Letter published 7/26/09
in the Boulder Daily Camera
LET THE STATE STATUTES WORK
Does the Town of Superior need home rule? Here are a few things that voters there might consider:
There's nothing under the statutory system that keeps people from participating in their local government, neither is there anything that prevents a municipality from determining its own destiny.
Getting out from under the protection of the state statutes is not always good for the ordinary citizen-taxpayer. For example, the state specifies a debt limit that home-rule municipalities can simply ignore.
Home rule opens the door to proposing many new taxes on the people, such as occupational taxes and privilege taxes that cannot even be considered in a statutory municipality.
Home rule tends to transfer power away from elected officials who can be held accountable directly by the voters into the hands of bureaucrats who, of course, are not elected.
One of the supposed virtues of home rule is that it allows a municipality to collect sales taxes directly instead of through the Colorado Department of Revenue. What is not mentioned, however, is the offsetting cost to local taxpayers of hiring additional personnel in city hall to take on this extra burden of collection and enforcement already performed by the state for free. To say the state makes mistakes but town halls do not, is being disingenuous.
As more people in towns across Colorado find out more about home rule, they are saying "no" and sticking with the state statutes. Recent examples: Erie, population 13,441, soundly rejected home rule not once but twice; Frederick, population 7,370, said no to home rule in 2005; Estes Park, population 5,921, is the latest community to reject home rule. And they all seem to be functioning quite nicely without it.
I have no dog in this fight. My only interest here is in good government.
P,
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Letters submitted, not published.
To The Denver Post, 6/24/09:
A STRANGE SENSE OF ECONOMIC PRIORITIES
After giving the cold shoulder to the U.S. Military’s desire to expand its remote Pinon Canyon maneuver site to keep its significant contributions flowing into our state’s economy, most notably that of Colorado Springs, it’s shocking to see Colorado’s congressional delegation endorsing Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Over the River” project, which calls for draping plastic fabric over the Arkansas River for six miles between Canon City and Salida for a two-week show.
They make their millions selling duplicate miniatures of their projects.
This is the second “hanging” in our state for this artistic couple. Their first, in 1972 near Rifle, literally blew up when wind tore into the Valley Curtain’s 437 yards of plastic, and it had to be taken down prematurely. Over 200 tons of concrete were poured to anchor the curtain and most of it was left there, reportedly at the landowner’s request. Some legacy, eh?
There simply is no reason to further deface this beautiful segment of the Arkansas River canyon for private gain. Shame on our politicians.
Percy Conarroe
To The Denver Post, 6/24/09:
A STRANGE SENSE OF ECONOMIC PRIORITIES
After giving the cold shoulder to the U.S. Military’s desire to expand its remote Pinon Canyon maneuver site to keep its significant contributions flowing into our state’s economy, most notably that of Colorado Springs, it’s shocking to see Colorado’s congressional delegation endorsing Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Over the River” project, which calls for draping plastic fabric over the Arkansas River for six miles between Canon City and Salida for a two-week show.
They make their millions selling duplicate miniatures of their projects.
This is the second “hanging” in our state for this artistic couple. Their first, in 1972 near Rifle, literally blew up when wind tore into the Valley Curtain’s 437 yards of plastic, and it had to be taken down prematurely. Over 200 tons of concrete were poured to anchor the curtain and most of it was left there, reportedly at the landowner’s request. Some legacy, eh?
There simply is no reason to further deface this beautiful segment of the Arkansas River canyon for private gain. Shame on our politicians.
Percy Conarroe
Monday, July 06, 2009
Letter published in
the Longmont Times-Call, 7-06-09
ON CML AND COSTS TO MUNICIPALITIES
Another summer outing of the Colorado Municipal League is history. Eight Longmont officials attended this year’s event in Vail at a total cost of $5,840: Mayor Lange, three nights; Councilmember McCoy, four; City Attorneys, Mei, three, Rourke and Friedland, two; City Clerk Skitt, one; assistants Seader, four, and Hinz, one.
The city paid registration fees of $190 each except for Skitt, Seader and Hinz, who were presenters. All apparently qualified for the city’s $159 per night lodging allowance, meals of $46 per day, and those who drove their own vehicle could be reimbursed $.505 per mile for the 230 mi. roundtrip (230x$.505=$116.15).
