| Four Candidates To Compete In Ward 1 Special Election To Be Decided On March 2, 2010 |
Loveland - December 21, 2009
Loveland’s City Clerk Teresa G. Andrews has certified as valid the nominating petitions submitted by four different candidates today to run
for Loveland City Council next year in a special election. Today was the last day for candidates to submit their completed nomination forms
which require 25 signatures of registered voters residing within the city ward they seek to represent on city council.
The four candidates are running for Loveland’s City Council Ward 1 seat vacated by Cecil Gutierrez when he was elected Mayor of
Loveland last November.
The mail-in election will begin February 8, 2010 when the ballots are mailed to registered voters in Loveland’s Ward 1 and finish March 2,
2010 when the County Registrar will count the ballots and declare the winner.
The four candidates now running are Donna Rice, Robert Molloy, Adam Koniecki and John Case.
These four candidates represent a diversity of experience and perspectives on city issues. Supporters of one candidate, Donna Rice, have
already tried to improve her odds of winning by discouraging her opponents from believing they could win the office and telling them it would
be better if they dropped out before the December 21, deadline.
Previous council elections where voter choices were limited in certain Wards was often by design and not by accident. Seeking to improve
their candidate’s odds, the pro-McWhinney/Chamber faction in Loveland politics has been attempting to dissuade two candidates they
believe will draw from the same base of voters as the candidate they recruited to run for council.
Of the four candidates now running (Donna Rice, Robert Molloy, Adam Koniecki and John Case) only Donna Rice stands out as the
McWhinney favorite to prevail in March and will likely have a well financed campaign with frequent newspaper ads and direct mail to voters.
Efforts by her supporters to remove two of her opponents from the ballot were ultimately unsuccessful and now all four will be competing for
the seat together.
Longtime Loveland resident and Planning Commissioner Rob Molloy was encouraged to abandon his candidacy by one Donna Rice
supporter who is also the man Molloy supported for mayor last November, former councilman David Clark. Molloy, who has a history of
making his own decisions on city issues as a planning commissioner, decided to stay in the race and give Loveland voters more options on
their ballots despite Clarks comparison of him with former councilman Walt Skowron. Clark has consistently blamed his former council
colleague Walt Skowron for his defeat last November by arguing Skowron took votes that would have helped Clark succeed over current
Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez. Molloy, unlike Clark and Rice, decided he didn't need to coordinate his candidacy with any special
interest groups in town and is instead running independently.
Molloy’s wife works for the City of Longmont in finance so combined with his experience on Loveland’s Planning Commission and her
expertise in municipal finance he is unlikely to depend on any kind of special interest cabal to guide his campaign so is less vulnerable to such
pressure tactics.
Adam Koniecki, the only candidate in this special election who also ran last November for the other Ward 1 seat now occupied by
Councilman Daryle Klassen, was encouraged to drop-out of the race by another supporter of Donna Rice. Lee Fairman, an executive
member of the Larimer County Republican Central Committee, called Koniecki and told him Rice was the Republican’s best choice and that
he should consider withdrawing his name from consideration.
Koniecki, an outspoken activist of Loveland’s 400 strong 912 group, believes he may have turned Fairman around and now counts him
among his more likely supporters. Koniecki told LovelandPolitics his campaign message that people are responding to very well is,
“Because the council is now split 4 to 4, I intend to serve my constituents by being the independent vote that decides issues by
the merit and not by who contributed to my campaign.”
Rice is an unlikely champion for the Republican Party in Loveland. A staunch defender and tireless apologist for former Loveland
Councilman and party defector from the Colorado Legislature, Don Marostica, Rice has been an activist in trying to rid the Larimer County
Republican Party of conservative voices. Rice has begun making the rounds to the more conservative groups in Loveland for the first time
wearing the suit of a low-tax conservative; but her past reveals different loyalties.
On January 9, 2007 in a letter to Nancy Hunter, former Musgrave staffer and Larimer County Party Chair, Donna Rice and several other
Republican dissenters who had refused to support Musgrave’s run for Congress stated,
“..we the undersigned, are asking you to immediately resign your position as Chair of the Larimer County Republican Party. "
The Colorado Independent ran a story entitled “The Wild and Wacky Larimer GOP” over Rice's letter. Donna Rice collaborated with both
Kitty Wild and Fern Wolaver, two supporters of Reform Party candidate Eric Eidsness, who campaigned against former Congresswoman
Marylin Musgrave in the general election in 2006.
