Ref D vote indicates distrust of CDOT
November 5, 2005

Tom Atkins - CINQ President

The vote on Refs. C and D is thought-provoking. With Ref. C, Coloradans recognized the downside of TABOR and agreed to lift its requirements for a few years. That's a vote that says we're thinking about the future.

On Ref. D, voters said "no" to billions of dollars in debt. Some have called that short-sighted, but I disagree. Coloradans saw Ref. D's earnest promises of new dollars for highway projects for what they really were: a credit card for Tom Norton, the head of the Colorado Dept. of Transportation (CDOT). Voters recognized that Ref. D would put billions of dollars in the hands of a man and an agency who have proved they can't be trusted to act in the public's interest.

In fact, it's interesting to note that voters in Jefferson County voted against Ref. D by a wider margin than voters in other parts of the metro area. Maybe that's because we, more than our neighbors, have seen first-hand what happens when CDOT runs amok.

We've seen Norton blackmail the Jeffco commissioners into supporting the proposed Northwest Corridor superhighway by telling them they'd lose funding for other projects if they didn't support this one.

We've seen him bully lawmakers at the State Capitol in similar fashion, to get money for a contrived "study" of the superhighway whose conclusions are predetermined.

We've seen him court and spark with the developers who stand to make millions if the superhighway goes their way -- the only route, incidentally, that CDOT is even considering.

So forgive us if we're jaded.

Residents of Jeffco, like people throughout Colorado, want to repair our crumbling roads. But, like all Coloradans, we want to be smart about it. And we don't want to throw money away on highway projects we don't need.

I'm glad that the passage of Ref. C eased the fiscal constraints on the state, and will allow CDOT to invest more money in our infrastructure. I'm even more glad that C funds CDOT in a measured way, as opposed to the windfall the agency would have received with D. Perhaps Tom Norton will understand the real meaning of the defeat of Ref. D, and finally recognize the need to prioritize highway spending on projects our citizens really need, instead of wasting our money on unnecessary projects that only benefit developers.

Longtime Golden resident Tom Atkins chairs the board of Citizens Involved in the Northwest Quadrant, a grassroots group that supports the improvement of existing roadways rather than building the Northwest Corridor superhighway.

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