AURORA | Aurora voters today will decide a host of city council races, two school district boards and a variety of state and local ballot questions, including whether to allow the city to court a potential NASCAR racetrack expansion and whether to forego state pot tax refunds.
Voters who have received mail ballots are asked to return them to city or county clerks or designated ballot drop-off centers. A list of drop-off centers is available at the county election links below. Ballots mailed today will almost certainly not be tabulated, election officials say. If you do no have a ballot, or even if you’re not registered to vote and want to vote today. Contact the designated county election officials below:
Voting service centers are online for Arapahoe County at arapahoevotes.com and for Adams County at www.adcogov.org.
Arapahoe County:
Phone: 303-795-4511
Twitter: @arapahoeclerk, for election updates
Adams County:
Phone 720-523-6500
Four candidates are vying for Aurora’s two open at-large city council seats in the November municipal election. Incumbent at-large council members Bob LeGare and Debi Hunter Holen are seeking re-election. Angela Lawson and Maya Wheeler, who both ran for an at-large seat in 2013, are also running.
Aurora City Council At-Large race: Four hopefuls vie for two seats
Three candidates have filed to run in the race to replace longtime incumbent Ward VI Councilman Bob Broom, who is term limited: Francoise Bergan, Brian Arnold and PK Kaiser.
Aurora City Council Ward VI race: Arnold, Bergan, Kaiser seek to succeed Broom
In the race for City Council’s Ward V, voters will see one familiar name and two newcomers on the ballot. Incumbent Bob Roth, who has served as the ward’s city councilman since he was appointed in 2009, will be the familiar face. Livia Payne and Cheri McElhiney, both first-time city council candidates, are challenging Roth for the seat.
Aurora City Council Ward V race: Roth faces two challengers in re-election bid
Two candidates are vying for Aurora’s Ward IV seat, which is due to be vacated by term-limited Councilwoman Molly Markert at the end of her term. Charlie Richardson is a familiar face at City Hall, while longtime resident Joe Lewis is a newcomer running for office.
Aurora City Council Ward IV race: Lewis, Richardson square off
In Cherry Creek School District, three of the five seats on the school board are up for election this fall, but just one is seeing much of a race. Just one candidate is running in districts A (Eric Parish for outgoing Board President Jim O’Brien’s seat) and C, where incumbent Dave Willman is running unopposed for re-election. But the race for District B is a much more-crowded affair, with David Aarestad, Matt Batcho, Vince Chowdhury and Janice McDonald running to replace term-limited Claudine McDonald.
Crowded race for Cherry Creek Schools’ District B board seat
The Aurora Public Schools Board of Education will have at least one new face on the seven-member board after next month’s election. Two incumbents and five newcomers are vying for three seats on the board. Board members Cathy Wildman and Dan Jorgensen are both up for re-election, and Mary Lewis’ seat is open because the long-time board member is term limited. The five newcomers seeking a seat are Grant Barrett, Linda Cerva, Monica Colbert, Billie Day and Michael Donald.
Ballot measure 1A asks Denver and Adams County residents to confirm an agreement reached earlier this year that nixes longstanding restrictions on Denver developing hundreds of acres of land surrounding DIA. The measure is part of a larger, intergovernmental agreement passed June 3 by the Airport Coordinating Committee, which is steered by a consortium of regional politicians. After years of debate, the deal came in the form of an amendment to a 1988 pact that laid out regulations for development on the large swaths of prairie around DIA. The amendment gives Denver the right to allow commercial development as part of a pilot program on up to 1,500 acres of land around the airport. It also says that Denver will make an up-front payment of $10 million to Adams County municipalities — of which Aurora is set to receive $2.7 million — and has to evenly split tax revenues that come from new businesses with surrounding cities.
Prop 1A seeks to rewrite DIA development pact for Denver, Adams County
City voters are being asked by Aurora Proposition 2J if they want to repeal an ordinance that prevents Aurora from giving economic incentives to motor sports facilities, such as a NASCAR-style speedway. If 2J were to pass, it would free the city to offer a slate of incentives to a speedway developer that would likely be crucial in bringing a NASCAR-style speedway to the Denver metro area.
GREEN LIGHT: Aurora voters to be asked to repeal ban on racetrack incentives
Aurora and all Colorado votes on state marijuana taxes. Statewide, ballots boast a host of local issues that include a hotly contested school board recall in Jefferson County.
The only statewide ballot measure seeks to correct an accounting error in marijuana taxes approved by voters in 2013. The 10 percent sales tax and 15 percent excise tax on recreational marijuana raised some $66 million in 2014.
Because overall state tax revenue was higher than projected during that 2013 vote, the pot taxes must be refunded unless voters give the state permission to keep them. The ballot measure has encountered no organized opposition and is expected to pass.
“I’m confident voters will say they meant it when they said they wanted marijuana to be regulated and taxed and how they wanted it spent,” said Sen. Pat Steadman, a Denver Democrat and one of the Legislature’s main budget writers.
As is typical of off-year elections, local questions dominate ballots. The most watched is in Jefferson County.
There, angry parents and educators are trying to recall three conservative school board members. Recall backers cite several complaints, including changes in teacher pay and talk of reviewing the Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum to promote patriotism. The curriculum idea prompted students to walk out of class and protest in the streets last year.
The three board members say they’re being targeted for tying teacher pay to performance instead of seniority, among other issues.
The recall campaign attracted nearly $1 million in direct and outside political spending — all for board seats that are unpaid — in what’s become a battle over what education reform should look like.
Other local issues decided Tuesday:
COLORADO’S FIRST LIFT TICKET TAX
Breckenridge voters decide what may be Colorado’s first local tax on ski lift tickets.
The city wants voters to approve a 4.5-percent sales tax on single- and multiday Breckenridge Ski Resort tickets.
The tax would be collected by Vail Resorts, which operates Breckenridge. Vail Resorts originally opposed the tax but relented when season passes, multi-resort lift-tickets and summer activities were excluded.
The money would go to transit and parking improvements in the resort town.
NATIONAL WESTERN UPGRADES
Denver is asking voters to allow the city to borrow $476 million to help pay for a major renovation to the National Western Center, which hosts the state’s biggest stock show each January. Voters are also being asked to borrow $105 million to expand and upgrade the Colorado Convention Center. The money would come from extending the city’s lodging and car-rental taxes, which otherwise expire in 2023.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Low-turnout, off year elections attract a lot of tax measures. I wonder why.