For the past six years, Pueblo County voters have turned down proposals to use marijuana tax dollars to fund a new jail. Yet that hasn t stopped the county s commissioners from moving the project, estimated to cost upwards of $90 million, forward.
Pueblo Country voters balked at the idea of using those new funds to build a new county jail and extend a new road named in honor of Joe Martinez, a local Word War II hero. But when voters approved to increase the local sales tax on retail marijuana from 3.5 percent to 6 percent in 2019, the ballot initiative didn t specify where the money would go. As a result, the County Board was able to finally secure the project s funding source without voter approval.