Former Boulderite not caught up in fracking emotionalism

Letter published in Longmont Times-Call, 9/04/12

           THERE'S QUITE A bit of information pertaining to the gas/oil drilling controversy that I think should have been more thoroughly discussed prior to the Longmont City Council’s decision to take on the state government in a big-time lawsuit.

     ----Why haven’t we been told earlier that Greeley has already tried to over-regulate and the Colorado Supreme Court said no. Not good news, either, for the rules-changing initiative,.

      ----It has been hinted that because Longmont is a home rule municipality, the state’s authority over drilling should end at the city’s borders. But remember, the state also writes other uniform codes, including one that regulates traffic, which every municipality is required to adopt and enforce, without revision.

       ----Does Longmont have an insurance back-up pool, perhaps something like the Boulder County commissioners had when they took their very expensive lawsuit against the Rocky Mountain Christian Church to the Supreme Court and lost?

      ----What sort of ongoing revenues do the city of Longmont and SVV schools get from these drilling activities?

      -----Longmont resident Paul Danish, author of Boulder’s Danish Plan who is now a columnist for The Boulder Weekly,* estimates that oil well drilling activity, thanks to fracking, will bring in from $3 billion to $5 billion in the next few years to boost Colorado’s economy. He calls it “Colorado’s ticket out of the recession.” He also suggests that if the well sites are as dangerous as the anti-frackers claim, then they should leave their children at home when protesting there.

       -----Meanwhile, Pres. Obama quietly slips an American aircraft carrier into the Strait of Hormuz to guarantee safe delivery of Saudi oil. And all along I thought we were trying to drill our way around these real war potentialities. Not in Longmont, apparently.

We're losing the wildfires battle

        Unfortunately, Colorado seems unable to keep pace with its wildfires. The year 2002 was disastrous. Here we go again, a decade later, fighting desperately to contain yet another round of record-breaking, out-of-control conflagrations. Whatever lessons our policymakers may have learned from past wildfires, this knowledge does not appear to be having much effect on improving current prevention and containment methodology. We can and must do better.

       My state—I was born here back when “Big Ed” Johnson was in his first go-round as governor—has never met a crisis it couldn’t handle. It’s time for our current leaders in both the public and private sectors to step forward and vigorously target this issue for reform.

Some comments regarding commentaries by the Times-Call business editor

       Are the oil and gas people really all that terrible?

       Having written a column only a few Sundays ago skewering the oil and gas industry, Tony Kindelspire, business editor of the Times-Call is back again on May 27 with a similar offering, long on emotionalism and short on scientific proof. He keeps emphasizing the danger of drilling for oil and gas, especially the use of hydraulic fracturing, but offers no scientific proof that anyone’s illness around here is, or ever has been attributed to this activity. After all, drilling for oil and gas in Boulder County, including Longmont, is not a new phenomenon. Black gold was discovered just north of Boulder in 1901 and, according to the 1945 Colorado Yearbook, two wells were still producing there. (While residing in Louisville from 1965 to 1997, I knew of two active gas wells--one was located in Superior, the other just north of Louisville.)

       Does the oil and gas industry need regulating? Yes. But I don’t think it was necessary for the columnist to broad-brush the entire oil and gas industry (which would have to include its employees and their families, some of whom no doubt reside in Longmont) into his “Who do you trust?” category. He’s apparently upset that “20 inspectors for the state’s 45,000 wells are not enough.” Is this the number of currently producing oil and gas wells or is it the grand total of all the wells ever drilled in Colorado? How many are now capped or were dry holes to start with? And there’s not a word about the economic benefits and payment of things like severance taxes.

         I, too, appreciate Councilman Bagley’s willingness to serve on the Local Government Designee panel. However, did he stick around long enough to even get some play on his ideas, using his lawyerly skills to sway the other committee members? I don’t know.

        Contrary to Kindelspire’s criticism of the several City Council members who are allegedly dragging their feet on this issue, I commend them for resisting a quick rush to judgment.

        If we’re going to pass laws here in Longmont based on how many “fors” or “againsts” that can be lined up at the City Hall microphone beforehand or, if that fails, put every issue on the ballot so that outside talent and money can be brought in to achieve the desired outcome, then there’s no need for a City Council. And yes, I’m for free speech and the right to petition, although I quit signing petitions years ago because they were often misleading. Now I see where a petition drive is already underway. Only in Longmont. This is a clever strategy because it not only keeps things stirred up, it puts a lot of pressure on each council member.

         Drilling for gas and oil, the last I heard, is a legitimate business, not a function of government. To pretend that the outside business world is paying no attention as to what’s happening here in Longmont is wishful thinking. For decades, this community has enjoyed a positive reputation as a good place to do business—an image hard to gain and preserve, too easily destroyed. Why worry? 

      Okay, there you have it. Blast away.

