Northern Colorado Peoples Press Collective

We received an overwhelming response to our previous post “Centerra Enigma.” Mostly either in favor or against Metro Districts by email. However, Centerra’s funding involves sales taxes (called fees), property tax rebates, mill levies (Metro District) and lastly huge subsidies by the city through fee waivers. Therefore, we decided to create a new string for Metro Districts as the Centerra Enigma involves many other issues to which we object – not the fact they also have a Metro District.

Below is a typical email we receive from people living within residential Metro Districts both inside and outside Loveland. We don’t have the staff to research every complaint but it appears as though some people may have purchased their homes unaware that they would be paying higher property taxes for 20 years.

Here is one email –

” Hi,
I live in the Waterfront Metro Taxing district. Our taxes are double what the typical Loveland resident pays. Do you think any shenanigan’s went on with the city when this taxing district was formed. I know Fort Collins city council has been against creating them for residential subdivisions which is exactly what Loveland did.

Thanks”

If any of our well informed readers want to help answer this question please jump-in. We believe incompetence and simple bias resulted in Loveland’s previous “builder” council approving some Metro Districts that have become unpopular. Others, nearly identical ones, they also denied so the picture may be more complicated than what it appears.

At over $100 million in debt, Centerra has more public bond debt now than most cities of Colorado but doesn’t have
an office, telephone or even one employee.

Ever since Centerra was constituted as a local government (on paper), it has been described as a “private partnership” with the City of Loveland by its creators but is little understood by most residents of Loveland.

see story

The Centerra Board of Directors fell silent when our young reporter entered their “public” meeting August 19, which according to state law should have been as open and transparent as any city council meeting. Instead, the only outside witness to the meeting was told that he couldn’t record any portion of the meeting unless the board approved the recording.

Why would Centerra’s board act as if someone walked in on an illegal poker game? Why would they feel any recordings need to be approved in advance?

Any comments?

Have you read the stories about an antique roadshow coming to Loveland this week?

Jeff Parsons’ “Treasure Hunters Roadshow” is in town this week and normally faces tough questions regarding a lawsuit for deceptive trade practices by PBS’ Antique Roadshow, bounced checks from Arizona to Michigan and an inquiry by the Illinois Attorney General where his company is based. Read the LovelandPolitics story

Parsons’ crew is described by one media outlet as,

” a band of traveling con artists, bamboozling the unsuspecting out of their gold and valuables”

In Loveland’s press, however, Parsons isn’t being asked tough questions as he lures hundreds of unsuspecting residents into his antique “Roadshow.” Instead, he is writing the stories about his controversial business.

Both Loveland newspapers ran false advertisements meant to look like real news stories with a reporter by-line and the words “Staff Report” at the beginning. The Loveland Connection failed to state anywhere on the entire page that is was an advertisement thus making it indistinguishable from other news stories.

The same story ran in both newspapers on Wednesday complete with fake interviews and claims that people attending the show were paid thousands of dollars for specific items they brought to the show. In fact, the identical article about a man getting thousands of dollars for an old guitar ran in an Ohio paper on August 10, an Arizona paper before that and so on.

Did you get fooled and attend the show expecting to have a keepsake appraised? Did someone you know attend? Please post your comments below.

If you haven’t been to the show, don’t bother. They don’t want your antiques and are looking mostly for jewelry they can melt down for the gold or silver value — but will not pay you the actual value of the gold or other precious metal.

We recommend Friendly Pawn on South Lincoln in Loveland if you want to pawn family treasures. They are a family operated business in Loveland that have been around for 36 years. You can also save your valued collectibles until the real “Antique Roadshow” comes to Loveland.

Update to ‘Both Ways Betsy’ where I criticized Congresswoman Betsy Markey for her latest TV ads.

Referring to the 2008 TARP bailout legislation,  Markey claims in her ad, “Maybe it’s my 20 years as a small-business owner, but these Wall Street bailouts really offend me… No one ever gave me a bailout.”

I reminded readers of the other bailouts that didn’t offend her quite so much because she voted for them. That’s bad enough, but now I find out (courtesy of a reader) that during the 2008 campaign Markey criticized then current Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave for — guess what? That’s right, opposing the TARP bailout — the bailout that she finds so offensive.

