Your ballot · November 3, 2026
Niwot appears on your ballot seven times.
This is a home rule incorporation, which means it is not one question. It is the yes/no, an election for the people who will write our charter, and the taxes that let a town do anything at all.
None of it is at the top of the ballot. State and county races come first, and the Niwot questions run further down the page than almost anyone expects — which is the single most important practical fact on this page.
A partial yes doesn’t work
If incorporation passes and the funding questions don’t, Niwot becomes a town that legally exists and can’t do anything: no money for roads, no staff, nobody with standing to negotiate on our behalf. It is the worst of the three possible outcomes, worse than a no, and it is reachable by someone who agrees with us and simply stopped marking a long ballot.
That means five of the seven items have to pass together. Vote it all the way down.
Question by question
What each one actually says.
Listed in the order the petition presents them. The county sets the final ballot order, and when it is certified we will match it here.
Incorporation
Has to pass for any of it to work
The question itself: whether Niwot incorporates as a home rule municipality. Everything else on this list follows from it — the charter commission that writes our rules, and the taxes that let the town do anything once it exists.
It will not be at the top of your ballot. State and county races come first, and the Niwot questions run further down the page than most people expect.
We haven’t transcribed the certified wording of this question yet, and we would rather leave a gap than paraphrase a legal text. The Committee’s petition page carries the full language.
The charter commission — and nine people to elect
Has to pass for any of it to work
This is the part almost nobody is expecting: it is not only questions on this ballot, it is a candidate election. Niwot elects nine commissioners on November 3, and they are the people who will write the town’s charter.
Then the charter comes back to you. The commission drafts it after the election, and Niwot votes again — on the charter itself — before it takes effect. So the answer to “what stops this from changing the character of the place” is not a promise from anybody. It is two more elections, both of them Niwot’s, plus a board with local land-use authority in the meantime.
Vote for nine. There is no reason to leave those lines blank, and a seat filled by a handful of votes is a seat filled by a handful of neighbours.
We haven’t transcribed the certified wording of this question yet, and we would rather leave a gap than paraphrase a legal text. The Committee’s petition page carries the full language.
Sales & use tax
Has to pass for any of it to work
This is the town’s main source of revenue, and the reason incorporation costs a household far less than a roads-only special district would. A sales tax is paid by every shopper and visitor who spends a dollar in Niwot, not only by the people who live here.
It does not start until January 1, 2028. Nothing appears on your bill next year.
We haven’t transcribed the certified wording of this question yet, and we would rather leave a gap than paraphrase a legal text. The Committee’s petition page carries the full language.
Property tax
Has to pass for any of it to work
Four mills is the smaller half of what a household pays, and it is the half that funds the roads. For comparison, a roads-only special district covering one neighbourhood runs about 32 mills — every one of them collected from homeowners, for the pavement alone.
We haven’t transcribed the certified wording of this question yet, and we would rather leave a gap than paraphrase a legal text. The Committee’s petition page carries the full language.
Retail marijuana tax
A tax the town would levy if such sales occur within its boundaries. Like the sales tax, it commences January 1, 2028.
We haven’t transcribed the certified wording of this question yet, and we would rather leave a gap than paraphrase a legal text. The Committee’s petition page carries the full language.
Debt authorization for the roads
This is what makes it possible to fix the roads now rather than a few blocks a year for two decades. Borrowing $15 million brings every Niwot road above a pavement condition of 70 by 2029.
The bonds are revenue bonds, repaid from sales-tax revenue. They are not a second charge on your property tax.
As it appears on the ballot
…UP TO $15 MILLION, WITH A MAXIMUM REPAYMENT COST UP TO $28 MILLION…
You will hear: “Twenty-eight million dollars.”
That number is real, it is on the ballot in capital letters, and it is the total cost of repaying $15 million of borrowing over the life of the bonds — principal plus interest, the same way a mortgage costs more than the house.
Two things about it. It is repaid from sales tax, so it is not a charge on your property tax. And the alternative to borrowing is not zero: the same roads cost about $22 million to fix if we wait until 2034, and about $33 million by 2040. Waiting is the expensive option, and it is the one that arrives with no plan attached.
Revenue retention (TABOR)
Has to pass for any of it to work
Colorado’s TABOR caps how much revenue a government may keep in a year, and refunds the rest. This question waives that cap for the new town.
Almost every Colorado municipality has passed a version of this, for a plain reason: without it a town can be forced to refund money in a good year while the work it was collected for goes unfunded.
We haven’t transcribed the certified wording of this question yet, and we would rather leave a gap than paraphrase a legal text. The Committee’s petition page carries the full language.
You will hear: “They’re voting themselves out of TABOR.”
Half true, and the half that is true matters. What this waives is the revenue cap — the town’s ability to keep what the approved taxes bring in. What it does not touch is your vote on the rates: raising a tax rate still requires an election, TABOR or no TABOR.
We would rather say both halves of that than only the reassuring one. A campaign that publishes the comfortable half of a fact gets called evasive, and deserves it.
The part nobody expects
You are also electing nine people.
On November 3, Niwot elects a 9-member charter commission. They write the town’s charter. Then Niwot votes again, on the charter itself.
That sequence is the real answer to the hardest fair question about incorporation — what stops this from changing the character of the place. It isn’t a promise from a committee. It is two more elections, both of them Niwot’s, and in between them a board we elect adopting a code we write.
Until voters ratify that charter, nobody can honestly tell you what is in it, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What we can tell you is who decides: you do, twice more.
Vote for nine. There is no advantage to leaving those lines blank, and a seat decided by a handful of votes is a seat decided by a handful of neighbors.
We aren’t publishing a list of commission candidates or recommending any of them. Niwot Together is registered as a ballot-issue committee — our business is the measure, not the candidates — and the county’s official ballot is where you’ll find who is running.
One more thing worth knowing
Nothing appears on your bill until 2028.
The sales and use tax and the marijuana tax both commence January 1, 2028. A yes vote in November does not change anything you pay next year.
Make it count