly agree” that Archuleta County can be trusted to spend taxpayer money wisely.
4) The County claims that a large portion of sales tax is paid by tourists, but have never presented reliable data to support that claim. Independent analysis of County sales tax trends, based on actual County data, suggests that local, full-time households bear at least 80% of the sales tax burden.
5) Economists universally acknowledge that sales taxes are ‘regressive’, and especially impact low- to middle-income households. Most Americans believe that wealthy households should contribute more generously to public services than poor families, but sales taxes do just the opposite of what most Americans believe is fair.
6) A new report from Region 9 Economic Development says that Archuleta County has the highest cost of living of any county in southwest Colorado. We don’t need to add to the struggle our families are dealing with in 2022.