Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, and Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, were recognized this week for their work on behalf of Colorado's rural community banks. The Independent Bankers of Colorado honored them with the 2007 Champions for Colorado Rural Communities Award. 

At their annual membership convention in Vail, the IBC recognized Kester and Gardner for their continued dedication to bringing bipartisan consensus and support to issues impacting rural Colorado.  A press release issued by the IBC lauded the lawmakers and affirmed that “champions such as these are necessary to ensure that rural Colorado has a voice at the Capitol.”

New legislative figures show that the statewide property-tax hike pushed through the legislature by Gov. Bill Ritter earlier this year now will gobble up more than twice the amount that was advertised when the measure passed the General Assembly.

Meanwhile, the tax hike, opposed from the outset by legislative Republicans, also got push-back this week from an unlikely quarter. Denver's Democrat City Auditor Dennis Gallagher announced that voters should temper their decision in November about raising the city's property taxes for assorted projects with the understanding that their taxes already are going up under Ritter's statewide tax hike.

The tax increase, signed into law by the governor in May, had been projected to raise an additional $48 million for the state treasury in its first year, but the new numbers compiled by the legislature's research staff at the request of Republican Rep. Cory Gardner of Yuma show the first-year take is now $114 million.

Gardner and several fellow House and Senate Republican critics of the tax hike fired off a letter of protest today to the governor in response to the news.