Aurora City Council on Monday postponed a decision on whether to keep a tax on businesses after a loud dust-up between councilmembers.

The occupational privilege tax collects $4 monthly from companies for each employee. Employers and employees split the dues, paying $2 respectively. The tax began in 1986 to support street maintenance, police and fire services.

In a study session earlier in October, Councilmember Francoise Bergan proposed keeping the occupational privilege tax to fund fire stations in the Blackstone and Southshore areas.

She made the proposal, she said, after hearing concerns from residents about the lack of fire stations in the areas, telling a story about a resident who may have died due to a long response time had a bystander not known CPR.

Councilmembers originally voted to repeal the tax, which generates about $6 million in annual revenue for the city, in January 2023. At the time of the vote, the tax was set to expire in January 2025.

Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky proposed repealing the tax, which she said is “essentially a head tax on businesses and workers in Aurora.”

Jurinsky, who is a business owner, earlier said the occupational privilege tax puts an unfair burden on small businesses.

In 2023, Mayor Mike Coffman said the council could vote to delay or repeal the bill any time before it took effect if the council decided the city needs the revenue.

This is what Bergan proposed in the October study session, saying the communities of Blackstone and Southshore have been around for years and don’t have the necessary fire stations.

Public safety should be their No. 1 priority, Bergan said.

Aurora Fire Chief Alec Oughton said the operating cost for a fire station is about $2.7 million and the creation of a station takes about two years from design to open.

“The reality is we have limited resources,” Oughton said. “We’ve got a large population to serve, we’ve got 17 fire stations to do it from, and that problem isn’t going to get better over time, as our community continues to grow it continues to stretch our resources thinner and thinner.”

In the study session, Jurinsky said Bergan went behind her back in proposing that the council keep the tax. In response, Bergan called Jurinsky a “bully,” saying she didn’t reach out to Jurinsky because “whenever she doesn’t get her way … she’s a bully, and she’s bullied a lot of people on this council.”

Jurinsky “curses me out, with cuss words, and is vile,” Bergan said.

In the Oct. 14 council meeting, Councilmember Dustin Zvonek proposed an amendment to Bergan’s proposal, which would delay the repeal of the tax from January to June of 2025, giving the city more time to find additional funding for the fire stations before the occupational privilege tax ends.

Councilmembers would then discuss at the spring workshop how they could fill the gap in tax revenue to fund the fire stations, Zvonek said.

Both Bergan and Jurinsky accepted the amendment.

But at Monday night’s meeting, Jurinsky said the council needs to keep its promise to businesses that the tax would end.

“This is the eleventh hour,” Jurinsky said. “Businesses have been notified of this for two years … businesses are expecting this.”

Jurinsky repeatedly said she would comb through the city’s budget and find funding for the fire stations, adding she would “make sure these fire stations get built.”

Councilmember Curtis Gardner said the fire stations are “sorely needed” and “won’t be built but for this tax staying in place.”

Councilmember Crystal Murillo also expressed her support for the tax, saying she is “not comfortable” with the alternative that Jurinsky proposed of finding other ways to cut funding.

Specifically, Jurinsky mentioned cutting from nonprofit groups, which Murillo said she is against.

“I absolutely do not support this witch hunt of organizations supporting these critical social services in our community,” she said.

Bergan said she “found it interesting” that she got unanimous support at the last meeting on her proposal with the amendment, but that she received backlash on Monday.

“I think a lot of games are being played right now,” she said. “I’m extremely disappointed in the manipulation of how this has all been handled.”

Councilmembers continued the discussion to a meeting on Nov. 18.