After listening to candidates in a variety of forums, the choice for City Councilors is clearer; as well, my views toward the lodgers tax proposal.
What I’ve learned is that most candidates are focused on the business needs of business – very important but with lesser, in some cases, minor concern for the issues and concerns of ordinary citizens, such as traffic congestion and bad driving, living wages, affordable rents and housing, parking, tourists acting badly, crime, and so forth.
Discussion of these has have been either absent or taken a back seat. Given COVID-19, perhaps candidates did not want or see the need to talk at length with residents to determine what’s important to them. However, without understanding and dealing with the needs of ordinary Durango citizens, government’s job of ensuring the welfare and quality of life for them will be lacking, and the balance between satisfying the needs of business and citizens skewed.
Sad but not surprising.
Regarding the lodgers tax, I’m all for taxing tourists. But this tax does nothing for ordinary citizens other than some funding for transportation and the arts. The beneficiaries of this tax will be the tourism industry, real estate agents, and developers. Trickle-down economics didn’t work with Reagan and Trump and it won’t work for most citizens.
When a lodger’s tax supports areas that will improve the quality of life for the majority of Durango citizens, for example, affordable housing, living wages, parking garage, more transportation, more police officers – then I will vote “Yes.”
Mike TodtDurango
