Updated May 22, 2009 – Council approved the money only if both companies (CPS and Agrium Technologies) lease a McWhinney owned property. Mike Masciola (VP of NCEDC) did indeed say the company decided to move to Loveland back in April. Read our complete story on the decision by council May 19, 2009.
We posted a story yesterday (May 17, 2009) regarding the rushed cash incentive request being pushed to Loveland’s City Council by McWhinney on behalf of their future tenant Agrium Inc. and its subsidiary CPS.
The NCEDC (Northern Colorado Economic Development Council) is said to be assisting the company’s move from facilities in Greeley into a new location in either Johnstown’s 2534 (south east corner of I-25 and U.S. 24) or Centerra across the street.
McWhinney has included some analysis of the benefits to Loveland if the company moves to Centerra by CSU Economics Professor Martin Shields. What is not included in the analysis is a disclosure statement that Shield’s salary is partly paid by the NCEDC (a group funded and partly controlled by McWhinney).
Hardly independent, Shields’ analysis uses specious reasoning built upon incredible assumptions regarding the benefits to Loveland if the company changes locations. Nowhere in the documentation is there a comparison between the actual choice the company is facing, moving to 2534 just outside Loveland or Centerra just inside the same city limits. Instead, the study pretend the question is only whether or not the company will be leaving Greeley for Loveland.
In February of 2008 Loveland provided cash to local employer V-NET. That incentive package has gone terribly wrong. Loveland has not only lost jobs from V-NET as the company recently dropped from its high of 78 employees in Loveland to 56 total employees but now stands to lose part of the incentive financing as well.
Please feel free to make any comments.
Can someone please explain to me why our tax dollars should be used to settle a turf battle between two adjacent developments? Will anyone on our city council really vote for such nonsense?
I thought Centerra was a quality development where companies want to locate. If that is true, why does Centerra need Loveland to bribe companies to locate in their development? It doesn’t make sense to me at all. If they have a good development the bribe shouldn’t be needed.
Also, thanks for outing the “coin operated” CSU professor. We had a great laugh over that one! Keep up the good work. Lots of people are reading this website to get the real story on McWhinney’s antics in our city hall!
Kudos! Those guys are crazy! I hope Dave Clark votes for this trap because he won’t be able to get his tail out of this door when he tries to run for Mayor. He will just be pulling on his McWhinney tail whining that it got caught in the door. Any other candidate can stroll right on by.
Hmmmm……don’t know what to say. Dave even sheep don’t have wool on their tongues.
The NCEDC is an independent group. So what if they promote McWhinney if that is where their support is coming from? I would love to know what contributions people who prepare this site for public viewing make to our community other than tearing good people down?
2534 is trashy. Anyone who goes out there can see the difference between Centerra and that dump. They haven’t paid anything towards fixing the interchange either.
I could span the distance between 2534 and Centerra by throwing a rock. For an economics professor to infer exclusive benefits that accrue to Loveland for a company in one location vs. the other is laughable. It says more about how easily the preening intelligensia can be duped or co-opted than it says about economics. If those currently on council vote for this, be sure to remember it come election time.
I don’t think running down Johnstown is an appropriate defense.
The fact is Agrium’s taxes are already going mostly to McWhinney.
If the so called economist was correct that most taxes that could be generated by this company moving to Loveland is net to the city than we must be rolling in money…right? That is because so many other businesses are paying their share of the taxes but where does all the money go?
It appears to me that normal city services like fire and rescue, police protection, library services and others are not entirely free. Every new business tenant or resident that moves into McWhinneyville (you guys call it Centerra) is not paying their fair share of city taxes.
I hear Loveland’s Police Department is quietly cutting public safety due to budget reasons. For example, the program to place officers in high schools is being removed for next year along with other public safety programs.
As McWhinney populates their development people in Loveland are seeing a cut-back in available city services as the dollars people in west Loveland pay are now going to support less services for everyone.
