Even though Pueblo voters rejected ballot issue 1A on Nov. 7, the Pueblo County Jail remains a problem that simply won’t go away. At the last unofficial count, raising taxes to build a new county detention center went down by a vote of 18,920 against and 16,258 for – a nearly 2,700-vote defeat that likely would be repeated if the county tried to bring it back in a future election.

Voters balked at the $140 million to $150 million price tag and were not ready to add another 0.45 percent (nine-twentieths of 1 percent) to the county sales and use tax rate to pay for it over 30 years. Sympathy for the issue clearly did not catch on among the majority of voters during the campaign even though the need cried out for changing the deplorable, even dilapidated conditions at the existing jail in Downtown Pueblo.

Read more at The Pueblo Chieftain.