WHEAT RIDGE — JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Wheat Ridge City Council has approved placing a 1% sales tax increase on the November ballot, a move that could generate an estimated $11.5 million in its first year.
Mayor Korey Stites said the proposal is the result of years of community outreach.
"The one 1% sales tax is kind of a culmination of years of reaching out to our community and our city plan, our economic development plans, our even our internal building use assessments," Stites said.
Watch The Full Story Below
If approved by voters, the revenue would fund several projects, including preserving soccer fields and parks at Wilmore-Davis and Kullerstrand elementaries, which are both now closed. It would also fund replacing the Anderson Park outdoor pool, and constructing a new city hall and police department on the former Lutheran Hospital property.
"Our facilities don't allow for our staff to even be under the same roof right now. We have city facilities spread out across the city, and we want to get it all under one roof," Stites said.
He added that the Lutheran Hospital site represents a rare opportunity.
"It's a one-time opportunity because if we miss this opportunity, there's not a whole lot of land that we can move to in the future," Stites said.
Stites said the city's last sales tax increase was in 2016.
"We want to make sure that we're doing the right things for our city," Stites said.
Not everyone is on board. David Dentry, owner of Wheat Ridge Cyclery, said the increase would hurt his business. Dentry operates 2 other locations in Ken Caryl and Parker, and said customers frequently visit his Wheat Ridge store to browse but travel to his other locations — where tax rates are lower — to make their purchases.
"What happens often because those areas have lower tax rate is they'll come here to shop, and then they go to those other locations to actually buy the bike," Dentry said.
Dentry said the cumulative effect of tax increases adds up.
"Yeah, it seems like all the time there's additional. Like this tax I didn't even know about," Dentry said. "So it's a lot of little things, and it does it does eat away with with our our business."
Voters will have the final say on the measure in November.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
