LovelandPolitics.com Blog

Now that State Senator Johnson has been elected to the Larimer County Board of Commissioners, the Republican Party vacancy committee will appoint his replacement to serve out the remaining two-years on his four-year term.

Three people have thrown their hats in the ring for consideration; State House Rep. Kevin Lundberg, Deborah Moeck and Mike Lynch. The three addressed the Monday morning breakfast club started by Bob Schaffer in Ft. Collins on December 15. You can read the story here by clicking here.

Please feel welcome to post any comments about the candidates. If you attended the breakfast meeting, what was your impression of the presentations? Who would you choose?

Two brothers and their development company have filed a lawsuit against the City of Loveland and key members of the senior staff.

Former City of Loveland building officials have signed affidavits revealing what people have long suspected but couldn’t prove, that the development laws in Loveland only apply to some but not everyone.

The City Manager, Don Williams, and crew allowed multiple projects to begin without proper permits, gave verbal approval for some to ignore stop work orders (SWO) and generally ran the city development process in an arbitrary manner by rewarding friends and punishing critics.

The iniquities may now cost taxpayers millions as the Klen brothers seek restitution for the damages they claim the city cost their project after they spoke out against improper behavior by city officials. The claim is well founded. A simple permit to begin the foundation work dragged out over more than a year after staff lost the application, refused to process it and later, according to Klens, even perjured themselves by falsifying the application with fraudulent entries.

City Council member David Clark sailed through the approval process with a competitive commercial building project located close to the Klen’s project in east Loveland. Now Clark is contributing to the city’s direction to the outside counsel on the Klen’s case even though there appears to be a conflict of interest.

The depositions will begin soon and much more is likely to be revealed as the Klen’s attorney opens the door to much larger problems in the management of the City of Loveland.

All city employees who are concerned about the lawsuit should seek independent legal counsel. Using the city’s attorneys means your personal interests may take a back seat to the city manager’s objectives in defending himself. Cities often indemnify employees by paying their legal fees. A smart employee would seek their own independent legal counsel and ask for the city to pay their defense instead of relying on the attorney directed by the city manager to defend their interests. Too often, the interest of an individual employee who needs to be forthright in the legal process is incompatible with that of their supervisors causing a conflict of interest between the defendants.

In the end, the Mayor and City Council need to show leadership by cleaning-up the process and reforming Loveland’s development, building and planning processes. In the meantime, the Klens will likely have their day in court to prove their allegations.

Please feel free to post any comments or corrections to the story here.

See the story and court documents on LovelandPolitics

Please feel free to comment here about any of the three previous stories of Marostica running for governor, Kirk Brush stepping down and Chad Washburn campaigning to be the next county surveyor.

Do you think Marostica can be elected governor? Do you support Larry Carillo as head of Larimer County’s Republican Party and who should the Larimer County Commissioners appoint to follow Donnelly in the surveyor’s office?

You can post without waiting for moderation by signing into the site. Otherwise, anonymous postings need to wait for moderation as some have been abusing this forum with profanity and other unrelated and abusive language.

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Over 163,000 voters in Larimer County cast ballots in November’s election but just under 10,000 ballots cast were only for the presidential ticket while approximately 15,000 voters decided not to vote in the Larimer County Commissioner’s races. About 16,000 new and younger voters asked for absentee ballots in Ft. Collins.

It is typical to see the highest profile offices on the top of the ballot receive the greatest number of votes while the further one goes down the ballot the less number of votes are recorded as some impatient voters don’t bother to completely fill-in their ballots. However, the massive surge in registration since last July (40,000 in Larimer County) meant a larger number of younger more liberal voters from CSU participated in the election than ever before in Larimer County elections thus greatly skewing the results.

Do you believe the 25,000 students at CSU will continue to make an impact in Larimer County or was this a one-time surge for Obama’s campaign?

In anticipation of Steve Johnson winning his bid to be a Larimer County Commissioner, Mike Lynch has mailed local Republicans asking for their support of him in replacing Johnson.