In a Wall Street Journal article dated September 24, 2008, Musgrave stood up to the president (and many others in her own party) and opposed TARP. She said at the time:

For years, Americans on Main Street have heard about the lavish excesses of Wall Street. We heard about their mansions, exotic cars and, above all, record profits… Now, the party is over, and the same bankers are asking working families across the country to bear the consequences of their excess and greed. I refuse to burden families already struggling with soaring energy and food prices with bailing out investment banks that made bad decisions.

The WSJ also spoke with Markey who scolded Musgrave, calling her opposition to TARP a “hasty move.”

Ms. Markey called her opponent’s statement a “hasty move” that demonstrated her inability to cooperate on important issues in Washington. ‘A lot of experts are still looking at options, and my opponent has already made up her mind’ she said in an interview Tuesday. Ms. Markey added that, like many in Congress, she wanted changes to the original Treasury Department proposal, such as requiring any rescue bill to include greater market regulation and to protect taxpayer money.

Maybe Markey wouldn’t have voted for the original TARP bailout but not because bailouts “offend” her but because it didn’t go far enough. Let’s send Congresswoman Markey a new pair of flip-flops, she is wearing out her current pair at a rapid pace.

Below is my latest column for Liberty Ink Journal headquartered here in Northern Colorado. Regular listeners to my show and readers of this blog will recognize my scathing critique of National Popular Vote, which threatens our republic. I’ve been warning about this movement for years and now the threat is bigger than ever. Thank you for indulging me again as I champion the Electoral College.

National Popular Vote threatens our republic

By Amy Oliver Cooke

Few things are more irritating than Americans mistakenly labeling our county a “democracy” rather than a constitutional republic. The difference between the two is crucial. In a democracy, the majority rules, often at the expense of minority rights. In a republic, power is vested in individuals and is exercised through their elected representatives.

Sadly, many citizens simply don’t know the difference, probably because they have never been taught. But what about those who do know the difference, yet still make the same claim that we are a “democracy”? It’s more than irritating; it’s dangerous.

In a commencement address at Hampton University President Barack Obama said information has become “a distraction, a diversion” that puts pressure on “our democracy.”

Besides his obvious contempt for the first amendment, President Obama’s claim that we are a “democracy” is frightening because as a former constitutional law professor and someone who sworn to protect the constitution certainly he should know better. This was not just a slip of the tongue.

The “democracy” drumbeat from the Left is a calculated misunderstanding and vital to the supporters of a dangerous movement called National Popular Vote (NPV).

NPV is a wealthy, California-based group with a long, bitter memory of the 2000 presidential election. They are dedicated to destroying the Electoral College, one of the most brilliant and least understood institutions contained within the Constitution.

NPV would replace the current winner-take-all electoral system in most states with a nation-wide, popular vote compact. According to Save Our States, a bi-partisan defender of the Electoral College, NPV would require states “to ignore the result within their state and instead give all of their electoral votes to the candidate winning the most votes nationwide.” (In full disclosure, I am an active contributor to Save Our States.) When NPV is passed in enough states to add up to 270 electoral votes, the amount needed to win the presidency, the compact will go into effect.

NPV has no requirement for a majority vote or a provision for a runoff. To add insult to electoral injury, an NPV state conceivably could be forced to throw its electors behind a candidate that doesn’t even appear on its ballot.

Because the Constitution gives state legislatures the authority to decide how to award electors, NPV proponents can bypass the Constitution by cleverly introducing legislation in a number of state houses. Colorado has considered NPV legislation twice, once in 2007 and another time in 2009. Grassroots activism helped defeat it both times. (Colorado voters also soundly defeated a 2004 ballot measure to change how the state awards its electors from winner-take-all to a percentage of popular vote.)

To support NPV, one must believe the misguided notion that the United States is a democracy. If we were, the will of the states such as New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois could be thrust upon states like Colorado, Kansas, Utah, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Our Founding Fathers knew that states had different interests and did not want to see the desires of more populated states forced upon smaller ones. Thus, they created the Electoral College. The Electoral College forces presidential candidates and their supporters to campaign in a wide variety of areas, rather than concentrating on urban centers with large populations.

