Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's talk to my friend Dustin Savonik. Dustin used to
be an Auror City councilman. Now he is principal at
seventy six group, and he's wants to tell us about
a couple of proposed ballot measures. I assume but Justin
will tell us because I could easily be wrong that
maybe only one of them will be on the ballot.
But I could be wrong. How I'm thinking about this,
it is the concept here is a little bit strange,
(00:23):
not that the idea is weird, but the idea that
a ballot measure like this might be necessary. Because basically,
what the ballot measures say is if you tell us
you're going to tax us or fee us in order
to get money to spend on a particular thing, then
spend the money on that thing.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hi, Dustin, Harry, how are you doing? Good? Good?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So elaborate please? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
No, So I'm going to start doing it by answering
that the first question sounds like you had only one
of them would end up moving forward. The difference between
the two is simply one has a sunset for ten years.
As I'm sure that you and a lot of your
listeners are aware of Colorado, is a state that often
uses the sunset provision, and so there's a lot of
there's there's good arguments to be made for having a
(01:11):
sense to end not but ultimately a decision that we've
made to move forward with one or the other at
the heart of the two measures. And I think you
hit the nail on the head and just scred like this.
It seems weird that we'd have to do this, but
the fact of the matter is we do. And what
the measures would do is it would require the legislature,
(01:31):
this legislature and future and governors to actually use the
money that we collect on the sales and use tax
for the sale of automobiles, on car parts, delivery fees,
all the things that over the years, you know, we've
been promised that these fees, these taxes, we're going to
go towards roads, but of course they don't. And whenever
(01:53):
the state needs to look for, you know, more money
to put into two new programs, expanding medicaid to what
ever it is, it tends to come at the expense
of roads. And the effect of that is that we
have terrible roads. I mean, if it doesn't take an
engineer or rocket scientists to know that whether you live
in the urban areas around Denver Front Range area or
(02:16):
if you're out in the rural parts of our state
where our rural roads are have been rated forty seventh
in the country, which again not a flattering score for
our state. So we what these measures would do is
it would say that the money that we're collected towards
these must go towards our roads. And the fact is
this isn't a novel concept. And you're probably familiar with
(02:39):
Amendment twenty three, which was passed many years ago, and
these were advocates for education funding said hey, we want
to see a percent this percentage plus the growth of
the state budget go towards education every year. So what
we're doing is now making an intentional effort to force
discipline on this legislature, future legislatures, and the governor to
(03:04):
invest in our roads since they haven't been able to
do it on their own.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
All Right, So I'm looking at the text of the measure,
and folks, you can find all this at Rosscomminsky dot com.
I've got links to these ballot measures and we've got
about just three and a half minutes here, Dustin. So
it says state revenue collected to support road transportation means
all state sales and use or xise taxes, tolls or
fees imposed on motor vehicles and motor vehicle fuel, as
(03:30):
well as taxes imposed on vehicle rides and retail deliveries.
So that's stupid. Whatever it is now twenty eight cents
or whatever the number is these days, two thirds of
sales and use tax collected on vehicle parts, equipment, materials,
and accessories federal funds, including grants from federal transportation agencies.
I'm shortening it here. So is that your definition or
(03:52):
is that the definition already in law of state revenue
collected to support road transportation?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It is the definition that is in state law. But
what these measures would do is put in our constitution
so that there can't be any question about what we're
we're talking about. When we're saying that that money must
go towards roads. They can't try to because we've seen
this in the past where they reclassify certain things and say, well,
this doesn't actually count toward it. So we're taking everything
(04:21):
that is currently defined and putting it in the constitution
so that it can't be just changed really nilly by
the legislature which we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I thought it was interesting and intentional that you consistently
use road transportation rather than just transportation. Is that in
order to make sure that you that that leftists don't
take this money and go spend it on light rail
and bike lanes?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That is that is exactly right. We don't want to
see more light rail than bike lane things that we
know that where it's popular for, you know, the controlling
party in our state to invest our transportation dollars. We
want this to go into roads bridges that have for
years been neglected and underfunded, and so that was very
intentional to make pit sure that those fonds are going there.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
It has been pretty incredible, actually, So I've lived in
Colorado for a little over twenty years, and obviously there
was a lot of growth before then too, but there's
been insane growth in the last twenty years. And it
has always seemed to me, I'm talking about for years,
well before I was ever on the radio and anything
like that, that they're taking in all this money, and
it's obvious that the population is growing every year, growing
(05:34):
a lot. We were one of the fastest growing states
for many years and almost nothing was spent on road improvements.
