The Reporter-Herald yesterday printed;

"The council balked at a plan to build $3 million in aesthetic improvements that would mean $30,000 to $50,000 in annual maintenance costs to the city."

The information on this website is false since the council DID NOT approve the funding agreement for the interchange relative to landscaping. Stop wasting your time on this blog and try www.Repoert-Herald.com/news where may also make comments on many more stories.
--News Junky

News Junky, the error is yours and that of your most credible source.

We accurately reported the vote to approve the agreement as unanimous while the prior amendment to revise the agreement (baulking at the cost) failed on a 4 to 4 tie vote. This occurred at the June 3, Loveland City Council meeting. The recorded vote can also be confirmed at the city’s web site.

What Cara O’Brien (the reporter for Loveland R-H) may have confused was the conversation both before and after the vote. The Mayor told his colleagues to trust staff to maybe propose some cheaper landscaping alternatives after their approval. Our sense of it is that while 4 councilors were on record as opposing the annual costs they were all in favor of the safety improvements at the intersection and didn’t want to delay the improvements over another item of lesser importance.

Please feel free to post here again in the future if you find anything else you believe is in error. We make mistakes like everyone on occasion and will be pleased to correct them if your contrary data is correct. In this case, it was the newspaper that was wrong.

The time has come for a recall of the mayor and the city council.

News Junky: Comments made to the Reporter-Herald web site are heavily edited. So to expend effort and energy submitting comments there is a waste of time.

Perhaps, if you have editor Ken Amundson's ear, you should suggest he stop making up comments for the RH Line and start defending the First Amendment Rights of residents of Loveland by actually allowing people engage in Free Speech.
--Shawn

Thanks for explaining the difference. Though I'm used to a certain spin from the "Distorter Error" (read last weekend's article, a P-R piece for the Centerra URA, for example) I assumed from Ms. O'Brien's article that the Council came to their senses and voted against having us taxpayers pay for maintaining the fancy landscaping that McWhinneys wanted. I mean, that seemed common sense... when families are getting foreclosed and having trouble putting food on the table or gas in their tank, it makes no sense to me to have them spending our taxes to beautify McWhinneyville.
So thanks, "Guch" for explaining the error in the RH reporting.

But back to the issue, why are citizens letting this stuff happen? And where does the Mayor get off playing Napoleon and deciding whether there'll be a vote? I hope people will watch the video of the meeting and maybe someone will start a recall. There was a successful recall quite a few years ago... I think it's time for another. I'm too old to atart it myself but I'll gladly support one if it begins and I tell you my neighbors and card buddies would too.
--Herm

Herm - you think regular grass is fancy?
Give me a break you people really don't know what you are talking about at all. Buffalo grass is crap.

The Reporter-Herald wasn't wrong. Cara was just documenting the fact one crazy old man grumbled but never said which way they voted. So what? I misunderstood - now shoot me - she and Ken have done nothing wrong.

And Lovelander I am tired of your nasty little attacks on the good people who work at our ONLY one hometown newspaper. You have absolutely no evidence that Ken ever invented anything for the RH line you twit. Ken cares deeply for this community and would never even think of doing such a thing. How dare you hide behind your anonymous title and make such a terrible comment about a man who everyone in the newsroom trembles with pride when they see him coming. You are the coward whose stupid comments and letters will never be approved for print on the pages of any fine newspaper.

The Loveland Reporter-Herald does filter out the garbage this webpage allows to rot in the open. It is not called censorship it is called having standards. The newspaper is a private publication and enjoys the right to refuse any comments unfit for publishing.

Too bad the low standards of this awful webpage allow you to continue your crazy comments. Loveland would be better off without all of you dog-faced cowards

--News Junky

Somebody's touchy. Sounds like "Sean" struck a nerve with "News Junky". Probably somebody who works for the Reporter-Herald and knows about how Ken makes up stuff. They do, by the way.
--John

This web site demonstrates a certain courage and commitment to truth I see terribly lacking at the Reporter-Herald.

LovelandPolitics doesn’t appear afraid to post your diatribe against them and haven’t required me to first submit this comment for approval. The Reporter-Herald’s lack of journalistic integrity is more than just laziness. It stems from a culture of intimidation the old boys in City Hall create while the Herald cowers on its back like a submissive canine.

The fact a developer can continue to milk Loveland taxpayers after having received so much success through bond debt the taxpayers now need to repay is shocking. Loveland is both a nice town but also a naïve town.

All the nifty Metro Districts and bond debt will start to fall apart if interest rates exceed 11 percent. As a guy in the finance sector, I can tell you we are in for troubled times and cities drunk and happy with municipal bond and redevelopment debt are going to be hurting since they need to raise the money to repay these debts.

McWhinney brothers are likely solvent but their many projects and the Metro Districts they have created may not be for long. The only bail out will be you and I the taxpayers while the McWhinney brothers (neither now lives in Loveland anymore) take their millions into the sunset.