  

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water

        Hey, look: We don’t want the oil companies to drill here (NIMBY), nor there or anywhere. So, how many of us have abandoned our automobiles (which are significantly more dangerous to our children) and unhooked our homes and businesses from natural gas to cancel our need for fossil fuels?

        While I appreciate NOAA’s mission to save us from ourselves, it seems odd that one of its scientists would be out discussing a study (Erie) that scares the daylights out of people, but apparently hasn’t been vetted or even published yet for review. This is a sure recipe for panic.

       Further, knowing something of the critical role fossil fuels play in the newspaper industry, I was surprised to see Times-Call business editor Tony Kindelspire jumping aboard the anti-fracking bandwagon (April 1 column), for it should be clear that this issue is being exploited as a way to stop all drilling.

       In his April 4 guest column, former city manager Gordon Pedrow wants each municipality to be allowed to put its own restrictions on drilling. The Colorado Legislature long ago considered that aspect and decided, properly, that to avoid the chaos which overregulation brings, the state must keep control. For the city of Longmont to even consider suing the Attorney General of Colorado for enforcing the law is not a good idea.

      Instead, I say, use that lawsuit money to chip-seal the streets. Uh-oh. That would require using lots of oil and where does it come from?

      Please, I’m not out to harm children. Also, I respect the gentlemen mentioned here and honor their freedom of speech.

     Meanwhile, I feel sorry for the people who have to drive to work in order to make a living. Shut down drilling and there’s no place for gasoline prices to go, except up.

Some off-the-cuff remarks about the press

---The Obamagenda of killing our nation’s oil and gas industry is finally being felt locally as nervous politicians buy into the exaggerated fracking scare by issuing frantic moratoriums all over the place as if this practice will surely bring the World to an end tomorrow, when we know that this threatened destiny is simply not true . . . The drilling companies drill because they own (or alternately lease, I suppose) the mineral rights and Colorado already has pretty stiff rules regarding how and where they drill . . . And of course, Obama’s pompous veto of the Keystone Pipeline is never mentioned in any of the anti-fracking reports or the editorials.

---Reflecting the media-hyped fracking scare, Erie officials are reportedly all up in the air over some sort of a study that allegedly shows that levels of butane, ethane and propane in Erie’s air were “large.” , , , Dumb me, all along I thought these were products derived from refining crude . . . But then, according to the news report, the bearer of the alarming information, a scientist, backed off almost immediately by saying the data don’t definitively show that drilling is the cause. . . . Having resided in Erie for four years, 1998-2002, (The Conarroes started the Erie Review newspaper years before that) my wife and I enjoyed living there but did notice the occasional smog, some of which undoubtedly drifted in from Denver, also from a nearby sanitation plant that seemed to contribute . . . But, like it or not, Erie is the site of a huge, active dump which covers the countryside and nobody for sure knows precisely what is leaking out of it . . . Not to be ignored if we abide by scaremongering is Erie’s positioning over an underground coal field (as are Lafayette and Louisville) that naturally emits methane, radon and Heaven only knows what else through the ground into the atmosphere.

      Watch for more comments on the news . . . Thanks! 

TABOR: Participatory democracy in a free republic

      I’ve lived in Colorado 84 years and have never seen anything quite like the persecution of Douglas Bruce for authoring the 1992 voter-adopted TABOR amendment to the Colorado Constitution. Despite some adjustments, judicial I presume, such as allowing the use of Certificates of Participation to increase debt without a vote of the people, TABOR’s core values remain intact. I do not know of any tax-supported institution in Colorado that has had to shut its doors because of TABOR. Now, however, in a rather curious dovetailing of related events, a lawsuit has been filed to repeal TABOR, claiming of all things that its inception via the initiative process is a violation of our representative form of government and therefore unconstitutional.

      Partly through his own arrogance, Bruce was targeted for abuse not only by government insiders who vehemently oppose TABOR because it stifles their appetite to tax-and-spend, but also by their counterparts in the media and think tanks who cry anti-government and see nothing wrong with running-up huge public debts (a la Washington, D.C.).

     He likely was wrong in kicking a news photographer in the shins. However, as a former long-time newspaperman myself, I wonder just how necessary it was for the cameraman to be that close to his subject in the first place.

     That Bruce’s political enemies finally succeeded in putting him in jail  may be seen by some as a triumph. But to others, including myself, his brave, one-man act of forcing Colorado and its political subdivisions to avoid the same financial insolvency that several other sans TABOR states now grimly face is the real victory.

     For those who claim they can’t possibly live under TABOR, submit your own repeal initiative and we’ll vote on it. Are we not capable of governing ourselves?

LAWSUIT TO REPEAL TABOR FILED IN FEDERAL COURT--

     The year 1992 was eventful not only for Douglas Bruce but also for an attorney now seeking to overturn TABOR. In its 2/16/12 edition, The Denver Post reported that one of the lead attorneys arguing for repeal is former Colorado Congressman David Skaggs (D) of Boulder. Readers might recall that he was caught up in the 1992 House bank scandal.  According to a Washington Post article dated 4/17/92, Skaggs led the Colorado delegation in overdrafts by far, with 57. Wayne Allard (R) had none, Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D) none, Joel Hefley (R) 3, Patricia Schroeder (D) 5 and Dan Schaefer (R) 6.

