Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Gov. Bill Owens has taken a firm stance in recent weeks to preserve funding for state highway construction and repair, and Colorado's transportation needs are likely to be on his mind when he comes to Steamboat Springs Saturday.

Owens will be here to meet the public and speak at the Lincoln Day dinner hosted by the Routt County Republicans at the Steamboat Springs Airport terminal.

The governor will meet guest at 5 p.m., followed by dinner at 6 p.m.

He will be joined by elected Routt County officials and state Sen. Jack Taylor, R-Steamboat Springs, and state Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park.

"The governor has been talking recently about education, transportation, growth and taxes," Deputy Press Secretary Amy Sampson said Thursday.

White, just beginning his freshman term in the House, said he's optimistic about a piece of affordable housing legislation he has authored. HB-1172 recently was passed out of committee.

He said he expects that it will go to the appropriations committee before a second reading in the House, perhaps as early as next week.

His bill would amend an existing statute dating to 1977 governing the activities of multi-jurisdictional housing authorities.

Essentially, White said, the bill would allow statutory housing authorities to take funding mechanisms for affordable housing to the voters. They would be able to formulate a plan drawing upon four main categories property taxes, development fees like excise taxes, sales taxes and head taxes on employees. But they wouldn't be allowed to assess more than 40 percent of their overall funding plan to any one of those four categories, White said. In that way, they would have to spread their impact over at least three of the four categories.

White said he hopes the legislation will solve a common complaint about measures to fund affordable housing that they unfairly impact a single segment.