OPINION: Why to vote for 200, 201

Imagine receiving a bill for a "Street Curb Enterprise maintenance fee" that must be paid if you plan to keep your home. Imagine a "Pothole Enterprise repair fee," or a "Fire Suppression Enterprise fee." Imagine these fees were imposed against your will, and without your permission, in a city and state with laws that say public officials can't levy new taxes without voter approval.

Welcome to Colorado Springs, where city officials have taken to raising our taxes by calling them "fees." We have a cable franchise fee, a streetlight fee, and ultimately the city could start demanding "fees" to fund each specific aspect of city government without asking permission from taxpayers - or, shall we say, feepayers.

The state courts have given city officials permission to do this. That doesn't mean, however, that the practice is good public policy. The state constitution reflects a desire by the governed to control government taxing and spending. Legal loopholes don't change the intent of the constitution.

Because the judiciary has decided to allow our city to call a tax a "fee" - thus permitting a loophole for unauthorized taxation - voters should approve city ballot initiatives 200 and 201 in November. Without these measures, Colorado Springs residents have no protection from unauthorized new financial obligations to City Hall.

Initiative 200, placed on the ballot by 17,400 residents who signed a petition, would eliminate the city's Stormwater Enterprise fee and make it voluntary. As it stands today, the city charges this fee to every property owner because buildings and houses cause runoff when it rains. It is, quite literally, a tax on the rain and snow that's conveniently referred to as a fee. Because this precipitation tax is called a fee, it's even charged to tax-exempt organizations such as homeless shelters and soup kitchens.

In truth, a fee is something charged in return for a service that the payer of the fee agreed to receive. A tax is a payment collected by government, with the threat of penalties against those who choose not to pay. In Colorado, a tax can be imposed only by a majority vote of the people who will pay it. The city's code also requires voter approval of new taxes.

A Colorado Springs resident sued the city in 2005 for demanding a hefty fee for street lights - an involuntary fee for an involuntary service - claiming it was really a tax. The Colorado Court of Appeals decided to rule the tax a fee, declaring that a fee defrays the cost for a specific government service - such as street lighting. A tax, the court ruled, collects funds for the general burden of the cost of government. How convenient. If the city can single out something as fundamental as street lighting to be funded by a fee, then there is nothing the city can't fund that way. It's not a stretch to imagine the imposition of a stop sign and traffic light fee, to be raised without permission at the whims of politicians.

Now imagine if a new stop sign and traffic light fee were imposed, but only about half the money went for stop signs and traffic lights with the other half going for overhead.

The fee would be a great funding mechanism to relieve public officials of their lawful duty to ask citizens before demanding their money. And that's exactly what's going on with the stormwater fee. Only 49.9 percent of the revenue goes to storm drainage projects, while 50.1 percent is for overhead, a category so vague that city officials can spend the money however they please.

Ballot issue 200 will stop this monkey business, staying: "Excluding hospital charges, all city enterprises shall bill and collect charges for voluntary customer contracts only."

In other words, basic city services will have to be financed by taxes which will have to be approved by voters. If voters desire to live with an intolerably low level of city services, that's their prerogative. If they want the city to provide them with a vast array of wants, needs and creature comforts, then a majority of voters can opt to impose hefty taxes on themselves and others. That's how it's supposed to work.

Ballot issue 201 also helps end the call-a-tax-a-fee scam. It will phase out, over 10 years or less, the practice of city officials charging fees to city enterprises, such as Colorado Springs Utilities. It's important to vote for this measure, because today the city uses fees charged to city enterprises as another way to avoid asking citizens for their money. When the city charges millions in fees each year to Springs Utilities, for example, the cost is simply passed along to citizens in the form of involuntary rate increases for water, electric and gas.

It's easy to believe public officials who say City Hall needs more money to be the best it can be. But the size and scope of our municipal government is a decision to be made by the people it serves - the very people who fund the city government in order that it will serve them. Taxes called fees are nothing other than a way for city officials to act as if they know best how citizens should spend their money. Even if they do know best, they have no right. Our city and state laws are written to put decisions about taxing and spending - the mechanisms that determine the size and scope of City Hall - into the hands of the public. Issues 200 and 201 will do nothing other than restore obedience to sensible laws that empower citizens to steer government as they see fit.