The Larimer County Commissioners sent one letter against and now another not against but also not for an amendment to the Loveland/McWhinney MFA (Master Financing Agreement) amendment to relieve McWhinney of any current obligation to improve the I-25 and U.S.34 interchange. Sound confusing? It is mostly because the story McWhinney’s people are putting out is contradictory, not accurate and constantly changing depending on who their target audience is.
Jay Hardy (also called Loveland’s Baghdad Bob) and Rocky Scott are the two McWhinney employees on the front lines trying to cleverly shift the debate surrounding McWhinney’s desire to abandon its responsibility to improve the I-25/U.S. 34 interchange.
In a stretch of the truth that would make even P.T. Barnum blush, Hardy and Scott are perpetuating the myth that McWhinney is obligated to use the funds obtained from the transportation project to create jobs in Loveland. In fact, the amendment being proposed does nothing of the kind.
The MFA (Master Financing Agreement) amendment McWhinney is seeking says nothing about bringing jobs to Loveland. Instead, the proposed amendment to the MFA only removes the requirement that McWhinney fund the interchange anytime soon while leaving silent the issue of what McWhinney will do with the money. McWhinney could easily apply those funds towards their ambitious projects in Garden Grove, California or the 915 acres development in Broomfield, Colorado at Anthem.
A majority of Loveland’s City Councilors are anxious to comply with McWhinney’s request as usual. McWhinney, for their part, are literally banking on weak kneed councilman and an apathetic public to pull money out of the interchange improvement fund and use it instead to improve their own private endeavors. Whether it is the one in Garden Grove, Broomfield or elsewhere is their decision.
Now is the time for those on the City Council to show courage. There is no shame in representing the residents of the community and making McWhinney fulfill their part of the agreement. Read 
the full story on LovelandPolitics.com
Thanks for that story. Everyone should send it to anyone they know who lives in Loveland! Most people don’t know this but if they did things could change.
I found the Broomfield Enterprise article on McWHinney’s website about Anthem that you quoted. Did you know McWhinney’s version doesn’t have the quote you included in your story from the exact same article? I checked with the newspaper’s website and your version.
The quote was Troy McWhinney saying they needed to brief the council in private to keep the name of the company and other details out of the news. Could it be because they are selling the exact same story to Loveland in private?
McWhinney must have doctored the news article before posting it! And they tell me this site isn’t credible! What nerve!
So they’re basing this newest change (5th time, apparently) on “job creation being more important than public safety”. Even if I bought that (and I don’t), the “jobs” argument is bogus. EVEN IF they were to lure, say, ADM to their development, from a job seeker perspective, and as you point out, this is no benefit if they’d otherwise be locating caddy-corner. In fact, from a taxpayer perspective, I’d much rather they locate at that other corner simply because then they’d be paying property taxes, etc. to local governments instead of going instead to McWhinney’s pockets.
But the jobs argument is bogus for another reason. What we’re interested in is job OPPORTUNITIES… i.e. openings where unemployed locals can work. We certainly don’t benefit from a company transferring most of its employees in from somewhere else (as usually happens in these cases.)
Those aren’t “jobs”, they’re in-migrating employees. And as every honest person knows, growth in residential rooftops costs MORE to service than it pays in taxes.
I’d bet you the shirt off our previous Loveland “Champions” Walter and Harry, that both are either retired or gainfully employed. You’d have to be to ooze such malarchy and tunnel vision thinking. Easy to criticize a local commercial development company for actually making a positive impact for many.
Have the two of you ever stepped foot in the McWhinney development? Have the two of you ever spoken to someone who is employed by a business in the McWhinney development ie. Medical Center of the Rockies, Heska, Kroll Factual Date etc. Have you ever spoken to a working family that calls this part of Loveland home? I’d bet you a “No”, and raise you one large amount of “Arrogance”.
