Douglas County Republicans oppose limiting debate on bills

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Democrats invoke Rule 14

Colorado state Rep. Brandi Bradley had strong feelings about recent actions taken by Democrats to limit debate and discussion over controversial gun bills in the 2023 legislative session.

During a town hall in Castle Rock on March 29, Bradley, a Republican from the area south of Highlands Ranch who represents House District 39, joined fellow Douglas County state Reps. Lisa Frizell, RCastle Rock, and Anthony Hartsook, R-Parker, to talk about the current session and issues they have with how Democrats, who hold the supermajority in the House, are silencing their voices.

After hours of debate had arleady taken place, on March 24, House Majority Leader Monica Duran, DWheat Ridge, moved to limit debate to one more hour for Senate Bill 169, which, if approved, will make it easier to sue gun manufacturers and sellers, and Senate Bill 170, which would expand the controversial red ag law. e vote, which falls under Colorado House Rule 14, passed 39-19, with all Republicans voting against it.

According to the Colorado General Assembly, the legislature’s rules allow the majority party to limit discussion whenever they want. In this case, Democrats hold a supermajority in the House with 46 Democrats vs. 19 total Republicans.

Bradley told several dozen Douglas County residents that when Republicans have been in power, they have not invoked Rule 14. “ is is a problem. is should not be a party issue,” Bradley said. “And I appeal to the Democrats. What if Republicans got up there and stripped abortion rights. eir precious abortion rights. Do you think that they would say, ‘Yeah, we are only going to take 10 hours’? ey would not do it. is is not a party issue. is is wrong to limit our ability to speak for all of you.”

Frizell said despite losing the ability to debate and ght a bill, Republicans have not quit. Delay tactics now include requiring the bill to be read multiple times.

“Our strategy at this point is to drag this out as long as possible,” Frizell said. “ ey are going to keep invoking (Rule 14) and our response to that is to keep reading the bill out loud and sometimes twice. at will back the calendar up. We are up libustering on every bill. We are going to go after them. at is why we are there so much. We are slowing things down.”

Reading an entire bill at length multiple times is not considered debate, which means the amount of time to read the bill in its entirety does not count.

Frizell, in her rst term, said Democrats had to take the extreme action to limit discussion because Democrats have more than 600 bills on deck this year and only 120 days to push them through. Halting opposing voices allows Democrats to continue to push through bills aimed at limiting parental rights, property rights and other rights, Frizell said.

Bradley said at the current rate, Democrats are trying to push through one bill per hour, every day.

“ ey are angry that we are holding things up to speak our truth,” she said.

In a statement from state Rep. Robert Marshall, D-Highlands Ranch, Rule 14 was only invoked after the GOP broke two agreements to limit debate. Marshall is the only elected Democrat from Douglas County.

“ e GOP was using debate simply to kill time in a legislature, that, by law, can only sit for 120 days,” he said in the March 25 statement.

“ is was not legitimate debate to convince the majority that a bill should be amended, changed or rejected. After 18 wasted work hours and multiple broken agreements, this was a legitimate invocation for Rule 14.”

Even with the Democrats’ motion to limit discussion, according to a Colorado Sun report, total debate for Senate Bill 170 lasted about nine hours, and Senate Bill 168 continued for about 10 hours.

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Do you have hazardous waste from a painting project, old oil from your car’s maintenance, or other waste from your recent DIY project? This curbside service is available to Douglas County residents for $30. For details call 1-800-4497587 or visit douglas.co.us and search Household Waste Management

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You can help keep your community healthy. The Douglas County Health Department investigates communicable diseases. You can help by reporting infectious diseases along with animal bites that break the skin. To report, visit douglas.co.us and search Health Department school districts, re and library districts, and other local entities. Property taxes pay for Douglas County sheri ’s deputies, omas noted.

Even when tax rates themselves aren’t increasing, the amount that homeowners owe increases as the value of homes rises. e state legislature could intervene to cap the increase, but Colorado lawmakers face a delicate balancing act: A cap that’s too high could squeeze families’ nances in a tough economic time. But a cap set too low could force local governments to make cuts to services.

Douglas County o cials want to be reasonable and not see citizens “overtaxed,” omas said.

