May 07, 2010 09:30 PM UTC

Bad News for Ellen Roberts

•  
• by: dmindgo

As reported in today’s Cortez Journal, Montezuma County voted against an increase in the property tax rate for the county hospital.  More disturbing, the voters rejected de-Brucing the hospital district as well.

The vote had a decent majority against even the de-Brucing.  From the Journal:

Voters on Tuesday shot down the Montezuma County Hospital District’s question to raise its mill levy from 0.761 mills to 3.5. Referendum 5A asked electors to allow the district to “deBruce,” which would have waived limits on property-tax collection. Referendum 5B dealt with approving or disapproving the mill-levy request.

Question 5A failed 53.2 percent to 46.7 percent. The final tally came in at 2,681 to 2,354. Referendum 5B was denied with further opposition, 57.3 percent to 42.6 percent. It’s vote total was 2,904 to 2,161.

The reason this should be disturbing for Roberts is this rejection of even de-brucing.  Montezuma, always a conservative county, seems to be going along with the tea partier line, voting down allowing the hospital district to even keep taxes at a rate already approved.  Since there will be a Republican primary for the State Senate nomination, she has no room to move to more progressive positions.  It will be interesting to follow the primary campaign this summer.  One good hope for her is, like most voters, the local newspapers will largely ignore the primary and not carry information for positions she may well take in order to compete.

Sadly for our representation, Roberts is between a rock and a hard place.  I will be interested in how the campaign develops.