RIDGWAY – Citing the poor economy, members of the Ridgway Town Council generally agreed at their regular meeting on Nov. 11 that they have no desire to draft any sort of new tax initiative ballot question, including a use tax, for the April 2010 municipal election to fund the completion of the historic business core streetscape plan.

The town currently collects 0.6 percent sales tax (from a 2005 ballot initiative) to help pay for town projects, including the streetscape plan, which would pave/renovate Railroad, Clinton, Laura, Cora, and Lena streets and the realignment of Railroad Street. The $3.4 million-project would, overall, make the town’s business core more pedestrian friendly. According to Town Manager Greg Clifton, the current 0.6 percent sales tax being collected is not enough to cover this large of a project at one time, and that if the town saved the tax, it could take upwards of 20 years to complete the project incrementally.

Already some of those tax dollars have been used for the design and engineering of the project that includes the 2010 waterline replacement project and with several cost-saving measures on the streetscape plan, Clifton said the total cost could be reduced to approximately $2.9 million.

Clifton put the streetscape plan as a discussion item at last week’s meeting after receiving the results of the recently-completed town-wide survey, which indicates that residents would like to see improvements to the business district but are somewhat unsure on how to pay for the project either by borrowing or enacting a use tax. (The survey results in its entirety are expected to be presented to council in the next couple of months.)

While Clifton said he was not advocating any sort of use tax ballot initiative for the April municipal election, he did put it up for council discussion because the timing is such if it desired to draft a use tax ballot initiative, now would be the time to begin drafting the question.

A use tax is applied to the purchase of items, like building materials, subject to a sales tax and imposed where sales tax is not collected. (An example of how the use tax works would be, say, that a Ridgway builder buys construction materials in a place like Montrose.) With something like a 4 percent use tax in place, for example, the builder shows the materials merchant his Ridgway building permit and after the purchase is final, the Montrose sales tax is basically refunded. The 4 percent then goes to the Town of Ridgway and not to surrounding places like Montrose and Grand Junction.

Several years ago, Ouray County asked a countywide use tax question but it did not pass. With that in mind, Mayor Pat Willits does not believe a use tax would pass in Ridgway.

“I thought the two times it has come up countywide, voters missed an opportunity to do something that is relatively easy,” Willits said. “Thinking about it, as a Ridgway-only proposition changed my thinking of it. It would increase the construction cost within the Town of Ridgway but not outside the town and it looks like we are countering other objectives and that is to continue to advocate growth in town. With that in mind, I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm myself for a Ridgway-only use tax. I think we would be battling voters on it.”

Most of council agreed with Willits, including Councilmember Eric Johnson, who doesn’t believe now is the time for a tax item on the ballot.

“I always felt like funding for this was never going to have a single payment source,” Johnson said. “It would take a combination of a use tax, maybe a small levy and maybe some grant funding. I agree with Pat…I don’t think April is the time to put a tax item on the ballot.”