The Colorado Municipal League has listed seven key issues it plans to focus its lobbying efforts on in the upcoming 71st General Assembly, which begins Jan. 11, 2017.

In a Dec. 21 blog, Deputy Director Kevin Bommer noted that while the league does initiate some legislation to address issues on behalf of its 269 member cities and towns, most of its work is in reaction to bills introduced in the House and Senate.

The issues the league plans to focus on are transportation funding – shaping up as a top battle – along with allowing municipalities to use state public defenders to represent defendants and expanding restorative justice in municipal courts; and protecting local sales and use tax revenue.

In the area of marijuana regulations, the league plans to help initiate legislation creating an opt-in provision for private marijuana clubs and creating a statewide minimum definition of “open and public consumption.” The league also plans to support legislation that provides some revenue to local law enforcement to combat the marijuana grey and black markets. And the group will oppose legislation that changes compromises on local special excise taxation on marijuana and support an effort to bar counties from collecting a special sales tax from within a municipality without consultation and an intergovernmental agreement.

Other areas of focus will be protecting severance tax and federal mineral lease funds that help local, mostly rural, communities deal with the impacts of energy development; repealing the ban on municipalities offering broadband service where the private sector has not made it available; and ensuring downtown development authorities can function properly in the wake of proposed changes to urban renewal authority.