Colorado's Tax-Free Holiday for Marijuana Sales; N.Y.C.’s Big Pre-K Enrollment Numbers
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Connecting state and local government leaders
Also: A big oil win in Sacramento and Phoenix electronic billboards target freeway shooter.
Here’s some of what we’ve been reading today …
DENVER, Colorado: For one-day, it’s gonna be like The Man never got involved in the weed business at all, kinda. Across the Centennial State next Wednesday, pot shops are being forced to hold a tax holiday, The Associated Press reports. That means shoppers will enjoy a windfall 10 percent off all purchases—say $20 off a $200 ounce of the recreational strain of their choice. (“Poochie Love,” anyone? It’s The Denver Post’s pick of the week.) How did this happen? Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, passed in 1992, requires officials to waive new tax collection when state tax revenues overall exceed projections. Voters approved a 25 percent tax on recreational weed when they legalized it in 2013. The tax money is supposed to go to education funding. But a booming economy in the state has generated higher tax revenue than expected, meaning weed taxes would have to be refunded—or not collected. In the first five months of 2014, the state made $25 million in tax revenue off pot sales. In the first five months of this year, the state made $44 million. Colorado’s 380 licensed pot shops are stocking their shelves with extra product for Wednesday’s tax-free sales event. [The Associated Press via The Cannabist / The Denver Post]
NEW YORK CITY, New York: Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new universal free preschool project has drawn 65,000 four-year-old enrollees in the nation’s largest city. That’s more than “all the public school students—in all grades—in either Washington, D.C., or Boston,” reports National Public Radio. The program will cost $400 million a year and will raise major logistical challenges. But it puts the city at the head of a movement educators have been pushing for years. [NPR]
SACRAMENTO, California: Democratic lawmakers in the Golden State caved on Wednesday in the face of an intense media campaign funded by the oil industry, saying they would drop a provision of a climate-change bill that sought to lower use of oil and gas in the state by 50 percent over the next 15 years, reports The Wall Street Journal. It was an historic proposal and it drew a Grade-A onslaught from the industry. Western States Petroleum Association ads blanketing the airwaves claimed residents would face fuel rationing and driving restrictions. State Senate Pro Tem Kevin de León, who co-authored the bill, said he lost the votes he needed to pass the bill by the end of session on Friday. “We could not cut through the million-dollar smokescreen created by a single special interest with a singular motive and a bottomless war chest,” he said, according to the Journal.
Gov. Jerry Brown vowed to act through his office to slash oil and gas consumption in the state. “Oil has won a skirmish, but they have lost the bigger battle,” he said. “Because I am more determined than ever to make our regulatory regime work for the people of California, cleaning up the air, reducing the petroleum [use] and creating the green jobs that are going to put hundreds of thousands of people to work.” [The Wall Street Journal]
PHOENIX, Arizona: Officials have added a “shooting tips” hotline telephone number to flashing freeway billboards along a stretch of Interstate 10 that passes through the heart of the city. It’s the latest response to what Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead is calling "domestic terrorism crimes.” Nine cars have been shot at over the last two weeks, and investigators have yet to net a suspect. Headlights and windows have been shattered but, so far at least, no one has been seriously injured. Milstead has brought in the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to help with the case. Authorities have deployed undercover detectives and members of the SWAT team and a gang task force. [The Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report]
NEWARK, New Jersey: Now tangled in the great troller net that is the Bridgegate scandal is the chief executive and two senior officials at United Airlines involving a special flight between Newark and Columbia, South Carolina. The New York Times reports:
The United States attorney for New Jersey has been investigating whether United, the nation’s third-largest airline, agreed to reinstate money-losing flights to the airport nearest the weekend home of the authority’s chairman, David Samson, in return for improvements the airline wanted at Newark Liberty International Airport, where it is the biggest carrier.
Samson resigned in 2014 after records revealed that aides to Gov. Chris Christie had worked with Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials to close lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge. According to allegations, the closures were payback meted out to a local mayor who declined to support Christie’s re-election. [The New York Times]
John Tomasic is a journalist based in Boulder, Colorado.
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