Voters in Colorado Springs will decide on whether the Trails, Open Space and Parks sale tax (TOPS tax) is extended for 20 years. The TOPS tax is set to expire in 2025. If approved, the ballot measure would extend the sales tax until 2045.
As a city, parks funding hasn’t returned to what it was before the 2008 recession. It is often the first to get cut.
Extending the TOPS tax will help to keep our open spaces and trails well preserved.
It will not, however, bring back the funding the city had for parks before the recession.
The TOPS tax takes 0.1% of sales and use tax in Colorado Springs.
The Trails and Open Space Coalition is a nonprofit that advocated for the TOPS tax to pass in 1997.
Those at the coalition are on the working committee that makes recommendations on where the tax money is spent.
“You have to make an effort to not have a city that’s rooftops, from border to border, where you preserve these special places and open them up for recreation, like your Red Rocks, like your Blodgett Peak, like your parts of Ute Valley Park. There are so many things that are so special to people because they were saved with TOPS,” said Susan Davies, executive director at the Trails and Open Space Coalition.
If you want to vote 'yes' for 'no' on the TOPS tax, it is on the back of Colorado Spring's ballots.
Learn more about the Trails and Open Spaces Coalition.
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