Two brothers and their development company have filed a lawsuit against the City of Loveland and key members of the senior staff.
Former City of Loveland building officials have signed affidavits revealing what people have long suspected but couldn’t prove, that the development laws in Loveland only apply to some but not everyone.
The City Manager, Don Williams, and crew allowed multiple projects to begin without proper permits, gave verbal approval for some to ignore stop work orders (SWO) and generally ran the city development process in an arbitrary manner by rewarding friends and punishing critics.
The iniquities may now cost taxpayers millions as the Klen brothers seek restitution for the damages they claim the city cost their project after they spoke out against improper behavior by city officials. The claim is well founded. A simple permit to begin the foundation work dragged out over more than a year after staff lost the application, refused to process it and later, according to Klens, even perjured themselves by falsifying the application with fraudulent entries.
City Council member David Clark sailed through the approval process with a competitive commercial building project located close to the Klen’s project in east Loveland. Now Clark is contributing to the city’s direction to the outside counsel on the Klen’s case even though there appears to be a conflict of interest.
The depositions will begin soon and much more is likely to be revealed as the Klen’s attorney opens the door to much larger problems in the management of the City of Loveland.
All city employees who are concerned about the lawsuit should seek independent legal counsel. Using the city’s attorneys means your personal interests may take a back seat to the city manager’s objectives in defending himself. Cities often indemnify employees by paying their legal fees. A smart employee would seek their own independent legal counsel and ask for the city to pay their defense instead of relying on the attorney directed by the city manager to defend their interests. Too often, the interest of an individual employee who needs to be forthright in the legal process is incompatible with that of their supervisors causing a conflict of interest between the defendants.
In the end, the Mayor and City Council need to show leadership by cleaning-up the process and reforming Loveland’s development, building and planning processes. In the meantime, the Klens will likely have their day in court to prove their allegations.
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See the story and court documents on LovelandPolitics
