The issue of ‘incoming revenue’ may not be as great as what is already being spent, at the county level, on ‘outgoing revenue’ in taxpayer dollars being spent to track down, apprehend, prosecute and house in the county jail – minor offenders? How many dollars is this, Dan?

On a serious note this is about money. The cannabis supply has been pretty steady since the 1970sone and it’s not going anywhere any time soon. So, really this is merely a matter of where we want our money to go. Do we want to create hundreds of jobs and bring in billions or do we want to keep feeding the cartels and the violence that accompanies them? I believe the person above supports cartels! I support legalization and regulation!

I do hope that El Paso County and Colorado Springs use their local discretion and ban all retail sales in the county and city. Yeah, won’t stop the dopers but it won’t be as readily available either. I can picture high schoolers sitting outside dope shops and asking somebody going in to by for them – just like they do at liquor stores.

More tax revenues? At what price to our community? If the city and county would stop building more and more damn trails and spend the money on repairs we would be better served.

Better yet, redirect all of the gambling money to infrastructure instead of building more parks. My gosh, how many parks and trails do we need. If people want more parks and trails then get their butts out of the city and go live in the country instead of being cooped in an apartment on top of each other in the city limits.

Which brings forth the question, if we did know more, would we vote differently? In this case, this current ‘board’ working to go against a vote of state and county voters on the use of recreational marijuana – is that same board that just stated they would like to pull the $20.00 gas vouchers from those job seekers going through the Pikes Peak Work Force Center who need gas money for job interviews!

With 32,000 unemployed in the county – no real ‘primary’ jobs having been announced since the real economic director left (yes, some call center jobs) and local/national economist predicting a recession for 2013. it makes you wonder if we paid more attention to elected officials once elected – would we vote for them a second time? – if they are prone to with-holding $20.00 from one in need of a job as this constitutes some form of ‘wealth redistribution’? If I recall high school civics – it is those with jobs paying taxes that supports government – and pays Mrs. Lathen’s wages?

As a formality, the public will be allowed to speak. But, no discussion. Going back to the term limit issue of 2010, these same ‘discussions’ were relayed to us from the Commissioners in terms such as: “Our constituents have stated overwhelmingly they want us to be able to serve three terms.” When called upon to produce the ‘numbers’ or to provide evidence of ‘overwhelming numbers of emails stating this support, none were forthcoming.

A vote, forced by the people, came to a different conclusion: 167,490 said NO to the term limit extension (63.95%) which appears to be a direct contradiction of what the public was told, and asked to believe by the Commissioners. Without numbers to back up their statements – Commissioners comments ring hollow – and have proven to be inaccurate.

Which brings up the core issue. With Billions of dollars of backed up infrastructure needs to include stormwater (county wide) – deteriorated roads and bridges – unfunded liability in retirement and pension funds – all needing to be funded by the small number of about 638,000 people in the county, are issues as this rebuilding faith and trust in leadership – or giving us further need to say NO when critical funding issues come before the public? Needed funding that will impact the quality of life for all of us. This rather narrow-minded, automatic ban on recreational use will have absolutely no impact on the amount of marijuana consumed. We will just have to be more careful where we keep it and will not benefit from the taxes legal use would generate.

This is an instance where “redistribution of wealth” would serve some purpose?