How sad. Now the council needs to even debate whether the “maintenance” district will pay for upkeep on McWhinney's project initiatives instead of us? Is the Mayor insane or just so corrupt he will do anything to get another big landscaping contract for Gulley’s?

Throw the bums out!

--Don

I don't support many of the comments here but don't understand why the McWhinneys are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Redevelopment should be used for areas that need help. If the city council reads these comments I want them to know I don't think saying something is so that isn't is proper. This is just my opinion.
--Blanche

I don't support many of the comments here but don't understand why the McWhinneys are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Redevelopment should be used for areas that need help. If the city council reads these comments I want them to know I don't think saying something is so that isn't is proper. This is just my opinion.
--Blanche

That video of the Larry Heckel is a riot!!! Was he joking around or does he really talk like a hillbilly?

God help us if this is someone making decisions on our behalf. He can't even string a couple sentences together that make sense!!

That Gumby has got to go!
--T.K.

Ken Amundson does NOT care about the community that is Loveland. If he did he would do away with the RH Line. But he won't because it's the only way he can publish racist, bigoted, prejudicial remarks and get away with calling them professional journalism.

And the contempt The Reporter-Herald has for the presicency has convinced me to cancel all business with them.

Here's a suggestion you might want to consider: If you don't agree with the anti-American propaganda published in THE REPORTER-HERALD don't read it and don't do business with the paper.

I understand a lot of people have made this choice, which goes to explain why the editions published Monday through Saturday are so skinny as to be non-existent. I remember a time when seven days a week each edition was thick and full. Not anymore. My subscription expires the end of the month, and since I need money for gas I won't be renewing it.
--James

Here's a suggestion you might want to consider: If you don't agree with the anti-American propaganda published in THE REPORTER-HERALD don't read it and don't do business with the paper.

I understand a lot of people have made this choice, which goes to explain why the editions published Monday through Saturday are so skinny as to be non-existent. I remember a time when seven days a week each edition was thick and full. Not anymore. My subscription expires the end of the month, and since I need money for gas I won't be renewing it.
--James

News Junky: here's some news for you:
CDOT's "regular" grass, which they would pay for maintaining, is "Buffalo grass". Anything else, including especially bluegrass, is indeed "fancy"...i.e. above and out of the norm.

So who is it that doesn't know what he's talking about? My advice: before widely opening yap, maybe best to see if there are any facts inside; otherwise people can see that the barrel is empty.

Bluegrass also requires 4 to 6 times the amount of water that buffalo grass requires. (Mayor Pielin should take note... you were completely off-base and wrong in your attempt to "educate" your fellow Councilmen. What kind of gardener would claim as fact such a false steatement? Not one I'd want advising me, that's for darned sure!

--Herm

Loveland Mayor Pielin works for Gulley's Greenhouse in Fort Collins.

I don't agree that the landscape improvements are a good idea, whether the City pays or not. With all the drought problems we have, it doesn't make sense to put in blue grass by the hi-way. But thank you for the story. A friend told me about this web and I'm glad he did.
--Irma

I don't agree that the landscape improvements are a good idea, whether the City pays or not. With all the drought problems we have, it doesn't make sense to put in blue grass by the hi-way. But thank you for the story. A friend told me about this web and I'm glad he did.
--Irma

I worked closely with Heckel and other Council members on City sponsored sub-committees. I agree he gets nothing out of meetings because he never reads anything on the agendas, I mean nothing, not a word. My conclusion was that he can't read, that he's illiterate. He also clearly exercises a conflict of interest demanding special attention at the development counter at City Hall for his development projects and land interests. And this is the man residents have elected to represent them. As for Pielin, he’s just an unmitigated ass. You get what you elect. I don’t know why folks here are so surprised, this stuff, as I have said before, has been going on for years, and years. As it goes now, I mean the City actually just re-elected both of these guys. Amazing.

Amen!!! I sent an email to the people responsible for this website and thanked them for doing this with nothing to gain.

I believe the City Council is like a rotten log. Somebody just needs to kick it and expose the rotting interior to the light of day.

Heckel even sold land to the Housing Authority to kick-start his development and get cash flow while he was the Council person assigned to that group.

If we had a free press in Loveland the people would demand change. For now we have the Report-Pravda propaganda machine too many people read.

Tell your friends about this website and tell the Reporter-Pravda how you feel.
--Wilbert

Here is the question I wondered while watching the meeting that no one has addressed -

What WOULD the state have spent had Loveland not volunteered to pay for keeping-up landscaping that matches Centerra?

In other words - how much in maintenance did we turn-away? What kind of agreement did the City Manager negotiate when the state pays ZERO (instead of the normal 100%)???? What the HELL was he negotiating for?? Permission to pay everything??

If the State budget, say, $40,000 per year but the improvements McWhinney cost $100,000 per year - why is the State paying nothing?
--Walter