Ramblings for August 18, 2010

As foretold here, Loveland’s City Council, last night, started to really gear up in opposition of three state initiatives on this year’s ballot: Amendment 60, Amendment 61 and Proposition 101. 

City Council appears to have a problem with understanding original intent of a law and a few members appear to be making a game out of how far they can push the envelope.  Obviously, there is the need for some legal interpretation of law because there will always be unintended consequences that need to get worked out.  But watching from the sidelines, it is hard to realize if some are even taking  the slightest amount of time to consider original intent of the law.  It is also difficult to tell whether they are working for ‘the people’, ‘big government’ or even some third motive that can’t be identified.  The ‘holier than thou’ attitude of a few last night really makes one wonder what that third motive might be. 

You have to respect the fact that they do put their opinions out their to get criticized and most are likely getting pulled in many different directions from people with all sorts of different interests.  But when something seems so obvious to one person, it is hard to believe that at least one of the nine isn’t even willing to bring it up. 

The City of Loveland, for the most part, does a very good job fiscally speaking.  Most of the  projects the City does are paid for with cash, as opposed to other cities that may need a bond issue to pay for street improvements.  There are even City projects that have funding, but are on hold because of the uncertainity of how future operation and maintenance expenses will be paid for.  Because of this, Amendments 60 and 61 won’t hurt Loveland nearly as bad as they will hurt other municipalities.  Many believe that Loveland is in such a good position fiscally because of talented, caring staff and because they have followed the law.  It appears that when they try to interpret the law in ways that benefit their pet projects they get burned.  vNet (giving money to an individual entity) and the 402 land deal (using money intended for one use on something else) are the obvious examples.

Amendment 61 will essentially make it illegal for intergovernmental loans.  For instance, if Loveland collects Capital Expansion Fees for a new park, it can’t use that money to buy land for a future development with that money – even if it intends to pay it back and ultimately spend the money on a park.  Simple enough right?  Except for the fact that this is pretty much what happened in the 402 land deal.  This City Council has vowed to do whatever they can legally to keep their ability to make such deals. 

City Council needs to be challenged to make this a Loveland issue.  Keep on fighting Amendments 60 and 61, and Proposition 101 at the State level, but identify what parts of those amendments do make sense and get them approved the at City level.  Intergovermental loans shouldn’t be allowed and enterprise zones should be looked at in case a competitor does want to move into town.  Right now there is no other golf courses or theaters to compete against, but if private enterprise wants to bring them here in the future, is it a fair playing field if  one competitor doesn’t have to pay property tax and the other does?