Another informative article. Thanks for pointing out the collusion between the so-called “independent economic analysis” and the beneficiary of the proposed giveaway (McWhinney), and their relationship to NCEDC.
And shining more light on the dark web, we taxpayers fund NCEDC as well, .since Loveland (and, I think, Larimer County) fund the NCEDC! So if I have it right,
Our taxes go to Loveland and Lar. County, which then gives some to NCEDC, on whose board McWhinney official sits (and apparently uses special access to information to help his company at the expense of other NCEDC supporters), and NCEDC uses some of that public tax money to fund an “economist” to produce “analysis” that supports the political efforts of McWhinney to win yet MORE public subsidies.
I think an interesting story would be to tally up just how much in public subsidies McWhinney has already taken, in the form of taxpayer-funded infrastructure, tax giveaways, other incentives, etc. It’s as if the City government now operates primarily to subsidize one developer.
Further to my last post, “Dawn” says:
“The NCEDC is an independent group. So what if they promote McWhinney if that is where their support is coming from?”
In fact, Dawn, NCEDC is indeed “private” in that it is a member organization with its own private governance, but it is receiving public tax dollars for its operations… practices including special interest lobbying that seem to undermine public interests. I’d call that taxation without representation!
This latest round of corporate welfare benefits only the McWhinneys. Moving a company less than 30-miles fails the bring new jobs and attract new business tests. The Loveland City Council (with two exceptions) has once again proven that any plea by McWhinney, no matter how frivilous or contrived, will get majority approval.
The evidence of the recent votes of the Council is convincing. With the exception of Cecil Gutierrez and Kent Solt, those seated at the council dias represent McWhinney. It is tragic that it takes almost a citizen uprising to get action on something like the LHS Pool, the trains or Staples Farm.
O.K. So The Council as directed by their backers (Chad’s Crew) has given $$ to a company only 30 minutes away. What Gives? Centerra can’t stand on its own merits? This company needs money to move from Greeley, in reality that is not saying much, sorry Greeley please do not take offense.
This situation is very simple.
1. Centerra is having difficulty meeting development forecasts.
2. Find company to move to Centerra with Free Rent incentive.
3. Developer can’t afford free rent.
4. Hire sham economist to tell Council 300 “possible” new jobs will help community.
5. Sham economist does dog and pony show in front of half-wit council.
6. Presto a $300,000 incentive and Centerra builds new leased building.
7. Next year building is sold to investors and Chad and the Boys make $$.
Poor Dumb Lovelanders!
Thank You Mr. Solt and Mr. Gutierrez for standing up for our financial protection and the free market!
Ralph I agree.
Did you notice the Reporter-Herald reported, “Agrium toured eight sites in Larimer and Weld Counties in September 2008 and made a final decision in April 2009 to locate in Loveland, he said. (referring to Mike Masciola, VP of the NCEDC.
How can they call it a carrot or incentive if the decision was already made?
It is not really corporate welfare (since that implies the company is in need) and it is not an incentive since they already made a decision. This website needs to call it what is really is – a gift of public funds.
The city is losing money and laying people off and cutting services (like police in schools) but still making a gift of our tax dollars to McWhinney.
Kevin,
Thanks, those are some points that I didn’t catch. Crop Production Services is essentially receiving a gift very much like some realtors or mortgage brokers present at closing. However, this does raise the question of who committed the City of Loveland to make this gift, and when? Did we witness the City Council rubber-stamp a sweetheart deal made by the McWhinney’s?
I am not wholly dissuaded that this is not corporate welfare for the McWhinney’s. After pulling their plea to get the 25/34 bridge $12 Million for their use for incentives and new construction, they are back within weeks and raid the Loveland Economic Development fund.
The balance of facts does not support the spin that the six councilors who voted with McWhinney on the Crop Production Services $300,000.00 gift acted in the best interests of the city and the citizens/taxpayers. From old(current) offices to Centerra is only 10-12 miles. Even the CPS warehouse on 22nd Street in Greeley is only 18 miles from Centerra.