But “I don’t want to have to lay people o because we can’t pay them,” she added.

State in the mix

Rising property values are a problem statewide, not just in the Denver metro area, said omas, who has heard input from other counties.

To address the issue, state Rep. Lisa Frizell, R-Castle Roack, pushed a bill in the legislature that initially proposed a 5% cap on increasing residential property values between 2022 and 2025. Frizell later amended that to a proposed 10% cap after hearing feedback from rural counties.

Her bill met defeat in a committee — before reaching a full vote in the state House — in early March.

One Democrat voted for her bill, which failed 6-5, Frizell said, but that doesn’t mean the conversation is over.

“Uno cially, I was told that (lawmakers) were discouraged by leadership to vote for it,” said Frizell, adding that Democrats are anticipating a plan from the governor’s o ce and “didn’t want the distraction.”

Local o cials as of late March were waiting to hear what Democrats may propose, and a percentage for a possible cap isn’t clear yet, according to omas and Frizell.

A cap as low as 3%, for example, would pose problems for Douglas County’s budget, county o cials said.

“Local government revenues need to keep up with, at minimum, in ation in order to keep the lights on,” Frizell noted.

Local action in Douglas

If the state doesn’t take action, Douglas County may reduce residents’ tax bills on its own.

If property values increase around 50%, “we will do a temporary mill levy credit like we have done ve of the last seven years that I’ve been a commissioner,” omas said.

e county has authorized such credits in 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, e ectively lowering county revenue by $30 million.

But omas hopes the state will step in. e budget that Douglas County o cials wrote for 2024 was based on expecting a 9% residential property value increase, she said.

“I would like to see us be able to in uence (a legislature) bill to cap that property tax increase 7% to 10%, somewhere in there,” omas said.

(For example, if a home was valued at $500,000, with a 10% increase, its value would rise to $550,000 for 2024 tax purposes.)

If Colorado lawmakers pass a cap lower than that, the county services that could be a ected aren’t yet clear.

omas and her fellow commissioners haven’t had a conversation about that, so “I can’t even begin to guess what we would do,” omas said.

How property value assessments work

It’s the job of county assessors’ o ces to establish accurate values of homes and other properties to determine how much property own- ers will owe government entities in taxes — a process meant to ensure that the amount of taxes people pay is fair and equitable. at search function shows how the taxes are divided among each government entity based on the “mills” charged. Property tax rates are o cially called “mill levies.”

( e assessor doesn’t set the tax rate but determines the value of the property that the tax rate then gets e law requires the assessor to value properties every two years in June, so the property valuation homeowners will soon receive is based on June 2022 data, near the recent peak in the real estate market, omas said. So even though home prices have declined since then, property values determined by the assessor’s o ce re ect last year’s exceptional highs.

Since the start of 2010 — when the median single-family home price in metro Denver was about $200,000 — the median price had roughly tripled, according to a report by the Colorado Association of Realtors based on data as of August. Statewide, it had tripled as well, according to the association.

Homeowners can see the breakdown of the property taxes they owe by typing in their address in a large search bar near the top of the Douglas County assessor’s webpage at douglas.co.us/assessor.

One “mill” is equal to one thousandth of a dollar. Generally, property taxes are calculated using a formula that involves mills — the tax rate — and the property value.

Living within a metropolitan district, such as Highlands Ranch, can make a big di erence in a home’s total property taxes, omas said. Metro districts are a type of government entity that can o er some government services.

A complex background

Part of why property taxes can rise so relatively high is that Colorado voters recently repealed the Gallagher Amendment, omas noted.

A state constitutional amendment, Gallagher prevented residential property tax bills from quickly rising by shifting the tax burden to commercial property owners through assessment rates, which help determine how much property owners pay in taxes, the Colorado Sun reported.

But Gallagher collided with another constitutional amendment, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, in a way that had hamstrung government entities that rely on property tax revenue, the Sun reported.

See more on that at tinyurl.com/ SunGallagherExplain.

Nationally, Colorado has relatively low residential property taxes, according to an analysis by the conservative Tax Foundation. Colorado ranked 47th in property taxes paid as a percentage of owner-occupied housing value in 2020, according to the foundation.

