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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />Overall, the City of Lamar does not appear to show any socio-economic characteristics <br />that would alert city planners to a possible problem with such a capital improvement <br />project. However, rural communities are normally cautious about capital improvements, <br />relative to income levels, in a way that is not normally of concern to more urbanized <br />areas with a generally larger per capita retail and property tax base. Comparisons of <br />municipal tax base data for Lamar and three other municipalities of comparable size in <br />Colorado are shown in Table 3.6 Debt levels for these same municipalities are shown in <br />Table 4.7 <br /> <br />./ <br /> <br />If the secondary water project can be phased in, in such a way as to ensure adequate <br />levels of revenue for each phase, there would appear to be good opportunity for this <br />project to succeed in Lamar. This success may depend upon the approach taken by the <br />community in developing and operating the secondary system. The following section <br />offers some thoughts on this issue. Later, the actual phasing of the project is considered, <br />relative to some of the socio-economic characteristics of the City. <br /> <br />Table 3. Municipal Tax Base Data for Selected Communities of Comparable Size <br />(2001 ) <br /> <br /> Lamar La Junta A1amosa Cortez <br />Population 8,869 7,568 7,960 7,977 <br />Total Taxable Assessed <br />Value (K$) 30,702 29,970 43,018 60,680 <br />Sales Tax Rate 3 3.25 2 3.5 <br />Retail Sales (K$) 326,527 242,814 281,374 296,090 <br /> <br />Table 4. Financial Items from Selected Municipalities (2001) <br /> Lamar La Junta A1amosa Cortez <br />Improvement Debt $0 $0 $0 $0 <br />Other Debt - General $66,440 $17,417 $203,048 $0 <br />Revenue Debt - <br />General $0 $665,000 $330,000 $0 <br />General Obligation Debt <br />- General $0 $0 $0 $0 <br /> <br />6 Data compiled from http://www.dola.state.co.us/is/cedishom.htm <br />7 Data compiled from http://www.dola.state.co.us/is/cedishom.htm <br />Aqua Engineering, Inc. <br />and Colorado State University Secondary Supply Feasibility Study <br />May 19, 2004 -7- <br /> <br />