To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Kristin Zagurski, Assistant Town Manager
Title
Update: Legislative Update
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
The 2019 regular session of the Colorado General Assembly is about one-quarter through. With assistance from the Colorado Municipal League (CML) and other sources, staff monitors legislative activity that is of municipal interest during each year’s legislative session.
Staff does not take a position on any legislation unless so directed by Council. Staff presents summaries of potential bills of interest below for Council information. If Council is interested in additional information on any of these - or any other - bills, staff will provide such information in a future update.
Transportation Funding Bill
Senate Bill 51 would increase the amount of transportation funds appropriated under 2018’s Senate Bill 1 from $150 million to $340 million. The bill would increase the State’s Highway User Tax Fee (HUTF) portion for transportation funding from $105 million to $266 million and the local government HUTF allotment from $22.5 million to $51 million. The bill would not increase funding for multimodal infrastructure improvements, which are also provided for via SB 1. CML is supporting SB 51.
Councilman Teal is Council’s representative on CML’s Policy Committee. Following the February 15 Policy Committee meeting, Councilman Teal expressed interest in Council taking a support position on SB 51. The draft letter to the Douglas County legislative delegation attached to this memo provides the opportunity for Council to take that action as desired.
Regulation of E-Scooters
Councilman Teal believed Council may be interested in the following information from CML with regard to the regulation of e-scooters:
“Since late last spring, a number of e-scooter start-up companies have begun operating in the City of Denver, providing both an innovative last-mile transportation service and countless regulatory challenges for the municipality. Currently, under State law, scooters are treated as toy vehicles and are required to operate on municipal sidewalks.
This has created a conflict with Denver’s recently passed ordinance that is designed to treat them like bicycles. The e-scooter industry has recently circulated a draft bill aimed at updating Colorado’s statutes to treat e-scooters like bikes and e-bikes. CML has been open to this proposal, as long as the bill contains expressed statutory authority for municipalities to regulate e-scooters within their jurisdictions.
Although the e-scooter industry has acknowledged the right of municipalities to regulate e-scooters within their communities, so far they have been unwilling to include any statutory authority in their bill to do so.”
Per its Policy Committee’s direction, CML will be opposing any e-scooter legislation that does not expressly allow municipalities to regulate their use.
Attachment
Attachment A: Draft Letter to Douglas County Legislative Delegation