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The Boulder County Commissioners are pulling a fast one by placing an Affordable Housing Extension sales tax proposal on the November 2023 ballot.
The issue has been misleadingly stated as an extension with no tax increase. But this hefty 0.185% county sales tax was first approved by voters in November 2014 as a flood recovery measure to last for five years through 2019. Then in November 2018, voters approved a five-year extension of the sales tax, this time for county jail improvements to expire at the end of 2024.
Now the commissioners want a 15-year extension of the same 0.185% sales tax for affordable housing, a totally different animal than public safety issues such as flood recovery or law enforcement.
Affordable housing programs are a complex issue with many proposals but no clear-cut solutions to satisfy all involved. Surveys have shown that Longmont voters certainly want no part of any kind of property or sales tax for such programs. It would be more government engineering of the social landscape.
The county 0.185% sales tax was necessarily added by voters nine years ago for flood recovery. This tax amount was never intended to have an eventual application toward affordable housing. Longmont City Council should not endorse County Issue 1B and neither should voters give it approval.
Dave Larison
