County Corner

By Roger Baker
County Manager

The Gilpin County Commissioners don’t do a lot of ordinances—most county actions are by resolution, which is a slightly different process.  And an ordinance repealing an ordinance is really, really rare.  So Tuesday’s passage of Ordinance #04-01, repealing Ordinance #92-01, was one of those once in a blue moon occurrences.

The Ordinance being repealed established the County business license procedure.  This was right after gaming started, and there was probably a thought that there would be a lot of new business enterprises established out in the County, and this would be a good way to keep track of them.  Certainly there was a flurry of speculation in commercial property.

Things didn’t work out that way, though—most of the services the casinos need, they get from down the hill—so most of the folks who were getting licenses were small, home-based businesses.  And I think the Commissioners recognized that only a tiny percentage of those were going through the process, and that the process itself was intrusive, inefficient, and ultimately not cost-effective.  So they just did away with it.

The financial implications are minuscule—the great majority of our business personal property tax collections are from the casinos, and we hardly need to license them to find out where they are.

Maybe there will be some commercial development spurred by the new Central City Parkway that would make a licensing process worthwhile again.  But until then, this is one unnecessary government regulation that has just gone away.

One more thing: some of our local entrepreneurs have said they need business licenses, to show to lenders, establish credit accounts, that sort of thing.  We’ll still issue you one if you want, suitable for framing. It just won’t cost you anything. Just call Carol in the Administration Office, at 303-582-5214.