Projects on ‘C’ list still in the running for RTA $

       An anonymously attributed published statement that the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) probably won't fund any “C”-priority road projects is “totally unjustified,” according to Colorado Springs City Council and RTA board member Jerry Heimlicher.
       The statement, which appeared in a Cheyenne Edition article Jan. 7 and clearly references the “C” list, reads as follows: "A third group of projects, estimated to cost $60.514 million, probably will not be funded, officials said, because increasing costs for labor and materials over the course of a decade will exhaust the revenue stream before they can be started."
       The ballot issue approved by voters in the November election called for a 1 percent sales tax over a 10-year span to fund projects prioritized into “A,” “B” and “C” categories, with the “A's” to be fully funded before any “B's” are done and the “B's” before any “C's.”
       Asked about the newspaper statement, Heimlicher brought the matter up to the board for clarification at its Jan. 12 meeting. The board's understanding, separately corroborated by City Transportation Planner Craig Blewitt, is that if sales tax revenues stay at the relatively low level of recent years and construction costs don't skyrocket, there should be enough funding for the top two categories. If sales tax revenues come in higher than recent levels, some or all of the third category will get done.
       The statement by the anonymous “officials” “may have been correct based on current sales tax revenues, but no one knows how future revenues are going to fare,” said Heimlicher, whose district includes the Westside. “Nobody should be speculating before we've spent dollar one that we're not going to get to everything on the list.”

Westside Pioneer article