• Flavors hook kids. Eight in ten youth who try tobacco start with a flavored product, like bubble-gum or cotton-candy vapes, designed to appeal to kids.

• • High doses of nicotine harm kids’ health. Flavored vapes can expose kids to dangerous, toxic chemicals like formaldehyde and lead. Nicotine is highly addictive and can harm the developing brain, impacting attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.

• • Big Tobacco is targeting Denver's kids. When the tobacco industry makes sweet products that taste like candy – flavors like Sugar Cookie, Banana Split and Cotton Candy Denver’s flavored tobacco sales ban protects kids.   – or use packaging and gimmicks like video games to draw kids in, they know exactly what they are doing: drawing kids in and creating life-long customers.  

• A yes vote to retain Denver’s flavored tobacco ban will protect Denver kids from Big Tobacco and take flavored tobacco products off store shelves.

• The ban on flavored tobacco sales would cost Denver $13 million in annual tax revenue at a time when the city faces a projected $200 million budget deficit in 2026 and has already cut its workforce by 8%. Reducing city revenue further would jeopardize essential services that residents rely on.

• • If retained, the ban will devastate more than 100 local, family and minority-owned businesses, forcing closures and potential layoffs of thousands of workers. Instead of protecting our community, the law shifts sales to nearby cities, hurting Denver while doing nothing to reduce use.

• Adults should be trusted to make their own decisions about legal products. There are already strict laws and enforcement that are taken seriously by both tobacco retailers and Denver authorities. This measure does nothing to improve enforcement; it simply removes legal products from the market and punishes small-family and minority-owned businesses who are already playing by the rules.

• 2A - Transportation and mobility infrastructure and facilities bond: $441.4 million (maximum repayment cost of $906 million) for 14 projects including:

• • 8th Avenue Viaduct & Multimodal Improvements

  • • Globeville Elyria-Swansea Connections: Marion Underpass

  • West 38th Avenue Multimodal Project

• 2B - City parks and recreational infrastructure and facilities bond: $174.8 million (maximum repayment cost of $357 million) for 21 new parks and facility upgrades with the three largest being:

• Park Hill Park Buildout

• • Southeast Recreation Center and Skate Park

• Aztlan Pool Replacement

• 2C - Health and human services infrastructure and facilities bond: $30.1 million (maximum repayment cost of $57 million) for the Denver Health Sam Sandos Westside Family Health Center Replacement and Denver Children's Advocacy Center (DCAC) Children's Center.

• 2D - City infrastructure and facilities bond: $244.4 million (maximum repayment cost of $485 million) for 18 city facilities projects with these as the three largest projects:

• • First Responder and Public Safety Training Center

  • • Red Rocks Backstage Expansion and Accessibility Improvements

  • American Indian Cultural Embassy

• 2E - Housing and shelter infrastructure and facilities bond: $59.3 million (maximum repayment cost of $94 million) for repairs and improvements to housing and shelter infrastructure, including Affordable Housing and Mitigate Residential Displacement, Sheltering ADA and Safety improvements, and Co-Located Housing and Library on the East Side of Denver

• By funding local, high-impact projects now, we can foster equity, strengthen the vibrancy and economic resilience of our city and avoid higher costs for critical infrastructure down the road.

• • With the current economic challenges, it is important to invest in projects that drive local job creation and economic opportunity. Bonds allow the city to make these investments without impacting daily services or using any of the city’s regular funding (general fund).

• • Strategic capital investments through this bond are part of a long-term strategy to invest and improve neighborhoods across Denver, from better and safer streets to quality parks and playgrounds closer to residents.

• These bond issues promise10,000 jobs and $2 billion in economic impact.
  

Those opposed say:

• It takes twice as much valuable money, whatever it is that we want for our City, when we use debt. When we use debt, we end up with a lot less for the City as we give our money to the bank.

• • We will give somewhere between $500 million and $900 million to the banks for debt service if the voters approve this new debt.

• • As we give large amounts of money to the banks for debt service, we leave the City with less money for actual service. Government debt doubles financial overhead and drains our budget. Most financial overhead is a waste of valuable money.

• Public cost breakdown for many of the 59 proposed projects in the bond have not been provided. Taxpayers should not be asked to authorize nearly a billion dollars in new debt without seeing the documentation that supports it.

• Changes the name of the Excise and Licenses to Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection in the City Charter.

• • Changes the title of the agency head to "Manager" instead of "Director” to be consistent with other charter agencies and makes the Manager part of the mayor’s cabinet.

• • Removes all references to excise taxes in the Department's section of the charter provisions.

• Continues the work currently done by the Department of Excise and Licenses.

• The current name is confusing and misleading because it references functions that the Department does not oversee (excise taxes). This change will help the public understand and better access the critical work of the agency.

• • The new name more accurately reflects the Department’s service to the public without additional costs to the Department.

• • Changing the Department's name will balance and reflect its two core functions: Licensing and Consumer Protection.

There is no known opposition to this charter change.

A “yes” vote means: The name of the Department of Excise and Licenses will be changed to Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, and the Manager will become part of the Mayor’s Cabinet. 

• The charter amendment changes the At-Large Council positions by separating them into two separate seats: Councilmember-at-large Seat A and Councilmember-at-large Seat B. Candidates will have to choose which of the two seats that they want to run for.
• Each successful candidate would have to receive a majority of the votes cast for their respective seat in either the general City and County election or in a runoff election, as do other city-wide elected officials.

• Officials representing a citywide constituency should be elected by a citywide majority; election methods should not discourage people from casting all their votes as our current method does.

• • Placing the two At-large positions on separate Seat A and Seat B ballots ensures that all Denver elected officials receive majority voter support. The current vote-for-two on a single ballot prevents that.

• • The voters’ original intent when the Council At-large seats were established was that they be elected by a majority. But lawsuits left Denver with a hybrid plurality-winner system that has resulted in members being elected with as little as 17% of the vote, and an average election percentage for all winners of just 29%. This amendment restores the original intent and will result in majority winners every time, while encouraging more candidates to join the race.

• The vote-for-two on a single ballot prompts too many voters to waste their second choice with “single-shot” voting only for their favorite. Undervoting in the At-large race is substantially higher than all other races and because of this, 32% of all votes left blank. This amendment eliminates single-shot voting, thereby increasing voter participation.

• Splitting the At-large race won't boost turnout. The problem is off-cycle, low-turnout April elections. If we want more voters to weigh in, the obvious solution would be to move Denver’s municipal elections to November, when more people vote.

• • Currently, voters can select any two candidates from a single field. This proposal would force candidates into two separate contests, limiting voters to one choice per seat even if their top two candidates are in the same group. That’s an arbitrary restriction on democratic participation.

• • Under the new system, candidates would have to declare for either Seat A or Seat B before they start collecting signatures. That sets up a game of strategic maneuvering, where candidates try to dodge stronger opponents (or wealthy interests can funnel money into defeating candidates in the weaker of two slates) instead of running on their ideas.

• Supporters of this change say it’s necessary because of “undervoting”, when voters only pick one candidate instead of two in the At-large race. But undervoting is often intentional. Many voters choose to “bullet vote” for their top candidate.  A more effective solution to undervoting would be to stagger the At-large terms, electing one in each cycle.  This would preserve majority support and voter choice without arbitrary ballot splits or expensive runoffs.