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Sept. 11, 1999 By David Grant Long Shortly after his successful election campaign last fall, Colorado Gov.-elect Bill Owens insisted that his plan to borrow $2 billion on future federal transportation funding to accelerate the pace of road-construction projects across the state did not need voter approval. When Owens and the state legislature tried to put his plan into effect earlier this year, however, the Colorado Supreme Court decided otherwise, ruling that the 1992 TABOR Amendment meant what it rather plainly says: State government -- or any local government, for that matter -- cannot go into long-term debt without the consent of the people who pay the bills. So now the governor and his minions are campaigning hard for a measure that will appear on this November's ballot asking the electorate for that necessary permission. Referendum A would authorize the state to issue $1.7 billion worth of bonds that would be paid back over 15 years at a maximum cost of $2.3 billion. The measure would not raise taxes, but would redeem the bonds with future revenues from the state's share of the federal gas tax. If approved -- and a statewide survey taken in July indicated more than 70 percent of the electorate supported the highway-improvement scheme -- sale of the bonds would allow the Department of Transportation to complete construction of most of the 28 projects designated as top priorities years ahead of when they could be finished otherwise. More than a third of the loan -- $650 million -- will be used for widening I-25 along the congested Front Range, and a smaller portion would be allocated to four projects on the Western Slope that would also include regular CDOT funding totaling approximately $335 million, according to figures supplied by proponents. About $109 million of the West Slope's share would go to two projects in La Plata County for widening portions of U.S. highways 550 and 160, and another $68 million would be spent on improving Wolf Creek Pass, but none of the additional funds would directly benefit Montezuma County. And one of the La Plata projects would be completed no sooner than was planned without that extra money, at any rate. So why should the fiscally conservative voters here -- who overwhelmingly voted for the TABOR taxing and spending caps and have regularly rejected attempts to raise taxes locally for road improvements -- favor going into debt to mainly benefit those city slickers on the other side of the Continental Divide, many of whom think Montezuma County and Cortez are in New Mexico? For several reasons, according to Dick Wadhams, campaign manager for the Committee to Pass Referendum A: "These projects are all going to get built, one way or another," Wadhams said Thursday, but their price tags will be significantly less if this is accomplished sooner through the TRANs (Transportation Revenue Anticipation Notes) funding, since the cost of construction projects keeps going up. "I-25 is going to be widened, regardless of whether we pass TRANs or not," he said. "In fact, it will ultimately take money out of the overall (transportation budget) if we don't pass TRANs." The length of that project would be cut in half -- from 10 to five years -- if Referendum A passes, according to the timetable provided by Wadhams. Additionally, $25 million more annually will be available in the regular CDOT budget under the plan. "In many ways more importantly, the maintenance and resurfacing budget is going to be increased," he said. "That will affect every county in Colorado because it's a fairly substantial increase. With TRANs, projects that are outside the Denver area stand to benefit far more than without it." Beyond that, Wadhams maintained, improvements of the interstate corridors on the Front Range will benefit the denizens of even the state's furthermost hustings. "I know not every citizen travels the state," he said, "but in this mobile society, getting through Denver and Colorado Springs and Pueblo affects a lot of people in Montezuma County as well." Wadhams pointed out that two years would be shaved off the completion of the Wolf Creek Pass and Highway 160 projects if Referendum A passes and that while the widening of Highway 550 south of Durango wouldn't be actually completed any earlier, "a lot of the work will be moved up." For those who believe that accelerating the road projects would only encourage more rampant and uncontrolled growth in the rural areas of the state, Wadhams offered this response: "I would say that growth is happening anyway," he said. "The fact is, people are going to continue to move to Colorado . . . and we need to get a handle on this and mitigate the impact of that growth. "Will this be a perfect solution? No. "Will it mitigate the effects of growth and help us catch up? Yes, it will." But Wadhams cautioned against overconfidence in light of earlier polls showing lopsided support for Referendum A, calling himself the "foremost skeptic" of such samplings. "They're a little bit of an indicator, but they're not a harbinger," he said. "It's an issue we'll have to tell our story about over the coming weeks, and it's not an easy issue to talk about -- it's a complicated one." Anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce, author of the TABOR Amendment and to this point the only prominent opponent of Referendum A, discounts such polls as meaningless at any rate, reminding voters that former Gov. Roy Romer's sales-tax initiative asking to use excess revenue above the TABOR limit for roads and schools also did well in the early polls, but ultimately went down to defeat. Bruce "will be formidable," Wadhams said. "Doug gets a lot of attention, he makes a lot of good arguments and he's a very articulate, smart guy. "I don't diminish his opposition," he added, "but he doesn't have the base he used to. Even Doug has complained publicly that a lot of the people who have politically and financially supported him in the past basically aren't with him this time, that a lot of them are saying, 'We're going to stick with the governor.'" Yesterday Wadhams was pleading his case before Club 20, a West Slope lobbying group, and predicted its board of directors would endorse the measure, as have the Colorado Farm Bureau, Colorado Counties, Inc., the Colorado Municipal League and myriad other organizations interested in economic development. |
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