The dissident Republicans were seeking Hunter’s head in retaliation for Hunter attempting to limit party activist Fern Wolaver from violating
party rules when she was believed to be funnelling Republican candidate Musgrave's campaign strategy and party resources to her opponent
Eric Eidsness.
Donna Rice
Donna Rice who sometimes goes by the name Donna McCrea while in Colorado after marrying Frank McCrea, does have impressive
credentials for running for local political office. As a former Wyoming “Citizen of the Year” and full time Executive Director of the Wyoming
Real Estate Commission (2003 to 2008) she is believed to be the favorite among certain moneyed special interests in the city. Born in
Sheridan, Wyoming she is well liked among residents of Cheyenne, Wyoming some of whom were surprised to learn she claims residency in
Loveland, Colorado.
Rice owns a retirement condominium in a senior complex off 29th Street in Loveland with her husband Frank McCrea who is registered as a
local real estate broker.
Besides calling for the resignation of the Larimer County Republican Party Chair, Rice has been active with a Larimer County land rights
group during her frequent visits to Northern Colorado over the years. She also was elected Wyoming State’s Attorney for 4 years and
worked as an Assistant Attorney General in Colorado in 1991.
Rice will likely raise the most money of all the candidates as two businesses (Loveland Commercial and McWhinney) can coordinate multiple
contributions for her campaign. The failure of the current Loveland city officials to enforce the city's charter relative to a voter approved
finance reform measure means McWhinney and Loveland Commercial are likely to continue exceeding the $100 campaign finance limits per
entity by delivering contributions through multiple LLC's without disclosing the ownership of those LLC's.
Using a partisan affiliation to win support, however, to win a local office may prove problematic in this case given Rice's divisive history
within her own party. Rice’s close association with people who are now working against Republicans (Marostica and Kaufman) in Denver
may also leave people suspicious of her motives now in trying to use the Republican brand name to garner support for her candidacy. In
addition, it could back-fire with the majority of Loveland voters who are either registered as independents or as Democrats.
Despite emails we have received to the contrary, we want to clarify that Donna Rice IS NOT the same Donna Rice who was photographed
so many years ago with Presidential hopeful Colorado Senator Gary Hart on the yacht Monkey Business. Whether or not a photograph of
Donna Rice on the McWhinney's mega yacht will surface during her campaign remains to be seen.
Robert Molloy
Unlike Rice, Molloy is not using any party affiliation to seek the council seat but instead relies on his experience serving on Loveland’s
Planning Commission and also as the city's ZBA (Zoning Board Adjustment) hearing official. Not registered with either political party,
Molloy sees the Loveland City Council seat as a non-partisan position where understanding of the city’s zoning codes and knowledge of
public administration take precedent over party affiliations.
Molloy currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Loveland Planning Commission. Planning Commissioners can easily spend as much time as
members of the City Council performing their work but don’t receive the same degree of public attention or news coverage. Often tedious
and contentious, it is the task of the planning commission to be the first stop for many planning and development approvals before going to the
city council for final approval. Traditionally, a planning commission appointment can make a terrible springboard for running for city council
because a good commissioner will inevitably need to say no to some influential interests in the community.
In the case of Molloy, he has tangled with McWhinney when trying to enforce the city’s zoning laws. This may be what earned him a call
from David Clark to explain another candidate was selected to represent certain people in town on the council. Molloy said his wife, a
senior finance employee in the City of Longmont, wasn’t crazy about his decision to run but does support him and certainly has the
qualifications to be a trusted advisor on municipal finance issues.
Molloy told LovelandPolitics that his motive to run was out of frustration that Loveland’s City Council doesn’t listen to their appointed
boards and commissions. After the commissioners spend hundreds of hours listening to staff presentations, hearing testimony from concerned
residents and debating specific proposals the city council overturns their decision too often he says with little or no understanding of the issue.
He said it was “frustrating” and committed himself to more fully utilizing the advice created through the process of the boards and commissions
when making decisions on city council.
Rob Molloy is an active member of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Loveland where he taught an information technology course in
the Catholic grade school. He has a background with development issues and technology implementation. His most recent position was with
a local architectural firm as he is a design architect. He has strong ties inside the development community and supports development. The
fact he is well regarded in the development community but is not necessarily an advocate for McWhinney likely explains why he poses a threat
to Rice and was encouraged to leave the race by her handlers.