Tax subsidies for Twin Peaks Mall may be unfair

By Percy Conarroe

(Written 5/13/2009)

        Should Longmont’s taxpayers help bail out the ailing Twin Peaks Mall and, if so, then why not extend that favor to every business in town? This gnawing question of fairness weighs heavily on the minds of many locals, as city officials consider negotiating a public-private partnership deal with the mall owner.

        Let’s face it: Shopping malls across America are losing their oomph, no matter their location, status or upgrading. The sagging economy and inflated gasoline prices played a part, but the word “anachronism” might better fit the declining shopping-mall era. Fickle shoppers, famous for flitting from mall to mall, are fleeing to the stand-alone big boxes and, ominously, to the matchless variety and convenience of the Internet where, of course, they don’t even have to pay sales taxes.

        On April 16, 2009 the nation’s second largest mall owner, General Growth Properties Inc. of Chicago, filed for bankruptcy. Of the 200 malls GGP owns, four are in Colorado: Park Meadows in Lone Tree (south Denver), Foothills in Fort Collins, Southwest Plaza in Littleton, and Chapel Hills in north Colorado Springs. All of these four are considered upper-tier. Chapel Hills, one of the newer malls in Colorado Springs, lured shoppers from the Citadel Mall in east Colorado Springs, which earlier had plundered the Sears-anchored Southgate Mall on that city’s south side. City officials naturally don’t care who wins the dizzying mall game, so long as the tax revenues keep flowing.

          Having lived in Colorado all my life and being a casual observer of shopping malls around the state, very few of the once-flourishing malls are left. Although not the oldest, Denver’s Cherry Creek is probably still the classiest. Louisville tried valiantly to get into the mall game in 1980 but developer Jacobs-Kahan of Chicago had no luck signing an anchor store and finally gave up.

           Retail outlet stores (mini-malls) were popular for a while. Clusters sprouted up at places like Silverthorne and Castle Rock. Probably the most successful was at Loveland -- until the Centerra strip mall opened nearby.

          Even Urban Renewal with its eminent domain power and tax increment financing “partnering” with local taxpayers could not save Englewood’s charming Cinderella City Mall, which opened in 1968 to compete with the nearby Villa Italia Mall, built in 1965. Despite the investment of millions of TIF tax dollars to renovate it mid-term, Cinderella City, an elaborate, covered complex, was demolished in 1999.

         Villa Italia, despite a $120 million infusion of cash by the City of Lakewood in converting it to a “sustainable” mixed-use housing/stores complex, and after changing the mall’s name to Belmar, it still lost anchor stores Dillard’s and J.C. Penney and has never recovered. Shoppers complained that the “village feeling” of the mixed-use concept was confusing and made the mall hard to navigate.

         Boulder’s Crossroads Mall, funded almost entirely with huge amounts of Urban Renewal TIF money--those who know will not reveal the total indebtedness--ran into trouble when the Westminster Mall just down the road (both opened in the early 1960s) began expanding. But of course, the Westminster Mall had diverted shoppers from the once-prosperous Northglenn Mall, helping shut it down. Then, with Broomfield’s bold, new Flatiron Mall arriving on the scene in 1999, the City of Westminster spent $7.5 million helping its mall owner renovate, but to little avail. Flatiron had lured shoppers away from both the Westminster Mall and the Crossroads Mall (refurbished in 1983; closed in 2004 and renamed TwentyNinth Street) and neither has recovered. All the Crossroads stores except Foley’s were demolished.

         The onus is now on Flatiron. Its age and vulnerability are showing and stores are shuttering. The new Event Center nearby is struggling. Looking ahead, no doubt, Broomfield officials, in reconfiguring the city’s boundary into a county, made sure to secure, yes, a viable mall site at the junction of Colo. 7 and I-25, pretty far removed. But upscale anchor stores are scarcer than ever, and discount retailers, disdaining the stiff mall rent, find they can operate just as well on the periphery – in Longmont, that’s mostly just west across the street.

              Mixed-use or not, the Longmont City Council has no business diverting tax revenue through TIF into this privately owned mall project -- “on the come” or for any other concocted reason, such as “infrastructure.” Obviously, if TIF availability is a deal killer, then that should raise some red flags.

             “Blight” is a term that, unfortunately, reflects negatively on both the property-owner, for letting his holdings deteriorate and doing nothing about it, and the City Council and manager, for allowing it to continue.

       The city should get down to business: shut off the TIF spigot, fire the high-priced consultants, tell the mall owner to present his financial capability, submit his plan for review, and whenever he is ready, let’s see the renovating start—without leaning on the taxpayers.