Poll shows citizen support for possible $98 million public safety ballot measure

GRAND JUNCTION — Seven out of 10 people surveyed recently said they’d support a one-quarter cent sales tax increase to help the city of Grand Junction pay for a new public safety facility for police, fire, 911 calls and courts.

City Manager Laurie Kadrich and representatives from various city departments presented the sales tax increase to Grand Junction City Council members Monday as a possible method to raise funds for the facility as well as three new fire stations.

The sales tax increase would raise local sales taxes from 7.65 percent to 7.9 percent and cost the average Grand Junction household $39 a year. The price of gas, groceries and prescription drugs would not be effected by the increase.

Voters would have to approve the increase in the November 2008 general election. The city will have to formulate a ballot question about funding the building by the end of August to get it on the ballot.

Kadrich said the tax increase could generate $5 million a year for the public safety facility, which may actually cost about $7 million a year. The rest of the money could come from the $8-10 million the city has in limited reserves or $2 million the city intends to set aside for capital planning, she said.

It cannot, however, come from existing sale tax revenue, Kadrich said. Sales tax revenue is projected to increase by 10 percent this year, but that extra money will still fall $5 or $6 million short of the amount needed to build a public safety facility, according to Kadrich.

“Maybe 10 years from now that will generate enough money, but not now,” Kadrich said.

Waiting is not something Kadrich would like to do. A School District 51 consultant recently found construction costs are going up by 1 percent each month.

Fire Chief Ken Watkins and Police Chief Bill Gardner also don’t want to wait. Fire Station 1 is 45 years old and the police station will have its golden anniversary this year. Both buildings have leaks, storage problems, trouble fitting in employees and aren’t equipped to handle the technology of today or tomorrow.

“We are at capacity from a power standpoint,” said City Information Systems Manager Jim Finlayson.

Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey, who is starting to feel the growing pains in his 18-year-old building, encouraged police and fire to go for broke.

“You have an opportunity to go beyond the minimum ... and make some decisions that have a lasting effect. Give this city the gift of not having to look back and say, ‘Gee, I wish we could have done more’ or ‘I wish they’d done more,’” he said.

The four-building facility and three fire stations would cost an estimated $98 million. The facility campus between Pitkin and Ute avenues and reaching from Fifth Street to halfway between Seventh and Eighth streets would include police headquarters, a 30,000-square-foot fire station to replace Fire Station 1, fire administration, a 911 communications center, municipal courts, a 60,000-square-foot annex building and a 10,000-square-foot parking garage on a two-and-a-half-block campus downtown. Construction could begin as early as the beginning of 2009 and last three to five years.

The fire stations would likely go by the airport and in the southeast and northwest parts of Grand Junction. The stations and facility combined are designed to keep up with city needs for at least another 30 years.

City officials from various departments spent nearly five hours Monday afternoon telling Grand Junction City Council members why a public safety facility is needed and how it can be paid for. Council members needed no convincing the facility is needed, but some weren’t sure a quarter-cent sales tax increase was the way to fund the project.

Councilwoman Linda Romer Todd suggested considering amounts between one quarter and a half cent. Mayor Pro Tem Teresa Coons said she’d like to look at a TABOR issue or a way to make sure the project isn’t cut short by not asking for enough sales tax money. The city is already using a TABOR override approved by voters in November 2006 to pay off Riverside Parkway debt.

“We don’t want to cut it too close,” she said.

Kadrich said the one-quarter amount works even though it won’t pay all the public safety costs. It’s less than the last sales tax increase — a three-quarter cent increase approved in 1987 and implemented in 1988 — and got a better response in polling than a one-half cent sales tax increase. Forty-six percent of those polled approved of a half-cent measure.

The survey, conducted by Frederick Polls April 22-24, also found 53 percent of likely voters think taxes are too high, but even 58 percent of those people said they’d support a one-quarter cent sales tax increase.

Grand Junction sale taxes are lower than Telluride and Vail (8.4 percent), Boulder (7.96 percent), Durango and Delta (7.9 percent). Sales taxes are lower in Denver (7.52 percent), Rifle (7.4 percent), Fruita and Palisade (6.9 percent), and Fort Collins (6.7 percent).

Building the public safety facility without additional funding would put a freeze on construction and renovation of city-owned streets, buildings and other property, said Kadrich.

“We could maintain what we have, but we could not build anything in the foreseeable future,” she said.

More information about the project and it’s design will be presented in June.

Reach Emily Anderson at eanderson@gjfreepress.com.