Adam Koniecki
Koniecki is best known in Loveland as the candidate who ran earlier in the year against incumbent Councilman Daryle Klassen. Of the
three candidates from last November’s election, Koniecki finished 3rd after Klassen and former Ward 1 Councilwoman Jan Brown.
Koniecki has been active with Loveland’s local 912 group and walked to many homes in Ward 1 during his last election to find supporters.
In his early 20’s, Koniecki’s young age was also considered a weakness for his candidacy. Not a supporter of McWhinney, Koniecki was
also encouraged to leave the race by a Donna Rice supporter but ignored the advice.
Koniecki is a life-long Loveland resident and a trained machinist.
John Case
John Case is a long-term resident of Loveland who announced early he was interested in running for the Ward 1 seat. Case has worked for
IBM for the past 30 years while he and his wife Barbara raised their three sons in Loveland.
Case, who has a history of supporting various local candidates for office, gave among his reasons for running;
“Many people have expressed to me their concern about our local economy as well as the transparency of our previous council.”
Case lives in the Glenn Isle development of Ward 1 where he also has been active in the Home Owner’s Association (HOA) board of
directors.
A former math teacher before joining IBM, Case is not afraid of reviewing budget numbers and appears anxious to try and tackle some of
Loveland’s current budget shortfalls. Case lists among the items he wants to tackle on council;
1. Competing MeHaffey Park,
2. Completing the Loveland High School pool repairs,
3. And repairing a number of the dilapidated roadways in east Loveland.
Summary
Despite the best efforts of Donna Rice supporters David Clark and Lee Fairman, Loveland voters have a wide variety of choices for the
important city council seat representing Ward 1. All four candidates are serious about running a competitive race and winning the election in
March. This will ensure a vigorous and interesting campaign debate on a variety of issues important for the future viability of Loveland.
Limiting the number of available candidates running by pressuring people out of the race is a low-class campaign tactic that needs to be
eliminated in Loveland. Competition for local political office is the life-blood of our system of government and needs to be preserved.
Loveland’s City Clerk Teresa G. Andrews has certified as valid the nominating petitions submitted by four different candidates today to run
for Loveland City Council next year in a special election. Today was the last day for candidates to submit their completed nomination forms
which require 25 signatures of registered voters residing within the city ward they seek to represent on city council.
The four candidates are running for Loveland’s City Council Ward 1 seat vacated by Cecil Gutierrez when he was elected Mayor of
Loveland last November.
The mail-in election will begin February 8, 2010 when the ballots are mailed to registered voters in Loveland’s Ward 1 and finish March 2,
2010 when the County Registrar will count the ballots and declare the winner.
The four candidates now running are Donna Rice, Robert Molloy, Adam Koniecki and John Case.
These four candidates represent a diversity of experience and perspectives on city issues. Supporters of one candidate, Donna Rice, have
already tried to improve her odds of winning by discouraging her opponents from believing they could win the office and telling them it would
be better if they dropped out before the December 21, deadline.
Previous council elections where voter choices were limited in certain Wards was often by design and not by accident. Seeking to improve
their candidate’s odds, the pro-McWhinney/Chamber faction in Loveland politics has been attempting to dissuade two candidates they
believe will draw from the same base of voters as the candidate they recruited to run for council.
Of the four candidates now running (Donna Rice, Robert Molloy, Adam Koniecki and John Case) only Donna Rice stands out as the
McWhinney favorite to prevail in March and will likely have a well financed campaign with frequent newspaper ads and direct mail to voters.
Efforts by her supporters to remove two of her opponents from the ballot were ultimately unsuccessful and now all four will be competing for
the seat together.
Longtime Loveland resident and Planning Commissioner Rob Molloy was encouraged to abandon his candidacy by one Donna Rice
supporter who is also the man Molloy supported for mayor last November, former councilman David Clark. Molloy, who has a history of
making his own decisions on city issues as a planning commissioner, decided to stay in the race and give Loveland voters more options on
their ballots despite Clarks comparison of him with former councilman Walt Skowron. Clark has consistently blamed his former council
colleague Walt Skowron for his defeat last November by arguing Skowron took votes that would have helped Clark succeed over current
Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez. Molloy, unlike Clark and Rice, decided he didn't need to coordinate his candidacy with any special
interest groups in town and is instead running independently.
