Dear Editor,

It’s a darn shame! Shame on our elected state representatives KC Becker and Tammy Story, as well as our three Gilpin Commissioners, who have chosen not to marshal their forces to the benefit of Gilpin County residents. Gilpin County has been named the “hardest hit county in the US” due to the negative impacts of Covid-19. 

Just one example of their failure to represent us is Amendment 77 on the ballot for November. Amendment 77 allows for higher or unlimited stakes gambling to occur. I support allowing higher or unlimited stake gambling, BUT the current law allows for 78% of the resulting gambling tax revenue to be given over to the state’s public community colleges, junior colleges and local district colleges, none of which are located or operate in Gilpin County. That means the small remaining 22% tax revenue is divided between Gilpin County, Black Hawk and Central City. Even though this Amendment was put forward by proponents of the initiative, if our elected officials would have been looking out for our interests in Gilpin, they would have done everything possible to get Amendment 77 amended to provide a much higher share of this tax revenue sent to Gilpin, higher on the order of at least 50%. And they could have even supported that higher percentage coming to Gilpin for a temporary period of time, oh I don’t know… maybe three years (which is the same amount of time they think the hard working Gilpin residents should be able to afford to pay for all the various increases to mil levy’s they support, supposedly as a result of Covid-19). 

So let me understand this… Gilpin hardest hit, so these elected officials think that the people of this hardest hit county can and should pay higher combined mil levy taxes for services, while the state’s named education entities will profit even more from efforts we expend in Gilpin to support the casinos and all the services (and challenges) the casinos bring to Gilpin? Such a darn shame these elected officials ‘elected’ to not support us! I hope everyone remembers this lack of representation at the vote this November, and whenever these specific elected officials may ask for our support in future years.

A dismayed resident,

Jan Doell
Gilpin County