Third time is the charm; changes to half-cent sales tax spending pass despite strong opposition
Michael Logerwell
PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) – KRDO13 first reported this story in the summer of 2025. Since then, this specific ordinance has faced stiff opposition. It was voted down twice by the previous city council, but tonight that changed.
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Even tonight, when the ordinance passed 5-2, many still came out to speak in opposition:
“This is probably the biggest ordinance this year on the agenda. And yes, of course, we have [public] comments and everything. But this is rushed, and this is only the third time… the past council members are not on there.”
“I’m not in favor of it at all.”
“We’re going to really destroy relationships if we go down this road.”
What does this ordinance do?
The background paper produced by city staff writes that this ordinance, “expands the definition of ‘primary job’ and ‘capital improvement project’ and ‘project’ to include projects of economic significancewhich act as economic catalysts.”
For decades, the money collected by the city from the half-cent sales tax could only be used for primary jobs, like manufacturing. That money only had a narrow scope of use; it would lead to cash incentives being offered for businesses to build in Pueblo.
But now that scope has been expanded.
“The city of Pueblo turned over a new era tonight,” said Mayor Heather Graham, who has been a big supporter of this ordinance.
“This gives more tools in the toolbox to change the way the city has been doing economic development. You heard Councilor Hernandez say that the population of the public community has only risen by 8,000 over the last 20 years. That’s not a lot, ” said Mayor Graham. “So what we’ve been doing in the past has clearly not been working for us here in Pueblo.”
Some of those new tools are that the city can now use up to 15% of the total uncommitted budget from those half-cent tax funds to build up infrastructure in the form of a capital improvement project, help a small business start up to prevent people from spending money outside the city(economic leakage), or placemaking.
“Placemaking could be anything from the riverwalk to bringing in healthcare, veterinary services, something that’s going to attract other people to move to our community and spend their tax dollars here,” said Mayor Graham.
Read the full language of the ordinance here.
One of the bigger concerns mentioned was that this could violate TABOR, or the refunding of unspent tax money. It’s something that the city’s legal council disagreed with, saying that the council has made changes to the half-cent sales tax in the past and that power is written in the ballot language.