By Susan de Castro McCann

Redstone Review Editor

LYONS – Sales tax revenues in Lyons are not only sagging behind this same period last year, they are also lagging behind municipalities in the rest of the county.

“At the Boulder County manager’s meeting in May someone asked a question about sales tax revenue and the other communities all said that they were seeing sales tax revenues go up,” said Victoria Simonsen, Lyons town administrator. “But ours have not gone up. The other communities were Boulder, Longmont, Louisville and Lafayette. I think that our sales tax revenues are down due to our Main Street being shut down for so long.”

The town board heard a dismal report in July from Jody McClurkin, town finance director, on revenues and expenses for the year-to-date through May. Sales tax revenue figures come from Boulder County and are reported two months behind. Sales tax revenues are down by $85,000 for the first six months based on the amount budgeted for 2010. “But if July and August sales taxes come in higher we could make up some of that,” said McClurkin. “Property tax revenues are down this year by $66,000 for Lyons. If the next six months (taxes) come in right on target (the amount budgeted for 2010) then the town will be down $145,800 (in taxes) at year’s end from what was budgeted in the 2010 budget. We are down 8.4 percent in sales tax revenues from this same time last year.” Revenues from traffic fines are also down.

McClurkin pointed out that the town started out this year with a budget deficit in the general fund of $261,000 when the budget was voted on last December. This is the difference between the revenues and the expenditures. The 2010 budget of $5.1 million was prepared by former town finance director, Janice Saeger and approved by the town board last December 14. The former town board cut the budget by almost $1 million from the 2009 budget.

The town board seem frustrated by the numbers presented and kept wanting to know a bottom line. “We have to come up with some options for this year,” said Mayor Julie Van Domelen referring to the potential deficits in some of the funds.

Trustee Kathy Carroll said, “I want to know if we are looking at a $145,000 deficit at year’s end or if we are looking at a $363,000 deficit at year’s end. We still have the $195,446 CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) grant to come in for the work on Main Street. So I think that this is a timing issue. I think that there are really only two areas where we are down, sales tax and property tax. I don’t think that this will be as far off as these charts show. When the budget was created we were looking a $65,000 deficit in the general fund, that is spending $65,000 more than we were taking in. I think that this is not as big a problem as it seems.”

McClurkin pointed out that, “We always do a mid-year budget adjustment so I will be preparing a revised budget for the town to approve. I will be recommending some places where the board could cut expenses.”

With less than half the year’s revenues reported it is difficult to know what the deficit will be at year’s end. For small businesses sales taxes are collected quarterly. Some businesses pay late, some businesses pay monthly. Comparing some figures to last year’s revenues and comparing some figures to the amount budgeted for this year was also confusing.

The town board decided to hold workshops an hour before each regular town board meeting to figure out ways to cut costs and balance the revenues in each fund.

Medical marijuana dispensaries are one of the potential new revenue sources that many communities including Lyons are examining to raise revenues for the community.

The state set July 1 as a deadline for medical marijuana dispensaries to qualify and comply with the state statutes. Administrator Simonsen told the town board that five of the seven dispensaries with a license qualified. Lyons Compassionate Care, owned by David Roush and located in the space behind Ma’s Pizza on Main Street, gave up its license and the business was purchased by D. Read Spear, who owns Rocky Mountain Indoor Gardens located at Lyons Village Central at the east end of Lyons on Main Street. Spear will call his new dispensary the Bud. Spear owns an umbrella company called Triple Action LLC. The Lyons Herbal Apothecary at the St. Vrain Pharmacy also gave up its license, which was never really started.

This leaves five medical marijuana shops in Lyons: Colorado Care and Wellness owned by Ed Bruder located at 138 E. Main St. in Lyons Village Central; Lyons Finest Confidential Care and Tumbleweeds General Store owned by Dan Ballard located at the east end of Lyons on Colorado Highway at 664071 Ute Hwy.; Headquarters Emporium and Dispensary owned by K. Evan Rude located at 310 Main St. near the corner at Fourth Avenue; Rocky Mountain Indoor Gardens LLC owned by Read Spear located at 138 E. Main St. in Lyons Village Central; and Lucky Farms owned by Shawn Welch, located at 1040 Fifth Ave. These five shops have qualified for the minimum requirements needed to stay in business after July 1. But they are not grandfathered in to the new state law and they must each file a 30-page application to the state and still must apply to the town for a license and pay all the license fees to the municipalities and the state.

“At the Colorado Municipal League conference we learned that one ounce of pharmaceutical-grade marijuana was selling for $400,” said Simonsen. The town of Lyons just voted in a new moratorium on licensing new medical marijuana dispensaries until July 1, 2011 or until the local and state licenses are in place.

In other matters the town appointed the Lyons prosecutor Kristin Brown as the municipal judge to replace Judge William Long, who died earlier this year. The town board told staff to begin a search for a new town prosecutor.

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