Downtown Greeley, where voters rejected a 0.6 percent sales-and-use tax increase in last week's election.Photo: Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Greeley voters rejected Ballot Measure 2F, the proposed 0.6 percent sales-and-use tax increase, in last week’s election. The NoCo Herald reported unofficial results from the city of 19,159 votes against the measure and 8,229 in favor. The Greeley Tribune, in a story updated Nov. 5, said residents defeated the measure with 70 percent of the vote. The NoCo Herald said the tax would have excluded grocery food. The Tribune wrote that it would have applied to non-food goods sold in Greeley and would have raised the city’s sales tax to 4.71 percent until 2067, or earlier if the city retired the underlying costs and chose to end the tax.
City staff had estimated the increase would bring in about $20 million in its first year, the NoCo Herald reported, a figure the Tribune described as nearly $20 million a year for the West Greeley Catalyst project and the Downtown Civic Campus. Without that money, the city said most Quality of Life and Food Tax revenue will still go toward payments tied to those projects, leaving less for parks, recreation facilities and other maintenance. The Tribune said the city is also carrying $147 million in certificates of participation issued for Catalyst after voters paused the project in a February special election, and that the city has already cut $16.8 million from its 2027 budget.
“Without the additional revenue proposed in Measure 2F, the City must make difficult choices about the timing and scope of capital projects, including needed maintenance on our parks and facilities,” City Manager Brian McBroom said in a city news release quoted by both outlets. Mayor Dale Hall told the Tribune there was “some obvious disappointment with the results,” and that the city has a plan to keep paying the certificates of participation, “so unfortunately we will have to push some of the projects that were going to be potentially paid for” with 2F revenue. In the city’s release, as quoted by the NoCo Herald, Hall said, “We respect the decision of Greeley voters.” The West Greeley Catalyst project remains paused while staff look for a financial partner, both accounts said.
Brandon Wark, a spokesman for the anti-2F committee Protecting Greeley Families, told the Tribune, “The people of Greeley stood up to the city council and out-of-city interests to protect their wallets.” Bob Locke, a spokesman for the pro-2F committee Empower Greeley, said the group “didn’t have a lot of time” and had expected a closer result.
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