Get real people. I’m tired of the whining and complaining that happens on LovelandPolitics.com among other politically interested media outlets. Wake up and smell the coffee. Change is upon us! Embrace or leave. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Chris I have a question for you – did you even read the story? Here is the link in case you didn’t. LovelandPolitics.com It was just updated and today and they now report the mystery employer is not ADM but UAP.
I didn’t know the Greeley firm UAP (now CPS) was going to consolidate in Loveland (or just next to) anyway. Its even kinda weird Loveland Products Inc. is involved as well.
Anyway, this proves our city council is either really corrupt or the world’s most gullible fools to ever hold public office. McWhinney must be laughing at them. McWhinney isn’t bringing a Fortune 500 company to Loveland but just competing to get a consolidating one with regional jobs that the Northern Colorado Economic Development Council recruited already!
Anyway, GREAT JOB LovelandPolitics! Once again I read here what is really going on and only get McWhinney’s misleading press release information from the Distorter-Herald that claimed the council was going to decide the issue April 14 (I called the city to check and the date is really April 21). Once again the Distorter-Herald gave me a bum steer!
DD
UAP is their “Mystery Fortune 500 Employer”????????????????
Give me a break! Ag chemicals are great but its hardly an out of state company moving its headquarters to Loveland. I think ANY company in Greeley will move to Loveland if they can without tax incentives.
Message to McWhinney – KEEP YOUR PROMISE AND FIX THE INTERCHANGE!
Don’t let short-term profit or greed endanger any more innocent travelers on that highway. You got the tax district (and lots of us supported you!) because we really believed you would keep your word.
In the long run it is also good business. Shoppers shouldn’t have to risk their lives to access Centerra! Start thinking with your head instead of your greedy heart man! You will be amazed how many more people will shop at Centerra if there is a safe exit from the highway!
Signed -
NO LONGER will defend McWhinney!
I don’t care whether the developers fill up their projects with companies, but I do care that that intersection of I-25 and Highway 34 gets fixed. It’s a mess and getting dangerous!
I drive a truck over that dangerous intersection. I only do cause going around costs me too much time and gas. This is my pledge to work for any fellow citizen who isn’t controlled by McWhinney to run for Mayor or city council. You can write all the stories you want but until citizens are in-charge again we will never fix this problem. Someone told me the $12 million needed to help safety their is only 10% of all the money they already got from bonds or something like that. Does anyone in Loveland care they are using taxes we pay to build there empire?
The issue isn’t complicated.
The Metro District has money and McWhinney wants it. Every other issue is just smoke and mirrors designed to fool hard working taxpayers out of their hard earned money.
Where is the adult supervision of the city? After $112,000,000 of public debt McWhinney should have built something for the public. Letting them off the hook now shows we don’t even have a city council just McWhinney pawns sitting on that great big wooden dais.
I really don’t understand the City of Loveland taking out a full page advertisement over the Crossroads Blvd. round abouts pretending McWhinney keeps their promises. Oh please………everyone knows the stimulus money ($3 million) and MPO ($1.2 million) is paying for it.
Yeah, I know. McWhinney is paying any “extra” for it which is really crappy ZEROscape and probably another Centerra sign (they are so generous!). Give me a break!!
They really have some nerve lecturing us about how much they are doing for the community when people continue to be killed or injured at the biggest interchange they promised to fix from the beginning (I25&34).
John, I agree.
Maybe you guys can look into this. A friend of mine who worked there told me that when Jay Hardy is running around trying to convince people someone else should pay for the highway improvements he is charging his time to the metro district.
Can you confirm this? I don’t know if it is true but I would prefer Chad and Troy McWhinney were taking money from the Metro District for their vacations to the Bahamas instead of using the money to pay people to lobby the taxpayers.
It just seems like somebody other than Loveland’s council should be looking into how they determine what is or isn’t an expense of that McWhinney public use district money. Are they ever audited by an independent auditor just to see what has happened to all the money they already received?
This is something you guys should investigate since too many councilors barely understand what a metro district is and the Reporter-Herald just seems to be printing whatever they put in their press announcements.
