GOLDEN — Voters across Jefferson County will find a stack of tax increase requests on their November ballots.
The multiple tax questions cover fire protection, public schools and city streets. Competing for those same household budgets is Issue 7A, a sales tax for the Colorado Connector, or “CoCo,” a planned passenger rail line from Fort Collins to Pueblo that backers claim will be running by 2029.
In Lakewood and Wheat Ridge in particular, residents are being asked to approve three new sales taxes at once: one for their city, one for their fire district and one for a passenger train most of them will likely never ride.
Issue 7A would add a 0.333 percent sales tax, about 3 cents on every $10 spent, raising $295 million a year. It also authorizes $580 million in new debt with a repayment cost of $785 million. The tax has no sunset and is exempt from revenue limits under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).
The measure appears on ballots in multiple Jeffco communities including Arvada, Edgewater, Lakewood, Lakeside, Mountain View and Wheat Ridge. None of those cities is on the ballot language’s list of communities the train will connect. Meanwhile, state lawmakers earlier this year carved Greeley, Lone Tree, Monument and Castle Rock out of the taxing district, even though those commuter towns sit along the route.
“I’m opposed to something I will be paying for on a daily basis, but rarely if ever will use,” Lakewood resident and former Regional Transportation District (RTD) board member Natalie Menten told the rail district board before it voted 14-1 to send the measure to voters.
Jeffco residents already pay RTD’s 1 percent sales tax, and RTD is cutting service anyway while facing a projected $215 million deficit in 2027.
West Metro Fire’s Issue 7C seeks a 0.75 percent sales tax raising up to $36.3 million in 2027, with groceries, gas and medicine exempt. The money would fund staffing, equipment, firefighter safety and wildfire response. Like 7A, it has no expiration date.
West Metro doesn’t include all of Jefferson County, but covers a large swath of it. The district runs from Wheat Ridge and Lakewood south through Dakota Ridge and Ken Caryl to Roxborough, and west into the foothills along C-470. Arvada, Golden and the mountain communities fall outside its boundaries.
Jeffco Public Schools is asking property owners for $133 million through two measures. Issue 5A seeks $73 million, mostly for staff raises and career and technical education, while 5B seeks $60 million for buildings, technology and security. The district says the pair would cost the owner of a $650,000 home about $273 a year.
The school district has lost roughly 10,000 students since 2019 while adding new administrative positions between 2021 and 2025, according to a Common Sense Institute analysis. The citizen oversight committee promised with its 2018 tax measure was never formed.
Lakewood City Council voted 8-2 to ask voters to raise the city sales tax from 3 percent to 3.5 percent, generating $17.6 million a year for city services. Mayor Wendi Strom and Councilmember Ken Cruz voted no.
City budget staff note that Lakewood’s current rate is below Denver’s 5.15 percent, and that groceries are exempt from the city tax.
Wheat Ridge wants a full one-cent increase starting Jan. 1, 2027, for street maintenance, bike and pedestrian projects, open space at two former school sites, a replacement for the 1979 Anderson Park pool, and new police and city facilities.
If both the city tax and 7A pass, Wheat Ridge’s sales tax would climb by 1.333 percentage points and Lakewood’s by 0.833 points. Most of both cities also sit inside the West Metro Fire Protection District, so a yes on 7C would add another 0.75 points there, pushing the combined increase past 2 cents on the dollar in Wheat Ridge and past 1.5 cents in Lakewood.
That leaves Jeffco voters weighing fire protection, schools and city streets against a rail line many will pay for every time they shop, but rarely, if ever, ride.
Election Day is Nov. 3.
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