Congratulations to local voters, who chose to raise property taxes to better fund the Cortez Fire Protection District. They also opted to allow the Montezuma County Hospital District to receive grant funds in excess of TABOR limits — not a tax hike but potentially a spending increase.
In addition, a smaller proportion of Montezuma County residents voted against Amendment 66 to the Colorado Constitution, a measure that would have instituted drastic changes in the funding of K-12 education in the state.
True, Amendment 66 would have benefited local schools more than those in wealthy districts or with fewer low-performing youth. It is also true that it would not have raised taxes for most voters. Nonetheless, it was a tax increase, and it found slightly more favor here than it did statewide.
Ballot Issue AA, approving taxation of recreational marijuana sales, passed here with a slightly smaller percentage of votes than it received statewide, but 63.7 percent of local voters still favored it, and it, too, is still a tax increase.
Montezuma County has long boasted one of the most conservative, anti-tax, small-government electorates that exist anywhere in the state. Yet last year, voters here easily passed measures to fund a new high school in Cortez and extensive school construction and remodeling in Dolores, as well as increasing the mill levy for Mancos schools.
What’s going on here?
Part of what happened was that turnout was relatively high. More than 44 percent of eligible voters cast ballots this year.
But the large force at work here may be a national realization that the recent “government and taxes are bad” mantra may be too simplistic.
Taxes should be raised judiciously and budgets should be frugal, but “government” does accomplish some good things, and it costs money. Both fire protection and the continued existence of a high-quality local hospital are services best accomplished by people working together.
Just saying no every time is not a wise way to make decisions. Even the “taxed enough already” folks understand that at a local level. Sensible voters will study every measure and decide whether, on balance, it deserves their support. Some measures do not, but the acknowledgement that some do is a positive development.
In a perverse way, the federal shutdown may have helped. As it dragged on, voters began to realize that strangling all programs to protest one is a poor way to run a country. Likewise, voting no on local measures funding programs run by locally elected, accessible people is a silly way to protest perceived problems in state and national government.
While “politics” is the way such decisions are discussed and made, the dysfunction does not have to be universal. Voters have realized that not every decision has to be driven by large political movements. That is a very good thing, since national politics are still a mess while sensible progress is being made locally, based on common sense and not on party affiliations.
So kudos to local voters for thinking independently and being willing to spend some money for local services. The best way to control spending is to elect responsible people who are committed to providing essential services — which certainly include health care and fire protection — as responsibly as possible. That is a whole lot better plan than just saying no to every funding request, regardless of what that refusal costs.
