Pubdate: Fri, 15 Jul 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Aguilar

POT SALES COULD HELP FUND $7M CIVIC CENTER

EDGEWATER - This may not be the city that cannabis built, but 
Colorado's most famous cash crop could soon be the driving force 
behind construction of a $7 million, 40,000-square-foot civic center 
in this tiny community wedged between Lakewood and Denver.

Edgewater is exploring using sales tax revenue from marijuana sales 
to cover more than half the cost - $4 million - of building a 
facility that will house a new city hall, police station, fitness 
center and library. It's a project that likely wouldn't move forward 
- - at least not for years - absent the tax remittances made by the 
city's halfdozen pot shops. The city expects to collect north of $1.2 
million in sales tax revenues from pot in 2016.

"There is no way we could have gotten the civic center together as 
quickly as we have without the retail marijuana revenue," Edgewater 
Mayor Kristian Teegardin said Thursday. "Having that retail sales tax 
from marijuana definitely sped up the process." It's not the first 
example in Colorado of a community using cannabis tax revenues for 
public infrastructure improvements or public programs. Adams County 
devoted more than half a million dollars in sales tax money from 
recreational pot sales to fund scholarships for 50 low-income 
students, while Aurora is dedicating $1.5 million in pot revenues to 
helping the homeless and Pueblo West is putting $200,000 toward street repairs.

But it may be the most powerfully symbolic. The new facility at 19th 
Avenue and Harlan Street would represent the very civic identity of 
Edgewater, a placid city of 5,300 across Sheridan Boulevard from Sloan's Lake.

Mark Slaugh, executive director of the Cannabis Business Alliance, 
said Edgewater's welcoming approach to the recreational marijuana 
industry since it was legalized statewide nearly four years ago has 
been "pretty advanced, pretty progressive." And now the city and its 
residents, who voted in favor of Amendment 64 in 2012 by a 73 percent 
majority, are reaping the benefits.

"They're going to help get kids off the streets. They're going to 
help kids get educated at the library," Slaugh said.

Already the city has used $3 million from both medical and 
recreational pot sales to repave all 12 miles of its streets and fix 
miles of sidewalks as well. City Manager HJ Stalf said cannabis 
revenues essentially cut in half the time needed to do the repairs 
compared to the budget before pot was legalized.

"I had thought about using green asphalt," he joked.

The civic center plan must still go before voters this November 
because the city proposes to build the facility on land currently 
occupied by an under-utilized park. If it gets voter approval, a 
ground-breaking would occur next summer with completion of the 
building in 2018, Stalf said.

Edgewater could save up to $100,000 a year in maintenance costs 
keeping its government facilities going in various locations 
throughout the city, Stalf said. It could also generate millions of 
dollars selling off those properties and getting them back on the tax 
rolls as private businesses.

"We spend a lot of money keeping all these systems running in 
buildings that are 30 to 100 years old," he said.

Stalf said the advantages of a civic center will be immediately 
apparent to the community. Currently, the city's police force is 
jammed into a leased single-story brick building on West 25th Avenue 
that Stalf said the city is "embarrassed by."

Edgewater's library would grow in size by a factor of 10, moving from 
a 1,000-square-foot space to a 10,000-square-foot section of the new 
center. And the city's one-room recreation program would blossom into 
a 14,000-square-foot fitness center at its new location, with a 
workout room, basketball court and upper-level running track.

Frank McNulty, Colorado's former speaker of the House who was 
recently part of an effort to push forward a ballot measure that 
would have placed strict THC limits on the state's recreational 
marijuana industry, said Edgewater can do what it wants with its 
cannabis revenues.

But he said the industry shouldn't "disguise and distract" from the 
social harms it is causing by pointing to the tax collections it 
generates. Whether that's increased crime on the 16th Street Mall 
that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock attributed in part to legal 
marijuana or reports of elevated levels of THC in babies' blood from 
mothers who use the drug, McNulty said "the marijuana industry can't 
buy its way out of the negative impacts it has on society."

Erika Lindenauer, store manager for Northern Lights, said her shop 
and the five others in Edgewater have caused no trouble for police in 
the city. She said it's "nice" to see money generated from the sale 
of cannabis "go into something beneficial for the community," like a 
civic center.

"It shows our head and hearts are in the right place," said 
Lindenauer, as a steady stream of customers entered her shop midday 
Thursday. "We're not just cashing in - it shows marijuana dollars can 
be used for a good thing."

Stalf said the marijuana sales tax revenues are coming at a time when 
Edgewater is being "discovered," with younger families moving in and 
rejuvenating the look and feel of the city, which incorporated in 1901.

Teegardin, the mayor, said having a signature civic facility could 
open a new chapter for the city.

"This turns a major corner for Edgewater, and not only for Edgewater, 
but for the surrounding area," he said. "It's a big cornerstone for 
the next generation."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom