Mayor Mike Johnston’s proposed sales-tax hike for affordable housing came across as half baked, at best, when it debuted a month ago. A lot of its details seemed to be on the drawing board at the time and, overall, it was unclear exactly how the $100 million the half-cent tax is supposed to raise over 10 years would help fund 20,000 affordable-housing units.

With the Denver City Council scheduled to vote today on whether to place the proposal on this fall’s municipal ballot, the tax hike still seems poorly thought through and ill timed. And even some council members — as well as a former Denver mayor — feel the same way, as The Gazette reported last week.

Which reaffirms our editorial board’s view that the mayor’s proposal isn’t ready for prime time. We urge the council not to send it to voters.

It comes at a particularly bad time, too — since voters also will be asked to approve a .35% sales-tax hike on the same ballot to bail out Denver Health. The hospital saw $10 million in additional “uncompensated care” last year due to tens of thousands of hospital visits from immigrant patients from Latin America who entered the U.S. illegally and ended up in Denver.

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That measure shouldn’t be on the ballot, either. We oppose it, not because the city’s default hospital for indigent care doesn’t need the money, but because the Johnston administration’s reckless sanctuary policies on illegal immigration bear the blame for the hospital’s fiscal straits. Yet, the mayor wants to stick taxpayers with the tab once again.

That makes all the more of a case for nixing the mayor’s affordable-housing tax.

As the council voted tentatively last week to advance the tax hike to today’s final vote, members expressed strong misgivings.

“I’m really uncomfortable with the rushed nature of this,” District 5 Council member Amanda Sawyer told council colleagues before last week’s action.”I was really hoping I could vote yes on it, but this is not ready to go to the voters.”

There’s also the regressive nature of any sales tax hike, falling hardest on those of the most modest means.

As noted in The Gazette’s report last week, District 10 council member Chris Hinds wondered how the city can claim to help those in need with a tax that “hurts those who need (help) the most.”

And veteran council member Stacie Gilmore said the public hadn’t had enough of a chance to weigh in and ask questions.

“For the largest sales tax increase in the history of Denver, we were able to get through all who signed up in a little over half an hour,” Gilmore said. “If the voters knew what we were contemplating, we would have needed at least an hour courtesy public hearing to hear from all those affected. …There’s simply no time to do proper outreach.”

Meanwhile, political Titan and former Mayor Wellington Webb said last week the timing troubled him.

“I was surprised that Mayor Johnston, who has a lot of issues on his plate primarily around homelessness, did not delay it until the spring in order to get one of these issues passed,” Webb said. 

Sage words for mayor and council. They ought to pull the proposal from the table and rethink it.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board