And while businesses pay more, their taxes still appear to be lower than the national average, according to the Colorado Sun. Colorado had the 17th best “State Business Tax Climate” for 2020, according to the Tax Foundation. Colorado had the 14th best “property tax rank” for businesses in 2020, according to the foundation.

storage facility owned and operated by the Parker Water and Sanitation District, the entity that provides drinking water to much of Parker and some nearby areas. But Rueter-Hess also serves as a recreation spot for residents in a part of the Denver metro area where the terrain starts to become more rural.

The county describes the reservoir as a place for “history buffs, day hikers, dog walkers, water-sport enthusiasts, and local anthropologists alike,” the county website says.

Long time in the making The reservoir stands as a relatively new feature of the area. From the 1990s through 2012, the planning and construction of the reservoir occurred, according to Knopp.

And in 2015, partners formed the Rueter-Hess Recreation Authority and began planning for recreation at the reservoir, Knopp said.

The partners — Parker Water, the Cities of Castle Pines and Lone Tree, the Towns of Castle Rock and Parker, and the county — later started working on a new agreement in 2022 to name the county as the managing jurisdiction for recreation at the reservoir.

With Douglas County at the helm, the new structure is expected to fill a need for staff to oversee recreation.

“The absence of dedicated staff made it difficult to move forward on program implementation,” county staff said in a statement through a spokesperson.

After approving the new agreement, “we will hire the necessary staff to deliver recreation and maintenance” for the reservoir area, Knopp told county commissioners at their March 28 meeting. Staff will be funded with money the partners contribute, Knopp said.

County commissioners voted to approve the new agreement at the meeting.

Recent additions

The partner local governments share the goal of expanding access to recreation at the reservoir while not harming the water quality, Knopp said.

“This summer, the county is increasing access to paddleboarding, canoeing, kayaking to four days per week,” Knopp said. “In the coming years, the county and its partners look forward to providing even more access.”

Recreation at the reservoir has been steadily expanding. In 2017, public access began with guided hikes and paddle days on the reservoir, a county staff report says. The incline and Newlin Gulch Trail opened in 2020. The trail system expanded to 6 1/2 miles of natural surface trails in 2022 with the completion of the Coyote Loop Trail. The incline features 132 steps, and the Rosie Rueter Trail loop that leads to and from the parking lot is just over a mile long, the Rueter-Hess recreation website says.

Last year, 64,000 people used the trail system, and about 1,500 people participated in paddle days, the county staff report says.

The county and its partners are working on a plan to include fishing once they clear procedural hurdles.

“Parker Water and Sanitation — as the owner of the water — must first authorize fishing, and they are currently working with the state on licensing,” county staff said in the statement.

Along the way to building the reservoir, the land was the site of archaeological intrigue. Artifacts uncovered at the reservoir site within the last couple decades provided insight into civilizations of paleo-Indians and hunter-gatherers who lived in the area thousands of years ago, Colorado Community Media reported previously.

How funding works

The partner governments have been funding and will continue to fund recreation at the reservoir area, Knopp said at the meeting.

Annually, the partners contribute $870,000 toward recreation, the county staff report says.

Under the new agreement, the Rueter-Hess Recreation Authority — the body that includes Parker Water, Castle Rock, Parker, Castle Pines, Lone Tree and Douglas County — gets restructured into an advisory board rather than a managing entity.

Moving forward, the advisory board will make recommendations to the Douglas County commissioners about recreation planning and budgeting, and the county will carry out the plans and manage the budget. Designating the county as the managing jurisdiction for recreation at the reservoir allows for a “streamlined process” for decision making, county staff said in the statement.

“Under an ‘authority’ structure, associated accounting and legal overhead was required,” the statement said. The new structure allows the partners’ investment to go directly into operations and recreational access, the statement adds.

“The funding is $870,000 annually from the partners (and) remains the same” as part of the agreement, the statement said.

The payment amounts are $250,000 from Douglas County, $210,000 from Castle Rock, $210,000 from Parker, $100,000 from Castle Pines and $100,000 from Lone Tree.

In addition to the annual funding, the recreation authority will transfer about a $2 million recreation fund to the county, Knopp said. Those funds will support major maintenance and improvement projects. The county will also receive “fixed assets” that are valued at about $2 million, she said.