However, Larimer County received 40,000 new registrations since July with a vast majority being Democrat or unaffiliated. Will a surge of CSU students registering to vote for Obama impact county races? See the full story at LovelandPolitics.com.

See story

State Senator Steve Johnson who will be term limited by the end of his current term in the State Senate, is seeking a position on the Larimer County Board of Commissioners. If he wins a chain reaction could be created if a State House member is appointed to his open seat and a Loveland City Councilor is appointed to the vacated State House seat.

The Republican Central Committee Executive Committee is meeting next week to discuss the matter and make sure everyone understands the rules. Because Johnson’s Senate District includes precincts in Weld County, state party rules will apply instead of county party rules.

We have been told our list of potential appointees is too short and should include Bill Wilt and others. Any comments or suggestions?

Loveland’s City Manager, Don Williams, is fond of telling people this has been the most difficult council to manage in the years since he was promoted to city manager.

LovelandPolitics has learned that complaints by City Councilwoman Carol Johnson who compares him constantly with Mike Bestor, her previous city manager while serving on the Golden City Council, are getting under his skin. She has even taken her concerns to Todd Gamble, Loveland’s Director of Human Resources.

Poor Job References?

They say a good reputation follows you and a bad one goes ahead of you. This may be why Johnson can’t seem to connect with organizations in the community who she apparently believes would love to put a city councilmember on the payroll. Rejected for jobs at both McWhinney Enterprises and more recently Loveland’s Chamber of Commerce, Johnson is smarting from the rejections.

It is unlikely that Williams would have done anything overt to disqualify her for the positions but private talk and complaints to friends on the golf course can also impact a candidate’s probability of success. Williams, like Johnson, tend to prefer keeping their objections private so his views are closely held.

Williams, for his part, has played the rejection coolly by meeting with Johnson only when he must and telling her only what he has to tell her. He is also reluctant to support the many Golden copycat ideas she wants to implement for Loveland’s downtown.

Nonetheless, her efforts to convince colleagues and staff alike that Williams lacks the credentials to be city manager has only created a bigger rift between them. While we question Williams’ value to the city (as he is more worried about serving the interest of developers near I-25 than the residents of the community) we also think he doesn’t deserve the destructive backdoor gossip Johnson appears to be engaging in to undermine his authority.

Williams has created a culture of secrecy where the most important decisions are made privately instead of in public. Johnson appears to be giving him a taste of his own medicine and he doesn’t like it.

Please feel free to post any comments below - especially if you are named in this story.

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As Nope calls us the -

“Whiny pissant ….. clowns that run this illiterate blog”

The Loveland City Council approved the McWhinney proposal to take over the City Council’s authority in determining which projects can qualify for taxpayer subsidies within an expanded Centerra URA district. In addition, the council ignored the State of Colorado Urban Renewal law definitions of blight and declared nearly 500 acres “blight” in east Loveland even though 90% of the unrelated 5 parcels is agricultural land.

The City Attorney relinquished his role in the process and often differed to McWhinney attorneys to answer councilor questions regarding the legality or feasibility of the Flex URA. This created a stream of legal advice from an entity with pecuniary interests in the outcome of the vote and lead to false or misleading information being given to council which they restated among the reasons for supporting the Flex URA.

Chad McWhinney attempted to cross examine a member of the city council while one of his attorneys distorted the public’s comments.

Below is an abbreviated list of false or misleading assertions made to Loveland’s City Council by Chad McWhinney and his staff:

1. Chad McWhinney confirmed (when asked) that he owned ALL the parcels in question. Later, Councilman Cecil Gutierrez asked why his attorney referred to Poudre Hospital as the owners of the old dog track and his staff conceded the land had already been sold earlier in the week and was no longer owned by McWhinney.

2. Chad McWhinney told the council he (the Metro District) was committed to contributing funds not only to the interim improvement on Highway 34 and I-25 interchange but also the long-term and permanent improvements to that interchange. Later, city staff acknowledged to the council they attended a meeting with McWhinney and CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) where the long-term improvements were removed from any future plans and therefore would not be funded by the Metro District. According to staff, Chad McWhinney participated in that meeting.

