Dave Chandler

Guess Who is Counting Your Fire Tax Vote!

Do you know who is going to be counting your Arvada Fire Protection District property tax hike vote?

If you think it is going to be the election offices of Jefferson County Clerk, Pam Anderson ... you are wrong.

Your vote is going to be counted by a private company hired by the board of directors of the Arvada Fire Protection District.

Yes, the fire department tax election has been privatized.

Why the Jefferson County Clerk and the Colorado Secretary of State are good enough for us to utilize to elect the new Governor, but are not good enough to be entrusted with a fire district tax hike election, well, that is the $51,000 question.

Because the fire board could have coordinated their tax election with the County Clerk for about $55,000, letting the election system you already own and is directly accountable to you supervise the election. Instead the fire board decided to privatize the vote and hired a contractor for $106,000. (AFPD Board of Directors Meeting, July 20, 2010)

The fire board hired Community Services Resources, LLC (CSR) to run the election from Aurora -- so much for keeping your tax dollars local, uh? Now, CSR may be a reputable company, but try and find out exactly how your tax hike ballot is going to be secured and accurately counted is not so easy -- there is nothing on their web site detailing their ballot integrity and counting system. And a telephone call I made to their head election person mainly resulted in verbal assurances and an offer to find out from the District Attorney whether or not the 'mail ballot plan' they filed with the Colorado Secretary of State could be released to the public. [UPDATE: Apparently the District Attorney has said okey dokey and here is a PDF of the 'Mail Ballot Plan'. Note that if you forget to put your ballot in the mail in time for it to be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service to the Aurora voting center of the AFPD, you can drop your ballot off at one of three locations: Arvada City Hall; the fire district office at 7903 Allison Way ... or you can drive to Aurora, 3855 Lewiston St., Suite 140.]

On the other hand, the Jefferson County Clerk's Office Elections Division has a video on its web site explaining clearly and thoroughly how your ballot for this year's general election is protected and secured. Take a look at the video: 'Election Ballot Counting'.

So, at the Jefferson County Courthouse your general election ballot is secured in a restricted, video monitored room; the signature on your ballot is electronically verified to actually be your signature; and the votes are counted on a high tech, tamper-proof machine. You'll have to ask fire district board members if your tax hike ballot is granted that same kind of security from the company they are paying.

Now ... let's put to rest this argument that somehow a special, separate mail-in election is going to ensure that everyone eligible to vote is given the opportunity to vote.

In this year's general election, EVERYONE eligible to vote can vote either by mail or by early voting or by going to the polls on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Period.

And if the County Clerk had run the AFPD election in coordination with the general election -- EVERYONE eligible to vote would have had all the opportunity anyone could want to vote. Period.

There is simply no other way to put it: while arguing financial distress for the AFPD now and in the future, the board of directors spent approximately $51,000 needlessly. Period.

You would have thought that when asking property owners for a 55 percent tax increase, the elected officials would have gone the extra distance to demonstrate their fiscal responsibility and restraint ... alas.

By privatizing their tax increase election -- when that was clearly unnecessary and more costly -- the fire board has actually demonstrated how out-of-touch they are with the financial realities of district citizens. A 'no' vote on issue 5A, cast on the 'special election' ballot that you will send to Aurora, is the appropriate and fitting way to send the AFPD board a message: start planning anew and present us with a more reasonable request two years from now.

Put Out the Arvada Fire Tax Hike

UPDATE: The Arvada Fire Protection District is claiming victory.

Arvada Fire 2010 Election Results

The voters of the Arvada Fire Protection District today passed ballot question 5A. The issue asked the voters to approve a property tax increase to replenish a diminishing budget.

In a race that was very close and with 91% of the votes counted as of 8:00 p.m., there are 16,837 (56%) “YES” votes and 13,100 (44%) “NO” votes.

Of course, when the government wanting a big tax hike is paying a private company to run its tax hike election, well ... it isn't much of a surprise when the government gets its money, is it?

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UPDATE: According to the most recent campaign report (from September 5 to October 7, 2010) filed with the Colorado Secretary of State, the committee advocating Yes on 5A (the fire district tax hike), has raised over $19,000. Of this, $15,000 has come from one source, the firefighter's union, the Arvada Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 4056.

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[This commentary was published in the print edition of the Denver Post's 'YourHub.com' for Arvada, Wheat Ridge and Westminster on Thursday, October 14, 2010.]

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Ring the alarm bell!

We need to put out the flames of the big tax hike being asked for by the Arvada Fire Protection District (AFPD).

And I mean big -- the district wants a whopping 55 percent increase. If passed, the AFPD tax would go from 9.55 mills to 14.78, a higher rate than either the nearby West Metro or North Metro fire protection districts or the regional average rate.

To help justify this tax hike, the AFPD board decided to dress-up the request by appointing a so-called "Blue Ribbon Panel" to investigate its needs.

But a look at the members of this panel and their credentials makes it apparent that even at the local level governments know how to appoint a committee that will reach the conclusions wanted all along. Indeed, there are members of this panel whom I believe have never publicly opposed a local tax increase, ever.

Part of the AFPD board's calculations for the amount of tax hike is a million-dollar-plus shortfall if state ballot measures 60, 61 and 101 are approved in November. But a recent Denver Post/9 News poll showed that the highest number supporting any of these proposals was only 12 percent. Basing even part of a tax hike request on improbable future events -- especially during difficult economic times -- is overreaching and questionable.

Finally, the district's problematic fiscal judgment is to be witnessed in the special election itself. Instead of conducting this tax increase election by placing the issue on Colorado's November 2nd ballot, the fire board decided to spend over a hundred thousand dollars of our money to run a completely separate mail-in election. This smacks of a purely political calculation to give passage of the tax increase some kind of an advantage -- but it does not portray fiscal responsibility for a unit of government claiming economic distress to spend $106,000 for a duplicate election.

In conclusion, the AFPD board has asked for too much, and by the manner in which they are conducting this election, they have not warranted our trust at this time.

Voters should tell the fire board 'no' on issue 5A on November 2, 2010 ... they can then start planning anew and perhaps present us with a more reasonable request two years from now.