That’s arguably too small a distance to accept that any current holder of a primary job will sell a Greeley home and move into the Loveland City limits, nor that one would resign from a current job in light that commute creating an opportunity for a current Loveland resident to apply. Too much of the data in this story is contrived and manipulated.
Hey I just heard about this website and think it is wonderful. I agree completely with Ralph that the fact pattern simply doesn’t support the excuse the Mayor and Council tried to make at their last meeting.
What about the CSU professor? That was fascinating information I haven’t found anywhere else. McWhinney is like a monster octopus with tentacles reaching into every government, private and corporate pocket in the region.
The McWhinney octopus is sucking the creativity and competitiveness out of the entire building industry as no one can compete with their heavily government subsidized projects. They really don’t build the best quality only like some kind of legal mafia they are the only game in town.
McWhinney is slowly sucking the life out of Loveland as every employer or business interested in the city is getting sucked into their highway stop of shopping malls and office buildings. Someday people will be very sorry they allowed the McWhinneys try and recreate their Southern California home in Colorado at our expense.
Look at where the McWhinneys come from – overly congested and now urban blighted Santa Ana, California. Is that really the future we want for Loveland?
Leave it to the Report-Herald to add more confusion to issue instead of meeting high journalistc standards and clarifying an issue with their reporting. Once again, the R-H online popularity, see who can manipulate cookies, non-scientific poll has clouded and obscured a public policy issue.
1 – The original poll question was:
“Do you approve of the Loveland City Council granting a $300,000 incentive for an ag business to move here from Greeley”
2 – Midweek the question was edited and become factually inaccurate and confused the issue:
“Do you approve of the Lovland City Council granting a $342,000 incentive for two ag business to move here from Greeley”
3 – Finally, it really appears that somebody at the Reporter-Herald is a little over-eager to publish good news for McWhinney. The published results on Sunday show a pie-chart with results favoring the NO vote, yet the second level captions must be reversed. The online depiction of the poll result only addds to the confusion with a different vote total and a wider margain of vitory for the give-away critics, 54% over 45%.
This would have been excusable if the R-H had left the question alone. The inaccurate combination of the $300,000 closing gift for CPS with the non-controversial measured and accountabole employment incentive for Agrium Advanced Technologies. Still, they couldn’t even get the math right; $442,000 became $342,000. Watch for teeny-tiny correction blurb buried at the bottom of page 3 later in the week.
The Reporter-Herald? Honest? High standards of journalism? Whaaa? The editor is a bigger damn liar that either of the McWhinneys and a bigger (@#%@$# edited) to boot.
Keep up the great work! I love your stories and read the updates every week.
Karen
The city of Loveland has over 700 million dollars in the bank and has made a large amount of revenue so far this year (2009). In case no one has mentioned it, the city manager is trying to get the police chief to cut anywhere between 5% to 10% of the police officer jobs. We are talking about 3-13 police officers off the streets! If the citizens living in Loveland like being safe and want to be responded to quickly in an emergency situation, they need to sound off and stand up for these officers’ jobs! If you get rid of law enforcement officers, you will have lawlessness and things go really bad. You can’t risk it in this day and age! Tell the City manager to cut costs in other areas, like sculptures, golf-courses, U-tube sites, etc….. The citizens need to be aware that their safety is at risk and the city they so adore will turn to crap. If you don’t believe me research what happened in Grand Junction, Colorado with the same situtaion and a bad city manager.
Is anyone heading a police union response or is there any independent source we can discuss the issue with in private?
If so, please tell them to email the specifics and perhaps a contact number to Guchwale@aol.com LovelandPolitics has an excellent record of protecting the identities of people who don’t want to be quoted yet have important information regarding behind the scenes activities the community will be interested in knowing.
Thanks