The group "Your Choice Colorado Springs" claims that our city will gain between $10 million and $15 million a year from recreational marijuana sales.

Those numbers appear to be way off.

Manitou Springs gets only about $7 million in total sales tax revenue. That includes sales tax from the Cog Railway and the entire historic district.

Manitou Springs collects a 10% tax on recreational marijuana sales.

If Colorado Springs approves this measure, we will charge only 5%.

Let's pretend that the entire $7 million that Manitou Springs gets in sales tax revenue is from recreational marijuana.

Those sales would translate into only $3.5 million for our city each year.

Now we will imagine that citizens of our city are purchasing as much recreational marijuana in Denver and Pueblo as is being purchased in Manitou Springs.

That would add another $3.5 million to our sales tax revenue.

We now have a total increase of $7 million a year in recreational marijuana sales tax.

That is a far cry from the $10 million to $15 million a year that has been projected by the "Your Choice" organization.

I can't imagine how they came up with their numbers, but clearly, their numbers are too high.

Did they collect signatures using deceptive and inaccurate numbers?

Are their signatures thereby invalid?

I am calling on the City Attorney's Office to review this issue.