DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is one step closer to getting his sales tax increase to fund affordable housing on the November ballot. Before he tries to convince the public to vote for it, he has one week to convince city council members to pass it. Many council members said they still don’t know how the money will be used.
"I’m really uncomfortable with the rushed nature of this," Councilmember Amanda Sawyer said at a Denver City Council meeting on Monday night.
"To not be able to tell them (constituents) what it’s going to be spent on, I can’t," Councilmember Jamie Torres said.
"I cannot, in good conscience, refer something to the ballot that is not ready," Councilmember Stacie Gilmore added.
City council voted eight to five in favor of moving the measure to a final reading next Monday. Of the eight who voted to push the measure through last night, at least two said they weren't sure they would vote in favor of it again next week. That brings into question whether the measure has enough support to make it out of the council chambers and onto the November ballot.
"Every year you wait makes this problem far worse," Mayor Mike Johnston said in an interview with 9NEWS. "We think there’s urgency. If you wait two years or four years to run this measure, that’s another 10,000-20,000 units that you’re behind and units that now cost a lot more to build than they do today."
Johnston now has one week to make sure he has the votes in city council. If it passes next week, voters in November will decide whether to increase Denver’s sales tax by 0.5% to fund affordable housing projects.
"What we feel is the overwhelming agreement that this is the single most important issue that the city is facing," Johnston said.
The sales tax would add five cents to every $10 spent. The mayor said it would bring in $100 million a year for a city already short more than 40,000 affordable housing units, but some councilmembers said they don’t have enough specifics on how the money will be spent.
"It makes me wonder if we really know what we’re doing applying this money in a way that we don’t really even know yet where it will be applied," Councilmember Kevin Flynn said.
"We do not have a plan, to be clear, on what the money will be spent on," Councilmember Stacie Gilmore said.
The mayor announced the measure just a month ago. In one week, it will be clear whether he did enough to answer the questions of city council members and if it will head to voters.
"We have really unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability for this measure," Johnston said. "More than any other referred tax measure we’ve seen, we’ll have both the ability for council to approve a plan and priorities in January, they’ll get to approve the budget for this every year."
There’s already a 0.35% sales tax increase on the ballot to fund Denver Health and its uncompensated care. 9NEWS asked Johnston if he worried that pushing this measure on the ballot also would turn voters off to both tax increases. He said they believed Denver voters will pass both, increasing the sales tax by nearly 1% this November.
"We don’t worry about the impact on Denver Health," Johnston said. "We believe that Denverites want both good healthcare and access to affordable housing and Denverites understand that."