Waiting until the absolute last minute to decide whether or not to put a tax increase on the ballot for the largely misnamed public safety initiative-the Grand Junction City Council decided that now perhaps, was not the time.
Some city staffers clearly had been feverishly hoping to raise sales taxes and were secretly swearing at the Taxpayers Bill of Rights impediment to simply getting the Council to vote on such a measure by requiring public approval.
Oddly enough they were still considering a $58 million project at the low side and a $70 some odd million dollar project at the high side, given the drubbing the project took at the polls just 10 months ago.
Two comments I received in my inbox yesterday almost immediately from concerned citizens were: how much did it cost to hire a consultant to come to the decision that this was a silly idea and secondly why was the talking point that citizens were still too "confused" about the issue.
Most of the correspondence and conversations I have had with individuals about the subject indicates anything but confusion. Most are completely aware the Police Department is in desperate need of new quarters and it's clear that city staff has no intention of giving it to them unless they can leverage in a bunch of other expenditures by calling the entire package a public safety initiative.
Even more bizarre was that two of the council members voted in favor of placing the initiative on the ballot. Parenthetically, I feel compelled to point out that such actions eventually will have a negative effect on law enforcement by souring the population on the project in general.
Right now the majority of voters in the area want to assist the Police Department but not at the cost and the breadth the city insists upon providing for the satisfaction of a few bureaucrats edifice complex.
