Dec. 25—Editor’s note: The Times-Call is counting down the top 10 news stories of the year, as selected by the newspaper’s editors.

Colorado residents soundly rejected Proposition HH during the Nov. 7 election, with roughly 59% of voters casting their ballots against the measure concerning property taxes.

Proposition HH would have allowed the state to keep surplus money that would have otherwise been refunded back to the taxpayers to instead use on backfilling counties, water districts, fire districts, ambulance and hospital districts and other local governments.

The measure would have also reduced property taxes on homes and businesses and expanded property tax relief for seniors, according to the ballot language.

Of the roughly 1.6 million people who voted, more than 995,000 voted against Proposition HH whereas less than 683,000 voted for it.

Given the significant increase to property values, it wasn’t much of a surprise that Boulder County received an uptick in property value appeals, too.

On May 1, the Boulder County Assessor’s Office mailed more than 120,000 property value notices to residential and commercial property owners throughout the county.

Boulder County Assessor Cynthia Braddock said in an email on Dec. 21 that her office had received 24,400 assessor level appeals, which was followed by 5,600 properties appealing to the county Board of Equalization.

Every odd-numbered year, the state requires most properties to be reappraised and the 2023 assessments that were sent out to property owners were based upon sales from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022.

During that two-year appraisal period, residential properties experienced a 35% median value increase countywide and industrial and commercial properties saw a 41% median value jump, according to Braddock.

The median value of a single-family home in Longmont also increased by 36%.

In Erie, Gunbarrel, Lafayette, Louisville, Niwot and Superior, that value climbed by 40% or more during that 24-month stretch.

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Top 10

No. 10: A dangerous year on the roads

No. 9: Longmont doused with rain as city experiences wettest year since 1923

No. 8: Two convicted in Longmont postal murder case