I love Durango. With the current ballot initiative 1A, it seems pretty clear-cut to me. Our roads require ongoing maintenance and we do not have the current level of funding to maintain them at the quality we need.
Some folks have suggested that we should not minimally increase our sales tax to pay for our roads, instead somehow magically finding additional funding by cutting other parts of the city budget. We need to listen to the people that work for us, the city staff and our elected officials. They are very dedicated, hard-working and are committed to being good stewards of our tax dollars and running our city very effectively. If they tell us they need additional funding to keep our roads in good condition, we need to heed their advice, knowing that they have already explored alternative ways to fund our roads and that just continuing to cut into our contingency reserves or cutting other necessary programs or infrastructure funding is not sustainable.
We cannot let our roads deteriorate to the point that it becomes much more expensive to rebuild them in the future or that our frustration with potholes and poor road quality becomes untenable.
We definitely need to have a bigger community conversation about our future infrastructure funding needs and budget priorities, but now is not the time to put off a critical need.
Let’s provide funding for our roads now while we collaborate and align on our key priorities for the future.
Phil Bryson
Durango