On the upside, congratulations to Mayor Lange for being elected to the CML executive board. On the downside, I’m a longtime critic of this lobbying/partying organization because it lives almost entirely off the taxpayers through dues collected annually from 263 of Colorado’s 271 municipalities, this year totaling about $1,765,000. And for what? CML offers training for elected and appointed office personnel. In addition to this year’s dues, Longmont has apparently budgeted another $38,613 for that purpose.
Longmont’s population is listed at 82,904 with dues this year of $45,647 or 55 cents per capita. Denver’s population is listed at 530,223 with dues of $153,117 or only 26 cents per capita. How nice.
But it’s really the poor, small towns that I feel sorry for: places like Campo, Bonanza City, Haswell, and Hooper, that cannot even afford to hire a dogcatcher, yet each is expected to contribute upwards of $200 a year to the CML for dues.
In 1998, CML constructed its own deluxe headquarters buildng at 1144 Sherman Street in downtown Denver, close to the Golden Dome. But you won’t find CML paying ad valorem taxes to help fund the public education system – their property is tax exempt.
Two personal anecdotes that I omitted prior to submitting letter to meet T-C’s 300-word limit:
Item 1: As mayor of Simla, Colorado. in 1960, upon finding how CML was funded, I pulled the town’s membership; it eventually rejoined.
Item 2: As publisher of the Louisville Times, the newspaper told of how renown city administrator Leon Wurl (now deceased) got fired in midsummer of 1984, mostly because he was away attending a CML summer conference in the mountains and Louisville ran out of water when the main supply line broke.
P.
the Longmont Times-Call, 7-06-09
ON CML AND COSTS TO MUNICIPALITIES
Another summer outing of the Colorado Municipal League is history. Eight Longmont officials attended this year’s event in Vail at a total cost of $5,840: Mayor Lange, three nights; Councilmember McCoy, four; City Attorneys, Mei, three, Rourke and Friedland, two; City Clerk Skitt, one; assistants Seader, four, and Hinz, one.
The city paid registration fees of $190 each except for Skitt, Seader and Hinz, who were presenters. All apparently qualified for the city’s $159 per night lodging allowance, meals of $46 per day, and those who drove their own vehicle could be reimbursed $.505 per mile for the 230 mi. roundtrip (230x$.505=$116.15).
On the upside, congratulations to Mayor Lange for being elected to the CML executive board. On the downside, I’m a longtime critic of this lobbying/partying organization because it lives almost entirely off the taxpayers through dues collected annually from 263 of Colorado’s 271 municipalities, this year totaling about $1,765,000. And for what? CML offers training for elected and appointed office personnel. In addition to this year’s dues, Longmont has apparently budgeted another $38,613 for that purpose.
Longmont’s population is listed at 82,904 with dues this year of $45,647 or 55 cents per capita. Denver’s population is listed at 530,223 with dues of $153,117 or only 26 cents per capita. How nice.
But it’s really the poor, small towns that I feel sorry for: places like Campo, Bonanza City, Haswell, and Hooper, that cannot even afford to hire a dogcatcher, yet each is expected to contribute upwards of $200 a year to the CML for dues.
In 1998, CML constructed its own deluxe headquarters buildng at 1144 Sherman Street in downtown Denver, close to the Golden Dome. But you won’t find CML paying ad valorem taxes to help fund the public education system – their property is tax exempt.
Two personal anecdotes that I omitted prior to submitting letter to meet T-C’s 300-word limit:
Item 1: As mayor of Simla, Colorado. in 1960, upon finding how CML was funded, I pulled the town’s membership; it eventually rejoined.
Item 2: As publisher of the Louisville Times, the newspaper told of how renown city administrator Leon Wurl (now deceased) got fired in midsummer of 1984, mostly because he was away attending a CML summer conference in the mountains and Louisville ran out of water when the main supply line broke.
P.
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About Me
- Percy Conarroe
- Retired in 1998 after a 50-year career of editing and publishing Colorado small-town weekly newspapers. He served as president of the Colorado Press Association in 1981 and was awarded an honorary lifetime membership.