Molloy’s wife works for the City of Longmont in finance so combined with his experience on Loveland’s Planning Commission and her
expertise in municipal finance he is unlikely to depend on any kind of special interest cabal to guide his campaign so is less vulnerable to such
pressure tactics.
Adam Koniecki, the only candidate in this special election who also ran last November for the other Ward 1 seat now occupied by
Councilman Daryle Klassen, was encouraged to drop-out of the race by another supporter of Donna Rice. Lee Fairman, an executive
member of the Larimer County Republican Central Committee, called Koniecki and told him Rice was the Republican’s best choice and that
he should consider withdrawing his name from consideration.
Koniecki, an outspoken activist of Loveland’s 400 strong 912 group, believes he may have turned Fairman around and now counts him
among his more likely supporters. Koniecki told LovelandPolitics his campaign message that people are responding to very well is,
“Because the council is now split 4 to 4, I intend to serve my constituents by being the independent vote that decides issues by
the merit and not by who contributed to my campaign.”
Rice is an unlikely champion for the Republican Party in Loveland. A staunch defender and tireless apologist for former Loveland
Councilman and party defector from the Colorado Legislature, Don Marostica, Rice has been an activist in trying to rid the Larimer County
Republican Party of conservative voices. Rice has begun making the rounds to the more conservative groups in Loveland for the first time
wearing the suit of a low-tax conservative; but her past reveals different loyalties.
On January 9, 2007 in a letter to Nancy Hunter, former Musgrave staffer and Larimer County Party Chair, Donna Rice and several other
Republican dissenters who had refused to support Musgrave’s run for Congress stated,
“..we the undersigned, are asking you to immediately resign your position as Chair of the Larimer County Republican Party. "
The Colorado Independent ran a story entitled “The Wild and Wacky Larimer GOP” over Rice's letter. Donna Rice collaborated with both
Kitty Wild and Fern Wolaver, two supporters of Reform Party candidate Eric Eidsness, who campaigned against former Congresswoman
Marylin Musgrave in the general election in 2006.
The dissident Republicans were seeking Hunter’s head in retaliation for Hunter attempting to limit party activist Fern Wolaver from violating
party rules when she was believed to be funnelling Republican candidate Musgrave's campaign strategy and party resources to her opponent
Eric Eidsness.
Donna Rice
Donna Rice who sometimes goes by the name Donna McCrea while in Colorado after marrying Frank McCrea, does have impressive
credentials for running for local political office. As a former Wyoming “Citizen of the Year” and full time Executive Director of the Wyoming
Real Estate Commission (2003 to 2008) she is believed to be the favorite among certain moneyed special interests in the city. Born in
Sheridan, Wyoming she is well liked among residents of Cheyenne, Wyoming some of whom were surprised to learn she claims residency in
Loveland, Colorado.
Rice owns a retirement condominium in a senior complex off 29th Street in Loveland with her husband Frank McCrea who is registered as a
local real estate broker.
Besides calling for the resignation of the Larimer County Republican Party Chair, Rice has been active with a Larimer County land rights
group during her frequent visits to Northern Colorado over the years. She also was elected Wyoming State’s Attorney for 4 years and
worked as an Assistant Attorney General in Colorado in 1991.
Rice will likely raise the most money of all the candidates as two businesses (Loveland Commercial and McWhinney) can coordinate multiple
contributions for her campaign. The failure of the current Loveland city officials to enforce the city's charter relative to a voter approved
finance reform measure means McWhinney and Loveland Commercial are likely to continue exceeding the $100 campaign finance limits per
entity by delivering contributions through multiple LLC's without disclosing the ownership of those LLC's.
Using a partisan affiliation to win support, however, to win a local office may prove problematic in this case given Rice's divisive history
within her own party. Rice’s close association with people who are now working against Republicans (Marostica and Kaufman) in Denver
may also leave people suspicious of her motives now in trying to use the Republican brand name to garner support for her candidacy. In
addition, it could back-fire with the majority of Loveland voters who are either registered as independents or as Democrats.
Despite emails we have received to the contrary, we want to clarify that Donna Rice IS NOT the same Donna Rice who was photographed
so many years ago with Presidential hopeful Colorado Senator Gary Hart on the yacht Monkey Business. Whether or not a photograph of
Donna Rice on the McWhinney's mega yacht will surface during her campaign remains to be seen.
