Residents will have a final chance Tuesday night to make their cases to Longmont City Council about advancing three local questions to voters’ Nov. 5 election ballots.
Council members will hold public hearings that night before casting their votes on each. They are:
- A measure that, if approved by voters, would raise the municipal sales and use tax by 0.18% — increasing from 3.53% to 3.71% — and to issue up to $45.5 million in bonds to finance the design, construction and operations and maintenance of a competitive sports indoor swimming pool and ice rink. Once the bonds are paid off — projected to occur by Jan. 1, 2040 or sooner — the aquatics center tax would drop to 0.03% to continue to pay for operating and maintenance expenses.
- A measure that would allow the city to make permanent its collections of an existing 0.75% sales and use tax that helps fund street and bridge maintenance and improvements and other transportation programs and projects, rather than asking voters to renew the tax every five or 10 years. Longmont voters initially approved the street fund sales tax in 1986, renewed it for additional five-year increments in 1990, 1994, 2000, 2005 and 2009. In 2014, voters approved a 10-year extension of the tax that had been set to expire on Dec. 31, 2016, making its collections effective through Dec. 31, 2026.
- A proposed amendment to Longmont’s municipal charter that would allow the city to lease property to a business or individual for up to 30 years. Currently it is limited to 20 years.
Council members gave preliminary approval on Aug. 13 to ordinances that would place those three questions on the ballot.
That night, they voted 5-2 for the ordinance containing the language of the aquatics center sales-tax and bonding proposal. They voted unanimously for the measure asking voters to make collections of the transportation fund sales tax permanent and for the measure asking voters to increase the potential length of city property leases.
In addition to final action on the ordinances referring those three questions to the voters, city council is scheduled on Tuesday to consider separate resolutions urging Longmont voters to vote “yes” on each of the ballot measures.
As drafted by city staff, the resolution stating a reason for a yes vote on the length-of-leases charter amendment says: “Longmont City Council has determined that it is in the best interests of the city to be able to lease city property up to 30 years, consistent with mortgage loans and other economic timetables.”
The resolution urging voter passage of extending the 0.75% street and transportation sales and use tax indefinitely reviews the council’s position that those annual tax collections are needed “to supplement other available non-sales-tax street-related revenues the city now collects annually” and is important to address “the deterioration of existing streets and the need to upgrade substandard streets and to design and develop street improvements … ”
Extending collections of that streets and transportation sales tax indefinitely, the resolution says, “provides a fair and equitable method of allocating the cost for the necessary transportation improvements and maintenance among all who benefit from the services and facilities of Longmont, residents and non-residents alike.”
People should vote “yes” on the aquatics facility ballot question, according to the resolution the council will consider Tuesday night, because “there is a need in the city for a competitive pool and ice rink to provide Longmont residents with increased access to a range of recreational amenities and opportunities.”
Longmont’s existing indoor Centennial Pool and swimming facilities inside the Longmont Recreation Center “cannot meet the competitive and leisure swimming demands of the residents,” that resolution says, and “residents have no local access to year-round facilities for ice hockey, ice skating and instructional ice programs.”
Each of the three resolutions states that city council supports the ballot issue in question but each also encourages Longmont residents “to fully inform themselves about the ballot issue … before voting.”
If you go
What: Longmont City Council regular session
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Civic Center council chambers, 350 Kimbark St., Longmont
Agenda: tinyurl.com/y547a2nz
