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.

To be fair, shouldn't our mayor endorse other forms of marriage too?

        About modern-day Longmont—and I’ve lived in Boulder County for 43 years--it seems that no sooner does one divisive issue such as the proposed LifeBridge annexation fade away, than another controversy arises. In this case, it's the mayor’s action in endorsing same-sex marriages on an advocacy website.

       That he has every right as an ordinary citizen to endorse whatever he chooses is indisputable. But I also believe that his signature as mayor indicates or at least strongly implies that he is speaking in behalf of the people of Longmont when, as far as I know, the council has never taken a position on this issue. Nor do we know how many people in our community might feel that if it is wrong to restrict the right to marry, then that freedom should be extended equally to people who passionately believe in polygamy or even same-blood marriage, who plead that they too are being discriminated against.

        The Longmont Municipal Code provides, among other things, that the city council shall consist of seven members, one of whom is mayor. Each council member is required to affirm support for the U.S. and Colorado constitutions.

       Federal Law (1 U.S. Code Sec.7): Under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) the word marriage means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.

       Colorado Constitution (14-2-104(1)(b): Requires a marriage to be between one man and one woman. Like the federal government, Colorado does not recognize same-sex marriages even if performed in the six states that allow them: New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, plus Washington D.C.

       If dozens of mayors across the land wish to sign the advocacy website, that’s between them and their constituents. What happens in Longmont’s local government is my business and yours, as residents.