Robert Molloy
Unlike Rice, Molloy is not using any party affiliation to seek the council seat but instead relies on his experience serving on Loveland’s
Planning Commission and also as the city's ZBA (Zoning Board Adjustment) hearing official. Not registered with either political party,
Molloy sees the Loveland City Council seat as a non-partisan position where understanding of the city’s zoning codes and knowledge of
public administration take precedent over party affiliations.
Molloy currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Loveland Planning Commission. Planning Commissioners can easily spend as much time as
members of the City Council performing their work but don’t receive the same degree of public attention or news coverage. Often tedious
and contentious, it is the task of the planning commission to be the first stop for many planning and development approvals before going to the
city council for final approval. Traditionally, a planning commission appointment can make a terrible springboard for running for city council
because a good commissioner will inevitably need to say no to some influential interests in the community.
In the case of Molloy, he has tangled with McWhinney when trying to enforce the city’s zoning laws. This may be what earned him a call
from David Clark to explain another candidate was selected to represent certain people in town on the council. Molloy said his wife, a
senior finance employee in the City of Longmont, wasn’t crazy about his decision to run but does support him and certainly has the
qualifications to be a trusted advisor on municipal finance issues.
Molloy told LovelandPolitics that his motive to run was out of frustration that Loveland’s City Council doesn’t listen to their appointed
boards and commissions. After the commissioners spend hundreds of hours listening to staff presentations, hearing testimony from concerned
residents and debating specific proposals the city council overturns their decision too often he says with little or no understanding of the issue.
He said it was “frustrating” and committed himself to more fully utilizing the advice created through the process of the boards and commissions
when making decisions on city council.
Rob Molloy is an active member of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Loveland where he taught an information technology course in
the Catholic grade school. He has a background with development issues and technology implementation. His most recent position was with
a local architectural firm as he is a design architect. He has strong ties inside the development community and supports development. The
fact he is well regarded in the development community but is not necessarily an advocate for McWhinney likely explains why he poses a threat
to Rice and was encouraged to leave the race by her handlers.
Adam Koniecki
Koniecki is best known in Loveland as the candidate who ran earlier in the year against incumbent Councilman Daryle Klassen. Of the
three candidates from last November’s election, Koniecki finished 3rd after Klassen and former Ward 1 Councilwoman Jan Brown.
Koniecki has been active with Loveland’s local 912 group and walked to many homes in Ward 1 during his last election to find supporters.
In his early 20’s, Koniecki’s young age was also considered a weakness for his candidacy. Not a supporter of McWhinney, Koniecki was
also encouraged to leave the race by a Donna Rice supporter but ignored the advice.
Koniecki is a life-long Loveland resident and a trained machinist.
John Case
John Case is a long-term resident of Loveland who announced early he was interested in running for the Ward 1 seat. Case has worked for
IBM for the past 30 years while he and his wife Barbara raised their three sons in Loveland.
Case, who has a history of supporting various local candidates for office, gave among his reasons for running;
“Many people have expressed to me their concern about our local economy as well as the transparency of our previous council.”
Case lives in the Glenn Isle development of Ward 1 where he also has been active in the Home Owner’s Association (HOA) board of
directors.
A former math teacher before joining IBM, Case is not afraid of reviewing budget numbers and appears anxious to try and tackle some of
Loveland’s current budget shortfalls. Case lists among the items he wants to tackle on council;
1. Competing MeHaffey Park,
2. Completing the Loveland High School pool repairs,
3. And repairing a number of the dilapidated roadways in east Loveland.
Summary
Despite the best efforts of Donna Rice supporters David Clark and Lee Fairman, Loveland voters have a wide variety of choices for the
important city council seat representing Ward 1. All four candidates are serious about running a competitive race and winning the election in
March. This will ensure a vigorous and interesting campaign debate on a variety of issues important for the future viability of Loveland.
Limiting the number of available candidates running by pressuring people out of the race is a low-class campaign tactic that needs to be
eliminated in Loveland. Competition for local political office is the life-blood of our system of government and needs to be preserved.
LovelandPolitics.com
a non-partisan, not for profit, news website reporting on Loveland, Colorado.
a non-partisan, not for profit, news website reporting on Loveland, Colorado.
| Adam Koniecki |
| Robert Molloy |
| Donna Rice |
| John Case |