Memory can fade at 75 years of age but we don’t believe Councilman Daryle Klassen’s recent assault on city taxpayers in contradiction to his campaign rhetoric was due to any memory loss.
Four of the five agenda items he submitted for the city council’s annual retreat (scheduled for Jan. 15 & 16) involve either raising taxes on Loveland residents or muzzling their voices. Read the story
His first goal for 2010, taxing internet purchases on residents in Loveland also received support from newly elected Councilman Hugh McKean at first who has already earned the reputation of appearing to enjoy the sound of his own voice. Unable to make a coherent statement either for or against the proposal but unwilling to be silent, McKean announced he was in favor but also half against the internet sales tax idea during a December council meeting.
Only Councilman Kent Solt stated he was not in favor of the new tax proposal during the meeting.
Klassen’s agenda items eerily reflects the McWhinneycrat agenda for a stripmall developing retailer driven Loveland government and mimick the anti-resident rhetoric emanating from Loveland’s coin operated Chamber of Commerce. This is the same Chamber of Commerce that claims to be privately funded while operating out of a building erected from taxpayer subsidies and whose manicured lawns are maintained by Loveland taxpayers under the farce the chamber grounds are a “public park.”
Here are four of Klassen’s five contributions for Loveland in 2010;
1. Create a sales tax on internet purchases by any resident of Loveland
2. Restrict public comments at study sessions while allowing only special interests to speak
3. Shift property tax burdens from commercial to residential property owners
4. Direct staff to ignore “complainers” when they feel the issue was already decided (does that need council direction?)
Klassen, a self-described “conservative Republican,” has not proposed any budget cuts, tax cuts for residents, relaxing any regulation on business or greater access or transparency for citizens to the governmental process. In a nutshell, Klassen’s retreat agenda is the antithesis of everything he campaigned on and demonstrates a genuine mistrust not for government but instead his constituents.
Klassen’s December 12, 2009 email to his colleagues is the “let them eat cake” revelation of just how out of touch some local Republicans can become after being elected.
We believe the current McWhinneycrat candidate for Ward 1, Donna Rice (aka Donna McCrea), represents the same dishonest bait and switch back room political tactics of riding on a Republican label while only representing a narrow special interest. These insincere candidates terribly degrade the public’s trust in their elected officials and contribute to the apathy that allows them to get away with such brazen acts of voter betrayal.
What is your opinion?
Congrats! I just saw this site was listed as topping 10,000 visitors per month last year on my annual web blog reports for North Col.
I am afraid you might be guilty of not spotting the three people who told Mr. Klassen to send his email to the private address. Aren’t two of those people the ones you supported and really the ones calling for greater transparency not Mr. Klassen?
Right or wrong?
To be honest – not sure.
That is why we published the email in the story so you can be the judge. It appears to be written by Carol Johnson but speaks for all three; Mayor Gutierrez, Joan Shaffer and Carol Johnson.
Given Johnson’s penchant for doing incredibly stupid things (especially in writing) we cannot condemn anyone whose name appears on the email unless we know they actually approved the copy.
While not the point of the story, if they indeed approved of trying to direct council emails regarding city business onto private email accounts to avoid public scrutiny – you are correct. That is wrong and would, in our view, contradict what they also promised during the last campaign.
However, Klassen also mimicked their promises to be more transparent and open in local government thus making him no less accountable to that election campaign promise.
Whether or not Johnson ran the email by her two colleagues first is something only they can answer since their is no email record of her seeking their approval that we could find.
Also, thanks for the visitor volume recognition but we need to disclose it topped 10,000 visitors in November and dipped down considerably in December after the elections.
Bang! You caught this guy red handed trying to raise taxes behind our backs! What a hypocrite.
The Wall Street Journal had an excellent editorial over cities trying to tax online commerce. The bottom line is the city has no connection or expense involved in my online transactions and no business taxing me on them.
Is it really true the city pays for the Chamber of Commerce lawn care? Why the hell doesn’t somebody stop this crap?
I like the title “Retreat Agenda” since he is retreating from his own self-espoused morals and values. I wonder why you are surprised. Didn’t he attend the party with Dave Clark and the tax and spend Republicans election night to celebrate the lodging tax? The Mayor and Councilwoman Shaffer need to explain why they think it is OK to tell people to use private emails for city business. In that I believe Carol (see above message) is correct since they made such a big deal about transparency at the last election.