Pat
Pat, I doubt you can ever get that information. They run a tight ship and would never allow you to see that information. Don Williams treats tax dollars like his own personal slush fund and council approval is just a formality.
That Councliman Klassen put it best when he said, “McWhinney is beyond reproach” a longtime ago. Even if they knew something was crooked it is likely they would try and keep it under wraps since the exposure of any abuse of the metro district dollars hurts them as well.
You don’t live in a democracy in Loveland. Get used to it.
When will you post the CDOT letter? I read the Greeley letter and it really destroys McWhinney’s arguments.
THANKS FOR THE GREAT COVERAGE!
I think the best point Greeley makes is that people paid taxes in Centerra (including many people from Greeeley) who thought the money was going towards regional transportation projects.
Since the taxes were already collected for that purpose how can they now change their minds and try to pocket the money? Seems very slimy to me!
I saw the last Council meeting on TV. What a charade! Not only was it clear that the McW’s had spoon-fed talking points to their lined-up, paid-for boosters; but it’s also clear to me that most of the Council were trying to defend in advance their blind allegiance and compliance to McWhinney by disingenuous talk of “jobs”. The only Council members who seemed to ask honest questions were Solt and Guterrez (sp?). Those two really seem to me honest.
I guess we’ll see who is honest and who isn’t, when this comes to a vote. Thanks for posting all this important info.
Seems that “Chris”, unable to stick to the issues, resorts to the last refuge of the weak and dishonest… ad hominem attack. Whether a commenter is employed or retired or neither is irrelevant to the issue at hand. To wit those issues are:
- McWhinney, with Council compliance, is shafting the taxpayers who will lose an estimated nearly $700 million and who were promised “in return” $100 million of so-called regional improvemetnts.
- If this amendment goes thru, it will be the 5th such one. How many governments much less businesses will allow a contract to be changed to benefit one party multiple times?
- The City Manager and Council and McWhinney sold this project to the public on the PROMISE that it would allow the developer to fix I-24/34 and other such problems. PERIOD. Thats why County Commissioners even endorsed it. NOW they are each reneiging.
– The jobs argument is bogus as the article has made clear. First of all, any “jobs” are likely to be employee relocations… not job openings. So assuming that I am a job seeker, this doesn’t help me (or any other local seeker) one iota. And in fact, if they located outside of Centerra, it would at least pay taxes.
So Chris, stop drinkin the stinkin cool-aid and regurgitating the propaganda. Come back when you’ve awakened from your little dreamworld.
I knew Ken Amundson, the editor of The Reporter-Herald, was lazy, who is on record justifying his laziness.
But plagarizing this effort for The RH Line? Now THAT is lazy. If Ed Lehman wasn’t a feeble-mined old poop he would kick Kenny to the curb.
Censoring facts and truth about the McWhinneys is just icing on the cake for that bunch.
Thanks to Loveland Politics for all its great reporting. We wouldn’t know about any of this without this site! Hopefully Greeley woke up in time.
I second Amy’s applause. The supposed daily newspapers in Fort Collins and Loveland have been absurdly lax about covering this issue. This blog has been the driving journalist force in exposing what the McWhinneys are trying to get away with.
… And now, back to our regular Amy Oliver coverage:
http://colorado.mediamatters.org/issues_topics/people/amyoliver
Anyone read the Loveland Reporter-Herald this morning?
Great reporting on the issue and even identified the fact McWhinney misrepresented the facts when they said they could bring jobs to this area with the money.
The McWhinney’s paid lobby machine was out in full swing. A letter from Jennifer Peters might seem a little too informed on the subject. Is that because Jennifer Lynn Peters of Otis, Coan & Stewart of Greeley is a real estate attorney who has a history with McWhinney?
Her letter cleverly fails to identify she is hardly just a concerned resident as the letter implies. When will McWhinney learn that attempting to manipulate the public discussion with false information and advocates is wrong?