The measure was a response to the Casey’s Pond crisis, an issue that is less urgent after the community was able to get a deal to save the senior living community last month.
Steamboat Springs voters will not see a property tax question supporting “cradle to grave” services this fall after city council members decided on Tuesday night to abandon the question drafted two weeks ago, fearing there was too little time to mount a proper campaign for the measure.
The measure was a response to Steamboat’s crisis of late — the potential loss of the city’s only senior living community Casey’s Pond — but the community was able to wrangle together a deal to buy the property out of receivership on Aug. 23. When the deal is official, it will be owned by Northwest Colorado Health and continue current operations.
“The original thought behind [the ballot measure] was, if Casey’s Pond is saved it will need some help and if it isn’t saved, we will need to have available even more help,” said Council member Joella West. “As far as we know, Casey’s Pond has been stabilized and will go forward under Northwest Colorado Health. … Now how do we explain this tax proposal to our citizens? What do we tell them it is for?”
In drafting the question, council members broadened the scope of what the funding could be used for, using the term cradle to grave to refer to both child care and eldercare services. But exactly how the money would be spent on those services was not entirely clear, and West said Tuesday that some child care leaders locally were not entirely supportive of the measure.
“It’s too little and it’s too uncertain,” West said, reflecting on a conversation she and Council member Amy Dickson had with First Impressions of Routt County, the local early childhood council. “The more I thought about it, the more I thought about how difficult it is to explain to anyone exactly how we proposed to spend this money.”
The decision to end the push for a ballot question this fall does not end the conversation about a property tax supporting cradle to grave services. Earlier this year council members decided they wanted to take some time to explore sending a property tax question to voters, but felt putting something on the ballot this November was too fast. Members said Tuesday they may bring back this idea as part of a larger property tax conversation in 2025.
As it had been proposed, the measure would have been a 1 mill property tax estimated to raise between $1.3 and $1.5 million in the first year. How much Casey’s Pond would need in subsidy is unknown, and there has been little public discussion about how much money local child care providers may need to support their efforts.
The city is also partnering with Routt County and the Colorado Department of Transportation on a project that would build a new child care center and housing units for child care workers and snow plow drivers. A 2022 study estimates that center would need as much as $350,000 a year in public support to work, and that number may be higher by the time that center could potentially open.
“We don’t have a committee, we don’t have a campaign, we don’t have marketing materials, we don’t have our messaging together around how this money is going to be allocated,” said Council member Steve Muntean. “That’s my concern. Do we have the time to do this effectively?”
In a 6-1 vote, council members decided to indefinitely postpone the question, a move that has the same result as voting to reject it, City Attorney Dan Foote said. Council member Michael Buccino was the lone holdout as he projected optimism about how voters would respond to the question.
Dickson, who was the only council member to vote against the measure at first reading, said they do not fully understand the need for this funding right now, and it was naïve of them to assume they did without a broader community conversation.
“We don’t know the need. For us to presume that seven of us know better then our really smart CEO’s who are running these organizations … is really presumptuous of us,” Dickson said. “We could be actually harming their ability to have additional revenue coming in in the future without consulting them. … We don’t have the right people at the table.”
Council president Gail Garey said she has been surprised by the lack of support for a measure she has heard in conversations since first reading.
“I’m concerned that there are more questions then answers and with nobody really stepping up to move forward and take the helm in terms of education, we wouldn’t do the education that we need to have this passed,” Garey said.
Northwest Colorado Health CEO Stephanie Einfeld said she was ready to do anything needed to support the measure if council did send it to voters, but also didn’t push council members to move forward with the measure right now.
“I am by no means an expert on what helps a mill levy pass,” Einfeld said. “My interest is just that it passes at some point.”
In public comment, Paula Black, a former city council president, said the community has momentum right now to do something to support eldercare and that council should push forward with the question. But other commenters expressed doubt about the haste of the measure. Even Catherine Carson, the local Democratic Party Chair who is often active in supporting city ballot measures, suggested messaging could be difficult with so little time before Election Day.
“This gives us the opportunity to collaborate with our community partners and to get input and to propose a solution really from a community wide discussion,” Garey said before council voted to postpone the measure.
Council members have scheduled a larger property tax conversation for their retreat in December, where this topic is likely to surface again.
Top Photo Caption: Casey's Pond was the catalyst for a cradle to grave property tax, but council decided Tuesday they intend to wait until 2025 to send a question to voters. (Dylan Anderson/The Yampa Valley Bugle)
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