Tag Archives: Elections

Westcliffe Sales Tax Increase Voted DOWN

Westcliffe Sales Tax Increase Voted DOWN
State: Prop CC a Big NO GO

by George Gramlich
In a somewhat surprising result, the citizens of Westcliffe voted down the 50% town sales tax increase proposed by their own Town Council and Mayor Paul Wenke. The vote was a pretty conclusive 106 against to 89 for the measure. There wasn’t much public discussion about the proposed tax increase until Westcliffe citizen and real estate broker, John Johnston, wrote a very informative Letter to the Editor a few months ago exposing some fiscal points that were not well known. That letter could have very well influenced the defeat of the tax increase.
Custer County held to her conservative views in decisively defeating the TABOR-killing Proposition CC by a huge margin, 67.77% (1,516 votes) against to only 32.23% (721 votes) for.
Prop CC was defeated at the state level by 55.12% to 44.88% despite millions of dollars of out-of-state donations spent on trying to get it passed.
Custer voters also voted heavily against Proposition DD (water taxes) with 63.64% (1,425) against to 36.36% (814 votes) for. However, Prop DD just barely passed at the state level 50.48% to 49.52%.
School Board: In District 1, DeeAnna Pratt beat Maria Duran-Shy 956 to 853. Jacob Shy ran uncontested in District. He received 1,303 votes. Daniel Kriegh lost to Newell Woodbury in District 3 with Woodbury getting 810 votes to Kriegh’s 740 vote tally.
County wide, only 2,252 out of the 4,090 registered voters voted. About 2,230 voters voted for the two statewide issues (Prop’s CC and DD) while about only around 1,500 voters voted in the school board races. And all issues and candidates were on the same ballot.
All results are unofficial as of press time.