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Vehicle fees, other laws to take effect Wednesday in Colorado
Herald Denver Bureau
New laws taking effect in other states
•Alabama: Makes more women diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer eligible for treatment through Medicaid.
•California: Bars schools from serving food containing transfats.
•Florida: Relaxes schools’ zero-tolerance policies by preventing children from being arrested or expelled for insignificant misbehavior such as bringing plastic butter knives to school, drawing pictures of guns or vandalizing property.
•Kansas: Allows women seeking abortions to see ultrasound images or hear their fetus’ heartbeat at least 30 minutes before the procedure.
•Mississippi: Requires the state to pay $50,000 a year, up to $500,000, to people wrongfully convicted of crimes. The compensation must be sought within three years after the person is pardoned or the conviction is overturned.
•Nevada: Reduces the liability of restaurants, hotel-casinos and other businesses that donate perishable foods such as bread, hot or cold dishes and leftover buffet items.
•New Mexico: Abolishes the death penalty and replaces it with life in prison without parole.
•Ohio: Allows the state to consider tolls to pay for major new highway construction projects.
•Utah: Scraps the requirement requiring admission to private clubs for patrons to drink.
•Vermont: Permits prosecutors to send teenage cell phone “sexting” cases to juvenile courts to eliminate the stigma of child pornography convictions.
•Wyoming: Specifies that the right to mine or drill for resources has legal precedence over the right to store carbon gas underground. Second law specifies that whoever injects carbon gas underground remains legally responsible for it forever.
– The Associated Press
But there's no use rushing now to the motor vehicles office to beat the deadline. While it's possible to renew plates early, anything set for renewal July 1 or after still will be subject to the new fees.
The size of the fees varies by the weight of the vehicle, but most drivers will see their registration fees increase by $32. Late fines are going up, too, and there will be a $2 daily fee on rental cars.
The fees come from Senate Bill 108, the first new funding source for Colorado highways since the last time the gas tax increased nearly two decades ago. Democrats led by Gov. Bill Ritter pushed for the law, which should raise $200 million to $250 million a year to repair roads and bridges. Republicans uniformly opposed it because of the fee increase.
People whose plates expire in June don't need to rush to renew their plates this week, said Mark Couch, spokesman for the Department of Revenue. Plates that expire in June still will be charged the old prices during the 30-day grace period in July.
"We haven't seen any rush of people trying to beat the surcharges," Couch said.
A few other fees are going up Wednesday, too, because of laws that take effect July 1.
Anyone convicted of violating a law - from a felony down to a traffic offense - will pay an extra $2.50 so the state can begin collecting the DNA of people arrested for major crimes.
Also Wednesday, the 50-year-old sales tax exemption for cigarettes will be suspended, and the cost of cigarettes will go up about a dime a pack.
Several other new laws take effect Wednesday:•House Bill 1185 allows people filing paperwork for water rights to e-mail the application instead of mailing four paper copies to state regulators. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, and Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, were the sponsors.
•SB 80 allows homeowners with a well permit to collect rain and snow from their rooftops for use in the house, to water a garden and for stock watering. Isgar and Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, were the sponsors.
•HB 1260 allows unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, the right to sign agreements that give them some of the same rights as married couples, including health-insurance coverage, medical decision-making, inheritance and retirement benefits.
•HB 1276 allows homeowners facing foreclosure to seek a 90-day delay to work out a repayment plan. For information, call the Colorado Foreclosure Hotline at (877) 601-4673.
•SB 247 loosens the requirements to qualify for unemployment insurance. By making more people eligible, Colorado can get more unemployment money from the federal stimulus bill.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
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