The City of Loveland has concluded negotiations with Cumberland & Western Resources LLC (C&W), to purchase the former
Agilent campus in Loveland for $5 million. see our story from yesterday
Finally, the local media is acknowledging what Loveland Politics reported last October; CAMT is out of the deal and the property will no longer be the “ACE Project” as contemplated by CAMT when they chose the City of Loveland for their project.
In the end, it was simply a real estate transaction to a qualified buyer who had been looking at the property for a very longtime. Some on Loveland’s council first looked at the proposed buyer of the property with a jaundiced eye given C&W’s past political support for Republican candidates and the owner’s fortune coming from tobacco.
However, the council understood well their tenuous financial position having purchased the property in anticipation of a CAMT selected developer, United Properties, developing the “ACE Project” with CAMT. Buying the former Agilent campus with borrowed internal funds for an unfunded “start-up” was a risky proposition for the city. Fortunately, C&W saved their bacon by not only purchasing the property but also refusing the city offered financing that would have kept taxpayer’s at risk for another 10 years.
Whether CAMT can still meet its public promises to bring any significant tenants related ACE into Loveland remains to be seen but C&W is keeping the door open to that possibility. In the meantime, C&W will focus on attracting good employers into the area unencumbered by the political constraints imposed by CAMT’s vision of clean energy companies or commercialization of NASA related technologies.
A cash sale of the property to a qualified buyer is the best possible outcome for the residents of Loveland. Congratulations to the city council for putting their business acumen ahead of political biases.
Former Loveland Mayor Gene Pielin wants to find a way back into city hall. He has submitted an application to the Loveland City Council asking for an appointment to the Loveland Planning Commission. see story
Three of Loveland’s current Planning Commissioners (Troy Krenning, Buddy Meyers & Robert Molloy) have also applied to serve another 3 year term on the commission. Two of the three have run for city council in recent years which doesn’t sit well with some on council looking for new faces. In addition, new comer Julie Harden has also applied to serve a three year term on the Planning Commission.
Council is scheduled to vote on the appointments next Tuesday (December 20, 2011).
Larimer County GOP Chairman Tom Lucero is running for a seat in the Colorado State House representing the newly configured 49th District according to local officials. Current 49th District Representative B.J. Nikkel found herself no longer residing in her own State House District after the Colorado judiciary upheld a Democrat plan drawing her Carter Lake residence into Colorado’s 51st House District currently represented by Repbublican Brian DelGrosso. This means Nikkel will need to run in the 51st House District to return to the Legislature in 2013.
Lucero is credited with helping to turn around the Larimer County Republican Party after former Chairman Larry Carillo was accused of embezzlement and ran-up huge fines with the Colorado Secretary of State for failing to file timely campaign disclosure statements.
Nancy Rumfelt, former 912 leader and now head of Loveland’s Liberty Watch, wasted no time sending out an endorsement letter for DelGrosso yesterday making clear where she stands if DelGrosso and Nikkel run against one another in a Republican primary for the 51st which includes Loveland. Rumfelt described DelGrosso as respectful in disagreements which she said, “is in stark contrast to my experiences with Rep. Nikkel.”
Both DelGrosso and Nikkel have been quiet regarding their own plans following the district change that pits these two incumbent Republicans against one another in the 51st District. The two legislators are allies and unlikely to run against one another in a primary. B.J. Nikkel was appointed by a vacancy committee in January 2009 while DelGrosso was also first appointed to his legislative seat by a vacancy committee in August of 2009. On November 2, 2010, Nikkel won election to the 49th District by a 60.2% majority while DelGrosso was elected to the 51st with 58% of the votes cast.
Rep. B.J. Nikkel served as the as the House Majority Whip for Republicans, making her the 3rd top female Republican leader in the state. She served on House Judiciary Committee and was considered a target by Democrats when redrawing the map for State House Districts.
As the result of a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision upholding a redistricting map that joins Boulder, Ft. Collins but not Longmont into the 2nd Congressional District, Loveland has a new representative in Congress. see story
No Republican has won an election in Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District since 1967. LovelandPolitics learned yesterday that Colorado State Senator Kevin Lundberg is organizing an exploratory committee to run for Congress in 2012.
