The district messed up big time, there is no doubt about that and no excuse. This council, however, also acted poorly. Instead of saying something like, “this isn’t what we are looking for, you have 30 days to fix it,” they immediately jumped to drafting yet another ordinance to strip funding from our children and teachers. All this on the heels of an election in which you, the voters, spoke quite loudly in favor of keeping the tax.
In several meetings, the council members spoke quite fiercely about sending this issue to the voters because that’s how democracy works, the people should have a voice, and it was the right thing to do to put it on the ballot. The people voted to maintain funding for our schools. The fact that we are once again here, having this same conversation, is ridiculous.
The issue now is how do they justify going against the will of the people for whom they claimed to have so much concern? There is also a contract in place, which was not breached as a cure was provided to them within the contractual window.
The MUCH bigger issue, in my opinion, comes down to government overreach. Every person in this community, no matter how you fall on this issue or any other, should be outraged at the council’s attempt to cut the tax directly following a vote.
They were elected to represent your interests, which they are clearly not doing. Moving forward in an attempt to strip the sales tax, voted on just over 3 months ago, is in direct violation of the spirit of our entire system of government. A few may agree with them. Many may, even. However, what happens when the city council changes and those you don’t agree with sit in their seats? Their blatant disregard and disrespect for the voices they seemingly cared so much about, only a few short months ago, is hypocrisy at its finest.
Let’s say they succeed and find a way to strip the tax. How can any contractor, organization, entity, or individual ever enter into a contract with the City of Woodland Park and trust that it will be honored and not broken at the whim of the council? The answer is they can’t. A precedent would be set for our city with potentially devastating consequences. This is bigger than the sales tax for our schools. This is a fundamental shift which cannot happen.
We need and deserve a city council concerned more about our city and what the people want, than an “anti-school board council,” which seems to be all we currently have. They have made it clear that they don’t care about the people’s voice, about our children, or about our teachers. They only care about hurting the school district. We deserve better.
Show up March 6th at their meeting and tell them so!
Nicole Waggoner
Woodland Park