Disappointed Again
Reading the actual email, it is sent by Carol Johnson, so I think it would be unfair to attribute the words (such as “to avoid the glare of TV Camera”) therein to the entire Retreat Committee, unless in fact they co-authored it.
I do think it’s a valid question though…of whether the other retreat committee members approved that message, and also whether they supported the suggestion to use personal emails to dodge the public eye. If they went along with Carol Johnson on that, they were wrong.
I believe that Rice/Mccrea is Republican, like Clark, Klassen, and company, right? So why not call her a “McWhinneycan” candidate…it would be more accurate than the label you use.
Publica is a the Latin origin of Republic meaning “Public” thus deserving the Latin suffix -can. Democracy is a Greek word “demokratia” thus deserving of a Greek suffix of -crat.
Latin is full of adjective forming suffixes and Greek noun forming suffixes so the modern rule is to use Greek suffixes for non-Latin words.
The suffix – crat – in Greek means “One who advocates or practice rule by” which seems most appropriate in this situation.
No political bias is intended just that crat is the proper suffix for words ending in y like democracy, bureaucracy and McWhinney.
Admin,
thanks for the interesting explanation. I trust your sincerity about lack of partisan bias. If you went further, democracy comes from the Greek “demos” (people), and the rest of the word and origin of the suffix “crat”, comes from the Greek “krátos”, meaning “power”. Hence, democracy meant literally, “power to the people”.
However, the name McWhinney is an English-translated name of Irish (Gaelic) origin; and it is no more of Latin origin than Greek. And, given that all of the persons in question (McWhinney, candidate McCrea, Clark, Klassen) are Republicans, it still seems more appropriate to call them “McWhinneycans”. Or how about, “McWhinneyites”?
Local retail suffers when people do their shopping on the internet. The city had no way of knowing the internet would steal so many purchases from local merchants and now need to make up for lost revenue.
Councilman Klassen is doing exactly what he should be doing — taking care of the city’s balance sheet and looking out after local businesses. I wonder if the person running this blog knows anything about business or the need for the city to raise money. How do you think all the police and fireman are paid?????? Do you support letting them go because greedy citizens buy things cheaper on the internet even after visiting the store and trying on the stuff they want to buy?
The internet tax is necessary to support local services and make up for lost revenue. We need growth to pay for the rising costs of services.
I take issue with Responsible Citizen’s last remark. Growth is the main reason the city (i.e. citizens’) costs keep going up. It never pays for itself. Every new rooftop costs more to serve than it pays in total taxes. And rooftops follow commercial, so that’s hardly the way out of the jam.
Make growth pay its own way, and the City would have plenty of revenue to keep pace with service demand.
You criticize Mr. Klassen for censorship and yet you do the very thing.
Does the word ‘hypocrite’ mean anything to you?
Hey Leo,
What was censored? Your post came through. Sounds like an unjustified complaint to me.
Lovelandpolitics.com censors comments. Lovelandpolitics.com edits comments. Lovelandpolitics.com is a fraud.
And Lovelandpolitics.com is currently under investigation by local, state and federal law enforcement, including the FBI for criminal activities. Just because Lovelandpolitics.com is an LLC doesn’t mean you are above the law.
No one is.
Harry: Can you cite the figures which will prove that growth does not pay for itself? The developer has to install the streets and pay for the sewer and water connections. These costs are passed on to the home buyer, various fees and taxes for parks, the fire district, the library, schools, and other expenses are also tacked on either at purchase or attached to the annual property tax assessment. Those who purchase the house will usually do at least some of their shopping within the city limits, which generates more revenue for the city and county through sales taxes. To collect these sales taxes retail businesses must be allowed to build or expand (without subsidy or credits from the government in my version of utopia) and traffic arterials need to be in place to allow the consumer (both from local and out of town sources) easy access to these businesses. If you want a community to be self-sustaining, you must also have manufacturing and service companies present so that you are not just a bedroom community, so growth is important to the viability of a community. Just take a leisurely drive to Walden if you want to see a community dying do to lack of growth, and after all, we wouldn’t have this website if it weren’t for the rats leaving the sinking ship of California!!!
can anyone confirm the “mastermind” Rocky Scott has now been retained to negotiate a no-bid lease at the loveland airport for a Denver company? has something to do with exclusive fuel sales and for some reason they are paying the mastermind to work his mcwhinney magic.