Almost nothing was spent on on I twenty five. Eventually
they did some toll lanes here and there, but it
seems like, you know, I'm president of the bad analogy Club, Dustin,
so I'm going to give you one. So what it
reminds me of a little bit is those those many
(05:56):
years where at the federal government level they ran a
Social Security surplus and they stole the money and put
in these useless bonds, but basically they stole the money
to go spend it on other things, so the money
is not actually available for Social Security. And this kind
of feels like a similar bait and switch to me
for years and years and years.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, that's exactly what happened.
And looking part of it is because when there are
tough times economically and the state has to make tough decisions,
they always find it easier to cut from roads because
the other things that they would have to potentially cut
there are advoacy groups that will come and you know,
tuget their heart strings, and it's easier to tuget people's
(06:39):
heart strings over things like education and healthcare and other
social services as opposed to roads. But the fact is
that doing that consistently year after year, and I saw
this as a you know, the city councilman. The same
thing happened to Arara. Our roads, our neighborhood roads had
been neglected for years and years, and I came up
with a plan that would fund our neighborhood roads without
(06:59):
raid in taxes, simply by prioritizing the money that we
are already collecting. And so that's that's the other key
thing with these measures. This isn't new money. This is
money that we call out of taxpayers are already paying
through our taxes, through fees that's supposed to go to roads.
There's not, and this would force the legislature to spend
those dollars to improve our roads going forward.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's Dustin z Ivonak, he is principal at seventy six group,
former Aroro City councilmen as well, talking about a couple
of ballot measures that are currently numbered one twenty five
and one twenty six, only one of which will be
on the ballot that would aim to force state government
to spend taxes and fees that are collected for road
transportation to actually be spent there. We'll keep in touch Dustin's,
(07:43):
you know, as you make progress getting this actually onto
the ballot, deciding what's going to be on the ballot,
and we'll keep the issue in front of listeners.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I appreciate it. Thanks for the time this morning. Ros
all right,
Let's talk to my friend Dustin Savonik. Dustin used to
be an Auror City councilman. Now he is principal at
seventy six group, and he's wants to tell us about
a couple of proposed ballot measures. I assume but Justin
will tell us because I could easily be wrong that
maybe only one of them will be on the ballot.
But I could be wrong. How I'm thinking about this,
it is the concept here is a little bit strange,
(00:23):
not that the idea is weird, but the idea that
a ballot measure like this might be necessary. Because basically,
what the ballot measures say is if you tell us
you're going to tax us or fee us in order
to get money to spend on a particular thing, then
spend the money on that thing.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hi, Dustin, Harry, how are you doing? Good? Good?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So elaborate please? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
No, So I'm going to start doing it by answering
that the first question sounds like you had only one
of them would end up moving forward. The difference between
the two is simply one has a sunset for ten years.
As I'm sure that you and a lot of your
listeners are aware of Colorado, is a state that often
uses the sunset provision, and so there's a lot of
there's there's good arguments to be made for having a
(01:11):
sense to end not but ultimately a decision that we've
made to move forward with one or the other at
the heart of the two measures. And I think you
hit the nail on the head and just scred like this.
It seems weird that we'd have to do this, but
the fact of the matter is we do. And what
the measures would do is it would require the legislature,
(01:31):
this legislature and future and governors to actually use the
money that we collect on the sales and use tax
for the sale of automobiles, on car parts, delivery fees,
all the things that over the years, you know, we've
been promised that these fees, these taxes, we're going to
go towards roads, but of course they don't. And whenever
(01:53):
the state needs to look for, you know, more money
to put into two new programs, expanding medicaid to what
ever it is, it tends to come at the expense
of roads. And the effect of that is that we
have terrible roads. I mean, if it doesn't take an
engineer or rocket scientists to know that whether you live
in the urban areas around Denver Front Range area or
(02:16):
if you're out in the rural parts of our state
where our rural roads are have been rated forty seventh
in the country, which again not a flattering score for
our state. So we what these measures would do is
it would say that the money that we're collected towards
these must go towards our roads. And the fact is
this isn't a novel concept. And you're probably familiar with
(02:39):
Amendment twenty three, which was passed many years ago, and
these were advocates for education funding said hey, we want
to see a percent this percentage plus the growth of
the state budget go towards education every year. So what
we're doing is now making an intentional effort to force
discipline on this legislature, future legislatures, and the governor to
(03:04):
invest in our roads since they haven't been able to
do it on their own.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
All Right, So I'm looking at the text of the measure,
and folks, you can find all this at Rosscomminsky dot com.
