Summit County is an expensive place to live, and unfortunately, our local leaders keep adding unnecessary, burdensome costs to the equation. Whether it’s 20 years of “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) planning practices, which drive up housing costs, the lack of relief for soaring property taxes, or, most recently, the implementation of “pay as you throw, “which doubles trash service costs, these and other numerous actions have hastened the gentrification of the county. Low- and middle-income residents are being forced out and replaced by the ultra-wealthy.

The latest plan to extract more money from residents involves Commissioner Tamara Pogue and Colorado Counties Inc., a local government association that solicits pricey dues from member counties to collude on methods to further enrich county coffers. Commissioner Pogue and the association plan to lobby the state legislature for a bill granting county governments new taxing authority over “unincorporated” county residents. This authority includes new sales and use taxes, as well as excise taxes. Essentially, the approved bill could give Summit County the ability to propose increased prices for goods procured either directly or online within the “unincorporated” county. Local state-level representatives, Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie and Sen. Dylan Roberts, have already signed on to sponsor the bill.

As a Summit County Democratic party member, I talked to over 200 voters in March as I helped to gather signatures for more reasonable Democratic candidates. Unfortunately, we didn’t allocate enough time for the process and ultimately failed.

Have you had enough? I have.