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Education lobbyist joins group fighting severance plan

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 6, 2008 at 9:30 p.m.

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The industry coalition fighting a proposal to boost state revenues from oil and gas drilling has added another heavy hitter.

Phil Fox, a longtime lobbyist in Colorado education and politics, will join a team that includes Dan Hopkins, who served as spokesman under former Gov. Bill Owens, and veteran political consultant Rick Reiter, who helped run the campaign to pass Referendum C in 2005.

The coalition is gearing up to fight a ballot initiative designed to raise more than $100 million for college scholarships and tens of millions of dollars more to address areas affected by energy development.

The proposal, backed by Gov. Bill Ritter, will ask voters to dump a property tax credit, unique to Colorado, that reduces what energy drillers pay the state in severance taxes - those taxes charged on minerals "severed" from the ground.

Fox spent 23 years at the Colorado Association of School Executives before retiring in 2006. In the early 1980s, he was an education policy adviser to Gov. Richard Lamm.

Sen. Jim Isgar, a Hesperus Democrat, has suggested that energy companies would fight local tax increases and bond issues if they could no longer deduct their property taxes from their severance tax bills. Such industry opposition could, in turn, hurt schools, fire districts and other local governments that depend on such funding, he says.

Asked if he would be pushing this view, Fox said only: "I guess I would say that we believe this (initiative) is going to have a detrimental effect on many public school districts."

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5048

Comments

  • May 7, 2008

    7:43 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    farsidefan writes:

    Headline is misleading it should read : Prostitute joins group fighting severence plan. They go where the money is.
    This looks like it is going to be one of those " Sky is falling ! " campaigns.

  • May 7, 2008

    8:20 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Logical writes:

    But, when you take a new job that pays more money, you are just making a living, right? He has a right to earn a living, and lobbying is his choice.

    Be glad there is a lobby fighting the plan. If taxes go up for the gas companies, we will pay higher heating and electric bills. Or have you not figured out that consumers (you and me) pay for increased costs (higher taxes) for business?

  • May 7, 2008

    8:51 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    farsidefan writes:

    Absolutely,
    We get it in the end no matter what happens. We pay one way or the other. I would prefer my money go to scholarships.

  • May 7, 2008

    11:01 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    farsidefan - likely very far from reality

  • May 8, 2008

    1:56 p.m.

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    DCPundit writes:

    Fox's participation is indeed curious, perhaps overkill ... but given what's at stake over the next few years, maybe it makes sense at the local level.

  • May 8, 2008

    2:48 p.m.

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    EmilyBailes writes:

    "DCP", whether this is a "local issue" or not, I trust that his decision to assist in this was based on larger issues. If you remember, Fox and his associates were solely responsible for pushing back on the initiative to legalize foreign establishment and control of gambling in local Colorado communities. God bless him for that. As a mother of three young children, and as a taxpayer, I'm just glad that he's with us on this. I've had enough of the shell games with our money.

    Emily Bailes