Wednesday night’s televised debate over the proposed $27 million property tax increase focused on how businesses will be affected and where the money will go if the tax is approved.

Former Colorado Sen. Andy McElhany, an opponent of Issue 2C, faced Councilwoman Jan Martin in the half-hour debate, which was moderated by KOAA’s Rob Quirk. Reporters from The Gazette, The Independent and KOAA posed questions, asking Martin how the tax burden will be spread throughout the community and McElhany for specific alternatives for shoring up the city budget.

“The options for the city are to, one, do what they’ve been doing, making painful cuts to staff and services; or to pass their financial pain onto the constituents,” McElhany said. “You can’t solve this kind of problem short term.”

Martin argued that if nothing is done to stabilize the city’s income base, now largely dependent on sales tax revenues, cuts to city services like parks and transit will be deep and possibly unrecoverable in the future.

“This is merely designed to help us hold our ground,” she said.

McElhany said that because commercial property tax rates are higher than the residential mill levy, small businesses would be especially hurt, and big box stores would pass the burden to consumers. Martin agreed, but said the council has already agreed to eliminate the business personal property tax to soften that blow should 2C pass.

Mayor Lionel Rivera cursed under his breath when McElhany called “political” council members’ claims that parks could be closed in 2010 if the property tax increase fails.

“McElhany was disingenuous,” Rivera said after the debate. “It is not a political issue. It is reality.”

Members of the local firefighters union, who showed their support of the ballot measure by wearing bright yellow “2C” T-shirts to the debate, said they felt Martin represented their side of the issue well.

“I think McElhany gave a lot of short term negative answers,” said union president Mike Smaldino. “He never presented a long-term answer to our problem.”

The city has said that if 2C fails the Colorado Springs Fire Department could lose as many as 35 positions next year; and the Colorado Springs Police Department, 24 positions.

Brenda Krause, who owns a real estate company, said she is bothered by the lack of a sunset clause for the tax increase or that the additional revenues will go to the general fund with no clear designation.

“You can’t spend your way out of debt,” she said.

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