City of Durango web page provides biased facts favoring Ballot Issue 2A

A City of Durango web page published on March 14 and emailed to its subscribers appears to be providing biased facts in favor of, but no facts against a referred measure on the April 1, 2025 election ballot.

This is a screenshot of the City of Durango’s biased facts about Ballot Issue 2A.

Namely, the web page about the ballot issue titled City offers facts on upcoming ballot measure vote was published by city officials under the guise of a “news flash.” A link to the City’s web page of biased facts was also posted to their Facebook page.

Generally, Ballot Issue 2A seeks the “authorization to extend the City’s one half of one percent sales and use tax for open space, parks and trails, and restricted capital improvements, in order to incur debt to finance the construction of a new city hall and police facility.”

In Colorado, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-45-117 (1)(a)(I)(C)(2024) prohibits a political subdivision from expending any money from any source, or make any contributions, to urge electors to vote in favor of or against any referred measure.

However, the City of Durango web page appears to be providing a thing of value for the purpose of promoting Ballot Issue 2A. Furthermore, the four facts that the posting provided could be interpreted as urging voters to vote in favor of the referred measure.

A referred measure, as defined in section 1-1-104 (34.5), includes any ballot question or ballot issue submitted by a governing body of any political subdivision to the eligible electors of the state or political subdivision.

Specifically, here’s a list of the biased facts that the web page provides:

• The measure, if approved, must spend the money as written in the ballot language. This is required by state law, specifically Colorado Constitution Article X Section 20 (7) (d). The money cannot be spent for Downtown’s Next Step or other capital projects.
• The preliminary cost for renovating the Historic High School Building is based on an estimate from FCI Constructors, Inc, who estimated the cost of construction which includes direct construction costs, overheard, and contingencies at $83 million.  To bring this estimate to the borrowing amount of $61 million, staff has identified alternative funding sources to such as the proceeds from the sale of the current City Hall and Police Department, historical preservation grants, and offsetting some project costs associated with the project as the alley upgrades and Buckley Park restrooms with other available funding sources.
• The project will add 86 additional parking spaces to the existing 78 at the site, according to a public forum in 2024, freeing up 159 parking spaces that are currently utilized by City employees parking on the street or in the adjacent neighborhoods.  A recording of the 2024 forum is available at the city’s Engage webpage.
• The plans for the underground parking lot do not include any encroachment on Buckley Park and preserves the sled hill. The proposed site plan is available at the city’s Engage webpage.

City of Durango web page factual summary excludes arguments against the proposal

Another example of a bias provided by the City of Durango’s web page was apparent in the facts that the publication provided in support of the ballot measure, with none provided against the ballot measure.

A picture of a graphical design slide of the subject property that I took at an Engage Durango propaganda presentation.

For instance, the City of Durango had received a Summary of Written Comments AGAINST Ballot Issue 2A, which were published in the April 1, 2025 Municipal Election Informational Booklet.

Moreover, that summary of written comments against Ballot Issue 2A contained several facts that were used with arguments against the proposal.

Examples of facts that the City was given, but failed to publish on the web page,  were in sections of the Informational Booklet about the tax impact, the redundancy of the tax, and the lack of oversight.

Yet the City of Durango failed to provide any of those facts on its web page about Ballot Issue 2A.

Meanwhile, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-45-117(1)(b)(I) appears to require any council or political subdivision of Colorado expending public moneys or making contributions to dispense a factual summary, which shall include arguments both for and against the proposal, on any issue of official concern before the electorate in the jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, the City’s factual summary only appears to provide facts that favors Ballot Issue 2A, even though they’ve been sent a summary of written comments, including facts that voters could use against Ballot Issue 2A.

The purpose of the cited Colorado Revised Statutes in § 1-45-117 appears to have been to prevent the government itself from engaging in electoral advocacy.

Instead of honoring the neutrality required by those provisions, the City of Durango web page appears to only contain facts that favor its proposed Ballot Issue 2A.

Subsequently, the subject web page was archived on the Wayback Machine for safekeeping.