OPINION: A second chance
The old saying goes, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Local anti-tax activist Douglas Bruce is taking that advice and working to get a measure on the November ballot that would eliminate the city's Stormwater Enterprise fee. If approved by City Council or voters, it would also eliminate, over time, other fees imposed by city-owned enterprises.
Sound familiar? It should; supporters worked hard to get a nearly identical measure on the 2008 ballot, where it failed with 45 percent of the vote. One main difference this time around is that the language of the proposal is clearer, making it easier to understand. It reads, "Be it Enacted by the People of the City of Colorado Springs:
Excluding sales and use taxes forwarded from enterprise customers, all enterprise payments to the city shall phase out in eight or fewer equal yearly steps starting in January 2010, with all yearly savings passed on as reductions to each customer bill in dollar amounts as equal as possible. Hereafter, all loans, gifts, and subsidies between an enterprise and the city or another enterprise are prohibited." So a vote for the measure is a vote to eliminate various city fees that are imposed without the voters' approval.
Although the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that government-imposed fees do not fall under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, most reasonable voters realize that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there can be little doubt what it is, even if the high court calls it a dog. But we're not here to argue about definitions, rather, to discuss the results of allowing government to impose fees whenever it needs money for specific projects.
Approval of TABOR in 1992 clearly showed that voters want to have a larger role in their government. Governments that ignore the wishes of the voters by imposing fees rather than taxes, thumb their noses at the voters.
The most immediate result is that government can get into people's pockets for whatever project it deems worthy, regardless of the desires of the voters. Although the purpose of representative government is for elected officials to represent the people who put them in office, the result is often that those officials ignore the wishes of the voters. In those cases, the people have to be more proactive in having their voices heard.
A more insidious, but related, result is that voters begin to believe it doesn't matter for whom they vote or what they'd like to see happen because government officials are going to do as they please. After years of this treatment, voters will withdraw from the political process, believing that voting and participating in the public debate has no value.
If you haven't yet reached that point and want to help with this ballot issue, visit the Web site CityReforms.com for more information and to see how to get involved.