Larimer County Republicans, previously represented by Congressman Cory Gardner, are scrambling to recruit a qualified candidate to run against Congressman Jared Polis who has represented Boulder and areas south and west since 2008. Declining electoral numbers for Polis in his 2010 election combined with only a slight advantage in party registration for Democrats over Republicans (3%) in the new 2nd Congressional District means Polis may have a slightly more competitive race in 2012.
Voters in Loveland and more recently in Ft. Collins decided to “opt-out” of a new state law allowing medical marijuana retailing in their cities. Congressman Polis has made the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes a national cause he is heading in Congress. Polis also backs the “Dream Act” to give citizenship to illegal aliens and wants to reform immigration laws to include same sex and trans-gender relationships in family unification policies for immigration.
Curiously, Polis has successfully side-stepped gun control questions and refused to take any position in public either for or against gun control measures. It is likely voters in Larimer County will be anxious to know where he really stands on that issue.
The City Council will likely vote this evening to enter into an exclusive negotiation with Brinkman Partners, a Ft. Collins based real estate developer, to sell the former Home State Bank property in Downtown Loveland for 80% less than what the city paid. See story
A subsidy by any other name, the City of Loveland purchased the property using mostly CEF’s (Capital Expansion Fees) which were collected from taxpayers for the sole purpose of expanding the city’s museum. These funds cannot be used to subsidize a private development. Therefore, the city will sell the property to only Brinkman Partners it bought in 2007 for $1.1 million for $200,000.
To recover the lost $900,000 in CEF’s due to what City Manager Bill Cahill described almost tongue and cheek as “adverse market conditions” the city intends to reach deep into the county and school pockets with a complicated and unprecedented Urban Renewal bait and switch scheme.
It is a complicated story but merits your attention. School Superintendent Ron Cabrera is so confused he wrote a memorandum to the city supporting their bait and switch tax scheme which by his own inaccuracies reveals a deep misunderstanding by Cabrera of what the city proposes doing. On November 22, Larimer County Administrator Frank Lancaster can also be heard in the meeting calling the bait and switch scheme a “wash” for the county financially because he thought taxes will be diverted anyway from the county until 2027.
The critical piece missing for both administrators is that an Urban Renewal Authority (URA) must have bond debt outstanding to divert property taxes. The Lincoln Place URA in downtown Loveland is near satisfying its public bond debt even though the term of the district runs until 2027. Instead of allowing the $150,000 plus in property taxes to flow back to schools and county as the law intends, the city is hoping to re-draw the boundaries of the URA to pay for the museum expansion using new debt.
While the sale of Home State Bank and the URA bait and switch are being considered together – they are completely different governmental actions that should each be considered each on its own merits and not necessarily together. By combining the two staff has confused council, the county and schools not to mention some in the local media.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper announced the Colorado Innovation Network (COIN) earlier this week as an initiative to
transfer technologies in government paid labs over to industry while creating new jobs in manufacturing. It appears very similar to ACE except the participants are more from academia than NASA and it is open to many more varieties of commercial products and technologies than ACE.
We understand that only Loveland City Manager Bill Cahill and Economic Director Betsey Hale are communicating with C&W and the Governor’s office about this issue and an announcement may be forthcoming. We tried to get access to those communications and emails today but were unsuccessful.
In the meantime, we have looked into CAMT and found what one insider described as a “virtual” organization since they only have some 5-6 highly paid senior staff and everyone else “working” there are hired only as “independent contractors.” It seems ironic for an organization funded by the federal government to create more jobs painfully avoids hiring people. Are they trying to avoid payroll taxes?
If CAMT refuses a minor role (again) they risk losing everything and seeing the entire project migrating over to COIN. We spoke with a number of people in and outside the relative organizations we reported on and feel very confident about the veracity of the information provided. Perhaps the most memorable quote about CAMT was that they sure are great at spending other people’s money!
Ft. Collins real estate broker Clayton Roberts forwarded us an email he sent a State of Colorado investigator threatening to sue the publisher of LovelandPolitics along with other parties over a state inquiry into his participation in a lease with option to buy real estate transaction we reported on last June. see our latest story and his letter
Without getting into all the nitty-gritty details he is not the first person to threaten a lawsuit and will likely not be the last. We were, quite frankly, shocked by both the tone and language of the email he sent to a state investigator looking into a complaint about his license. Our story wasn’t about Roberts but instead another former car dealer now in real estate named Marty Hutcheson. Roberts was only mentioned once as the person the tenants claimed signed their lease agreement.