3. A McWhinney attorney mischaracterized arguments made by the public regarding blight as being a common definition but not the legal one as defined in the statute. In fact, the actual statute is what a member of the public read to council when providing the definition of blight. The McWhinney attorneys (acting in their interests and not the city’s) failed to read for the council the proper definition of blight from State law since that would have contradicted their false or misleading assertions.

4. The required study declaring the parcels in question blight that was provided to the Loveland City Council was mischaracterized as being an independent study ordered by the city. In fact, the council was not involved in ordering, authorizing or paying for the blight study. The study was coordinated over a year before between McWhinney and city staff and the cost of the study was paid directly to the consultant by McWhinney and not the City of Loveland.

Finally, absent any ability for the public to defend their comments as McWhinney was given an open microphone to continue advising and directing both council and their staff, the outcome was inevitable.

The council falsely condemned productive farmland contrary to state law and relinquished much of their governmental authority over the Urban Renewal Authority process to McWhinney in an unprecedented departure from the normal implementation of Urban Renewal Law.

Any comments?

The “Flex-URA” delayed from the Loveland City Council meeting August 19 to September 2, is now upon us.

LovelandPolitics has learned some outside public interest groups and private attorneys have been looking over the proposal and whether it conforms with state law. The conclusion, it flies in the face of state statute and would not hold-up in state court. Read the specifics at LovelandPolitics.com

Left and Right Agree It is A Bad Idea

Conservative talk show host and member of Colorado’s Independence Institute, Amy Oliver, interviewed Councilman Kent Solt on her popular radio show on KFKA (1310 AM) which covers Northern Colorado and Denver. A number of people coming to this issue from outside Loveland are shocked the City of Loveland is even willing discuss abdicating its own role over TIF (Tax Increment Financing) and also declare green farmland as blight. Amy Oliver has indicated she intends on broadcasting a follow-up show on the issue once the city council makes its decision.

Another member of the media investigating the matter referred to it as a “clear power grab” while another, a Denver attorney, stated the council was putting themselves at risk for being accused of “abuse of discretion.” This is because the state law gives local officials the discretion to determine what is and isn’t urban blight in the community. If they use this discretion in a pernicious or arbitrary manner and pretend blight exists on land that is indistinguishable from most other properties in the surrounding area (but are not owned by their campaign contributor McWhinney Enterprises) — “this is clearly abuse of their discrection.”

The condition of the property and not who owns it should be the determining factor when declaring land blighted. Nonetheless, Loveland’s truly blighted and abandoned commercial and residential properties remain unfixed while the City Council prepares to declare even more open and desirable farm land as blighted. This will provide McWhinney’s Metro District the opportunity to create more public debt through bonds to pay for their “demolition” and infrastructure costs of building on the open farm land. Adjacent property owners of farmland and even those who own blighted properties must use their own money to develop the land.

Local Democratic Attorney, Mark Shaffer, has also voiced concern over the proposal and the longer-term impact in may have on the community. Shaffer, like others who work in downtown Loveland, are concerned over the neglect of businesses in downtown Loveland while the council seems willing to do almost anything to continue sprawl near I-25.

Will you be attending the meeting and what would you do if you were on Loveland’s City Council?

The Loveland City Council has received a note attached to their agenda package explaining the Flex URA (Urban Renewal Authority) and now property blight designations for McWhinney Enterprises have been postponed until the September 2, 2008 council meeting. These items are still isted on the public agenda.

People interested in this topic of giving the McWhinneys more discretion, power and authority over which of their own properties can receive special tax subsidies from city taxpayers (without the need for council approval) need to attend the September 2, council meeting now instead of the August 19, meeting.

The “Golden Nest Egg” (employee retirement benefits for the city manager and a few others if they retire early) issue will be brought back for a desicion at the Aug. 19 meeting. It failed in previous meeting when the Mayor was not in attendance but the Mayor has already agreed to follow the city manager’s direction on this so it is likely to pass on a 5-4 vote.

Feel free to post any comments regarding the URA or nest egg issues.