I would like to encourage the residents of Glenwood Springs to vote for the tax initiative to rebuild our city’s streets.
The city does not have a hidden pot of money to fund these massive projects. Previous City Councils have not addressed this issue before because tax initiatives are unpopular, so I commend the current Council for having the courage to present this to the voters.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s getting dangerous out there on the minefields that are our streets: I’m seeing more and more cars veering into the opposing lane to avoid running into a pothole. Collisions are bound to happen.
If we reject this tax proposal the streets will not get the proper rebuild they need and the pothole problems will actually get bigger year by year. An ever-increasing amount of city money will be spent to fill the potholes and we will never have what we need to rebuild them and do it right — especially since construction costs go up every year.
It’s somewhat like just topping off the oil in your car for 50,000 miles instead of changing it every 3,000 — eventually you’re going to need to rebuild the engine or get a new car. The tax we will pay will be an investment in the quality of our city’s infrastructure and the construction projects will also be an economic driver for our economy.
Yes, we will all pay more in sales tax to get this done, but the bulk of it will be paid for by visitors from outside Glenwood Springs. I don’t really want to pay more taxes but this approach is a wise and timely solution for rebuilding our failed and failing streets. Let’s get this work done.
Steve Barbee
Glenwood Springs