If you want to read the original story here is the link. We would have been happy to publish his side of the story at the time but since he didn’t return phone calls that was a little hard to do.
Feel free to comment but please refrain from any defamatory language like calling someone a “liar” the way Roberts did in his email to us.
Below is the link to an audio on YouTube of Loveland’s City Council asking State Legislators to oppose any legislation clarifying or strengthening Colorado’s Open Meetings Law (COML).
Some background facts you must know before listening to the tape:
A judge found Loveland’s council violated the law NOT because they met in clossed session to discuss the selection process of the next City Manager but because each councilor VOTED in closed session for the candidate they wanted for that job (a vote that should have been made in public).
The council WAS NOT using closed sessions to protect the privacy of the candidates but instead to hide from the media the fact they didn’t have enough votes for any one candidate. Mayor Cecil Gutierrez pretends that advocates of open government want personnel issues in the open which is false. Gutierrez argues on the tape that the definition of personnel is “very, very vague” but opposes any legislation clarifying the term?
Just like with the Mayor Pro Tem vote, the Mayor wants the public only to see a prepared show and not the true give and take between councilors that took place when he attempted to make Joan Shaffer Mayor Pro Tem during private negotiations but couldn’t get a unanimous vote.
Only Councilman Daryle Klassen spoke up during the November 15, discussion to explain to those who didn’t know that the council violated the law when VOTING in private not discussing the hiring process or candidates. When asked what reasons newspapers or the Colorado Press Association have for trying to make personnel matters public, City Manager Bill Cahill answered, “Good Press” to which everyone laughed.
The bottom line is Loveland’s Mayor is speaking from both sides of his mouth on this issue. He abused the personnel exemption in the Colorado Open Meetings Law to hide from the media a disagreement between councilors of who they supported for City Manager. They did take a “public” vote but that was after the dust settled in private and they could show a unanimous front to the public just like Mayor Pro Tem.
During a working breakfast with state legislators in Loveland last Tuesday, Mayor Gutierrez lobbied state lawmakers to crack down on open government legislation and help put a stop to the Colorado Press Association agenda of transparency.see story
Normally cautious about what he says in public, Gutierrez was apparently unaware that an open microphone in the room was recording even though no members of the public or press were present. Gutierrez was joined by Councilwoman Joan Shaffer who agreed and also Loveland’s City Manager, Bill Cahill, who outlined “the city’s concern.”
It is particularly ironic that Loveland’s council never took a public stance on the issue. Apparently, the $25,000 attorney fees and judge’s decision that Loveland’s council broke the law has had little to no impact relative to the Mayor’s view of whether he was in error.
Historically, Loveland’s City Council votes on the legislative agenda each year and hashes out the city’s official position before anything is presented to members of the legislature who represent Loveland.
It is doubtful many citizens of Loveland oppose the Loveland Reporter-Herald’s view or that of the Colorado Press Association. We found it especially ironic that Gutierrez’s conversion on the issue hasn’t been the topic of any citizen meetings or comments during meetings he knew were being recorded.
For years we received complaints from across Loveland by citizens regarding neighbors polluting their environment with smoke from a chimney or backyard fire ring.
We haven’t covered these stories for a number of reasons. The most obvious reason is the he-said-she-said nature of these disputes plus determining who is telling you the truth is very difficult.
Perhaps the most prominent dispute involved a Loveland Police Officer who lives in Emerald Glenn and maintained a fire ring in his backyard. After the HOA (Home Owners Association) stepped-in neighbors claimed the Loveland Police disturbed the subdivision with retaliatory enforcement of city laws. One complainer was ticketed for not leashing his cat while another was ticketed for having a pile of sand in his driveway according to one of the officer’s neighbors who is also a spokesman for a prominent local entity. One response by neighbors was to use derogatory messages about the officer in their WiFi signal names/identity.
Loveland’s new council is being asked to consider an ordinance modeled on one in Ft. Collins outlawing smoke nuisances. One potential controversy for the proposed ordinance is section 7 which prevents the accused from knowing his accuser until he or she goes to court.
7. Identity of Complainant: The identity of complaining citizen is kept confidential until a violation has been charged and a summons has been issued to appear in Municipal Court..
You can watch the meeting on Loveland’s channel 16 (Comcast cable) or attend in person at 6:30 PM Tuesday night (Nov. 15) in City Hall.