I've got links to these ballot measures and we've got
about just three and a half minutes here, Dustin. So
it says state revenue collected to support road transportation means
all state sales and use or xise taxes, tolls or
fees imposed on motor vehicles and motor vehicle fuel, as
(03:30):
well as taxes imposed on vehicle rides and retail deliveries.
So that's stupid. Whatever it is now twenty eight cents
or whatever the number is these days, two thirds of
sales and use tax collected on vehicle parts, equipment, materials,
and accessories federal funds, including grants from federal transportation agencies.
I'm shortening it here. So is that your definition or
(03:52):
is that the definition already in law of state revenue
collected to support road transportation?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It is the definition that is in state law. But
what these measures would do is put in our constitution
so that there can't be any question about what we're
we're talking about. When we're saying that that money must
go towards roads. They can't try to because we've seen
this in the past where they reclassify certain things and say, well,
this doesn't actually count toward it. So we're taking everything
(04:21):
that is currently defined and putting it in the constitution
so that it can't be just changed really nilly by
the legislature which we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I thought it was interesting and intentional that you consistently
use road transportation rather than just transportation. Is that in
order to make sure that you that that leftists don't
take this money and go spend it on light rail
and bike lanes?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That is that is exactly right. We don't want to
see more light rail than bike lane things that we
know that where it's popular for, you know, the controlling
party in our state to invest our transportation dollars. We
want this to go into roads bridges that have for
years been neglected and underfunded, and so that was very
intentional to make pit sure that those fonds are going there.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
It has been pretty incredible, actually, So I've lived in
Colorado for a little over twenty years, and obviously there
was a lot of growth before then too, but there's
been insane growth in the last twenty years. And it
has always seemed to me, I'm talking about for years,
well before I was ever on the radio and anything
like that, that they're taking in all this money, and
it's obvious that the population is growing every year, growing
(05:34):
a lot. We were one of the fastest growing states
for many years and almost nothing was spent on road improvements.
Almost nothing was spent on on I twenty five. Eventually
they did some toll lanes here and there, but it
seems like, you know, I'm president of the bad analogy Club, Dustin,
so I'm going to give you one. So what it
reminds me of a little bit is those those many
(05:56):
years where at the federal government level they ran a
Social Security surplus and they stole the money and put
in these useless bonds, but basically they stole the money
to go spend it on other things, so the money
is not actually available for Social Security. And this kind
of feels like a similar bait and switch to me
for years and years and years.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, that's exactly what happened.
And looking part of it is because when there are
tough times economically and the state has to make tough decisions,
they always find it easier to cut from roads because
the other things that they would have to potentially cut
there are advoacy groups that will come and you know,
tuget their heart strings, and it's easier to tuget people's
(06:39):
heart strings over things like education and healthcare and other
social services as opposed to roads. But the fact is
that doing that consistently year after year, and I saw
this as a you know, the city councilman. The same
thing happened to Arara. Our roads, our neighborhood roads had
been neglected for years and years, and I came up
with a plan that would fund our neighborhood roads without
(06:59):
raid in taxes, simply by prioritizing the money that we
are already collecting. And so that's that's the other key
thing with these measures. This isn't new money. This is
money that we call out of taxpayers are already paying
through our taxes, through fees that's supposed to go to roads.
There's not, and this would force the legislature to spend
those dollars to improve our roads going forward.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's Dustin z Ivonak, he is principal at seventy six group,
former Aroro City councilmen as well, talking about a couple
of ballot measures that are currently numbered one twenty five
and one twenty six, only one of which will be
on the ballot that would aim to force state government
to spend taxes and fees that are collected for road
transportation to actually be spent there. We'll keep in touch Dustin's,
(07:43):
you know, as you make progress getting this actually onto
the ballot, deciding what's going to be on the ballot,
and we'll keep the issue in front of listeners.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I appreciate it. Thanks for the time this morning. Ros
all right,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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