Colorado Springs and El Paso County officials faced opponents in debates Tuesday on a proposed sales tax increase and a Nov. 4 ballot measure that would eliminate the city’s Stormwater Enterprise.

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa spoke in favor of a 1 percent countywide sales tax that would raise $75 million annually to be shared with cities and towns. Most of the money would go to public safety agencies and would fund construction of a $75 million jail expansion.

State Sen. Andy McElhaney argued against the tax request.

In a separate 30-minute exchange, Douglas Bruce defended his two initiatives, which would abolish the Stormwater Enterprise and wipe out payments by enterprises to the city’s general fund, including $26 million Colorado Springs Utilities pays in lieu of taxes.

Councilman Scott Hente urged a “no” vote on both of Bruce’s measures.

Debate on 1 percent sales tax

Timing of tax

McElhaney: “It’s a terrible time. The recession is deepening. Foreclosures, banks failing. Auto sales are the lowest in 40 years. Unemployment is the highest in five years. The stock market is in free fall. Some say it’s the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Some times are worse than others, and this is about as bad a time as any.”

Maketa: “What this boils down to is living in a community that’s proactive versus reactive. When is the timing good? Do you want to live in a community that’s reactive? When this passes, if it passes, it doesn’t address all the funding issues. Public safety has serious funding issues. The jail is at capacity. We are 30 deputies below the appropriate level, the patrol numbers are pathetic. The tax would allow the county to expand the jail and add 30 deputies at the jail and 40 on patrol.”

Amount of tax

McElhaney: “Even if this were a good time to raise taxes, I would want to question a 100-percent sales tax increase. (The county already assesses 1 percent on sales.) According to documents put out by the Citizens for Effective Government (tax proponents), the county could bond its capital improvement needs for $8.6 million a year. That’s far less than $75 million they’re asking taxpayers for.”

Maketa: “Mandates don’t take a back seat for bad economic times. Our office has to provide jail space for parolees because of a change in state law. The county also has a backlog of Department of Corrections inmates. Because of a state law requiring us to keep DNA on hand, I’ll need an impound lot for 1,000 vehicles, not 30.”

ServicesMaketa: “These are real needs that have been discussed for five or six years. Now it’s time for voters to decide whether they want certain services. Something will have to be given up.”

McElhaney: “I know about making tough choices. I helped put together 14 state budgets. It would be highly presumptive of me to try to tell them (county commissioners) how to do their job (in deciding what to cut).”

City enterprises:Tax or fee

Hente: “One individual who has publicly stated his goal is to destroy Colorado Springs has misled and deceived the public into believing these two initiatives will somehow be good for this community. His misrepresentation of stormwater as a tax flies in the face of two Colorado Supreme Court decisions that say otherwise. Twenty-three other municipalities in Colorado have such a fee as a shared responsibility.

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth.” You’ll be told the fee is really a tax, or that it’s illegal or that we have secret enterprise taxes, that ending enterprise payments will save money. All of those statements are untrue and he knows it.

These two initiatives if they pass will cause true harm to our community and end up costing all of us in the long run.”

Bruce: “An enterprise is defined in the law as a government-owned business. He says it’s not a tax, but it’s mandatory. How can you say that this is a fee, just because other people are doing it?”

Hente: “We spent years researching this. One of the things we looked at were two cases before the Colorado Supreme Court involving Denver and Littleton. In both cases the state Supreme Court said they were a fee.”

Bruce: “Government judges naturally are loyal to the government. In 2001, we had a ballot issue in the city that increased taxes for drainage and it lost. So they knew they didn’t have the will of the voters in mind, so what they did six years later is say, “We’re just going to call it a fee, not a tax, and we won’t let people vote on it.” That’s not right.

People in government twist words to their advantage. If this is allowed to stand, there is nothing under his theory that says they can’t take everything out of your wallet they want.

Nothing prevents them from having a police and fire fee, road repair fee, park fee, city hall improvement fee and on and on and on.

There are better ways to handle the stormwater drainage problem. If it’s such a good idea, Mr. Hente, put it on the ballot.”

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Contact the writer: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazettedev.gazette.com

U.S. stocks headed for a mixed open Tuesday, a day after Wall Street’s worst day in years, as nervous investors awaited a decision from the Federal Reserve on interest rates. Photo by (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)