Vicious proponents of the Big Lie, The South Park Outsiders, and their adored candidate for District 3 Commissioner, Dave Wissel, actively campaigned against Ballot Question 1A, the Public Safety Initiative that would have provided a reasonable, effective solution to the desperate needs of the Sheriff’s Department. The Platte Canyon Area Chamber of Commerce and the Park County League of Women Voters support the initiative. The League provided the best points for passage of the ballot question:
Why Does the Sheriff’s Department need this Public Safety sales tax?
In 2021 our Deputies responded to over 14,000 calls including 322 Domestic calls, 3,000+ traffic calls, 756 property related calls, 156 Assault and dispute calls, 280 extra patrol and 436 mental health calls.
2021 there were 215 emergency 911 calls placed by guests living in short-term rentals. To date this year, there have been 185 calls.
It Takes a minimum of 20 deputies to cover the county with 2 per side (Southpark, Bailey) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Currently we have 12 Deputies. Over the last year we had 15 deputies and 1 support staff leave.
The Sheriff has budgeted for 8 more deputies, but low deputy salaries and a shortage of affordable workforce housing have made it difficult to hire the needed staff.
Minimal nighttime coverage means it could take over an hour for a second deputy to arrive to help with a call.
In Colorado, domestic violence is slightly higher for rural counties, and rural communities have fewer resources for dealing with mental health issues that have spiked since the pandemic .
New laws require a mental health worker to ride along on mental health calls and these calls require a different type of vehicle to transport from that scene, not a deputy car.
In Colorado murders are up 75%. Motor vehicle theft is up 86%. Personal property crimes are up 20% and mental health issues and access to treatment inColorado ranks 43rd in the nation.
What will the new money provide for? A Park County that is safer for all!
Living wages to enable deputies to live in the community they protect and to help retain officers.
Better 911 service to answer calls with quicker response time.
Mental Health resources with additional mental health personnel serving citizens and Sheriff deputies.
Additional deputies to provide 24 hour security with increased training opportunities and additional support for wildland fire evacuations or community events
Technology that would allow deputies to file reports while in the field saving miles and time and storage for data from body cams.
How will this SALES TAX be funded:
This will be collected as a Public Safety Tax and by State Law can only be used as such. It will appear as a separate line item in the county budget. It will be tracked the same way the Land and Water Trust Fund Sales Tax is tracked. The public will be able to see where the money is being spent and how much is used during the year. CRS 30-11-107.9
Where will this sales tax come from?
Short-term rentals, online sales, goods, and services purchased in Park County.
Food, utilities, medications, and fuel are exempt from this tax.
This is NOT a property tax.
For every $1,000.00 you spend on goods and services, the sales tax would cost your family $10 to provide for a safer county.
The Public Safety Initiative appeared on the 2020 General Election ballot. It lost by 507 votes. In the last vote, November 8, 2022, it lost by 805 votes.
Good Ol’ Boy Wissel (he won his seat by a whopping 440 votes), and the Outsiders promulgated a fantasy. There was no need for the passage of the initiative. Vote against it, he and Outsiders wailed. Once elected, he would find all the money anyone could hope for by just sitting down and reviewing the budget comprehensively. Hell, he’d find all that money that had been inappropriately embedded, hidden, stolen, or shipped off to Caribbean accounts. Not to worry,
Sheriff McGraw even spent two or three hours explaining his needs and the intricacies of government budget accounting to Wissel and the Outsiders. Turns out that was a fool’s errand. Good Ol’ Boys rarely hear something they don’t want to hear, and proponents of the Big Lie listen with ears attuned to the gobbledygook of Q-inspired conspiracies.
I liken Wissel’s and the Outsiders’ reasoning this way: No, we will not fix the clog in the kitchen sink until we survey the entire house. Do we need to repaint? Does the furnace need work? Should we resod this year? What about the roof? Shouldn’t we cut down those trees? And, all through the process, the kitchen sink isn’t draining, it smells, Mom can’t fix supper, and the sink is overflowing with the backup of the detritus of neglect.
So, let’s be diligent in holding Wissel to his word. Let’s watch and listen to that cry of Eureka! When he pulls all that extra cash just lolling around in the pitifully wee Park County General Fund, we’ll listen for the scream of discovery, the cry of Victory! We’ll all give him a great big hug. Maybe kisses will be forthcoming from the Outsiders.
Or, maybe we’ll wonder how, during this discovery process, the 9 p.m. to 9 a.m absence of even one deputy patrolling all those 2000 square miles of our beloved county worked out for us.
The only reason that I can think of not to vote for the increase to the sheriff’s budget, is that there are a lot of criminals living in Park haven’t County. I would say that if Wissel doesn’t find the money within the year we need a recall. In the meantime, I’m going to stock up on my ammo in case I need to shoot somebody because there’s no deputy available.