In the 2000 presidential election, the Electoral College did exactly what the Founding Fathers designed it to do. It didn’t matter that Al Gore had a popular vote plurality of less than one-half of one percent. (Thanks in part to the votes of California’s illegal aliens) It didn’t matter that Gore won the popular vote in both California and New York by huge percentages. To be president, he had to win a majority of the electoral votes, which means he had to win the popular vote in a wide variety of states.

If Gore had been able to win even a single southern or border state–such as his “home” state of Tennessee or Clinton’s home state of Arkansas, he would have been President. George W. Bush won the popular vote in 30 states, therefore giving him the necessary number of electoral votes to win the presidency. Middle America was able to avoid the tyranny of the East and West Coasts.

The Electoral College works, which is why it has not been changed in more than 200 years. It demonstrates our Founding Fathers’ commitment to the protection of minority rights, and the diverse interests of the entire nation–not just the biggest cities or states.

The brilliance of the Electoral College is lost on NPV proponents including Colorado’s Democrat party, which includes support for NPV and the abolition of the Electoral College in its party platform.

NPV does enjoy success in a few states. According to its Web site, four states – Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland – with 61 electoral votes collectively have enacted the bill. It’s also making its way through state legislatures in both New York and Massachusetts. Together these two states have 43 electoral votes. If NPV is successful in both Massachusetts and New York, that’s 104 electoral votes, nearly 40 percent of what NPV needs to enact the popular vote compact – with just 6 states.

NPV is dangerous to our constitutional republic. Without the Electoral College, all a candidate has to do is win a plurality of the popular vote, even if that plurality comes mainly from a handful of mega-cities on the coasts. Under this scenario states like Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Kansas can only watch as the East and West Coasts anoint our next president.

Amy Oliver Cooke is host of the Amy Oliver Show (www.amyolivershow.com) on 1310 KFKA. She is also a contributor to Save Our States www.SaveOurStates.com.

That’s the nickname that my friends at Complete Colorado have hung on freshman Democrat Congresswoman Betsy Markey.  And it seems appropriate. An article from The Hill and featured on Complete Colorado describes Markey’s new ad campaign where she pretends to be offended with congressional approval of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, a.k.a. TARP.  In fact she claims:

Maybe it’s my 20 years as a small-business owner, but these Wall Street bailouts really offend me… No one ever gave me a bailout.

Bailout is just another word for cop-out…And here in Colorado, that’s not how we do business.

Oh please. Does she honestly expect me or any other voter in the 4th CD to believe that she would have stood up to Nancy Pelosi and voted “No”? Since the vote was taken in October 2008, before she was in Congress, there is no way to know how she would have voted. I guess we are supposed to take her at her word. As someone who has kept track of her voting record, I would bet dollars to donuts that Markey, who went against the wishes of her constituents and with Pelosi on Obamacare, cap and trade, card check and the stimulus, would have voted yes.

Markey has yet to prove that she has or can challenge her party’s leadership. She may be a blue dog democrat, but she’s one with all bark and no bite.

On my radio show today GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes said his “short list” for Lt. Governor includes someone from Weld County with both executive experience in the Governor’s mansion and legislative experience as an elected member of the Colorado General Assembly.  Face the State has speculated that it might be either Senator Kevin Lundberg or Senator Scott Renfroe.  He wouldn’t say whether he was considering a man or a woman.

Neither Lundberg nor Renfroe has executive experience.

So who does? I thought of Greeley Mayor Tom Norton who served as CDOT director under Governor Bill Owens and was president of the Colorado State Senate during the 1990s.  But that was really just a wild guess — one that I don’t think is accurate.

A listener provided a great guess.  Someone who endorsed Dan Maes well before Scott McInnis’ “water” gate scandal. Someone with both executive experience as the head of DORA and legislative experience as the elected representative from HD 50.  I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think of this person.  My apologies to my friend Tambor Williams, who would make an excellent Lt. Governor.

Tambor most recently appeared on my show to explain her role on the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission.

Tambor would be a great choice, but then I am biased because I think Tambor would also make a great Governor. Remember this is all just speculation. Maes will make his announcement tomorrow. Until then, have fun speculating.

The term “jobless recovery” always has left me confused.  In fact, I’ve pondered the term on my show on more than one occasion. I don’t claim to be an economist but words should mean something.  So, exactly how can we be in a “recovery” when unemployment remains high — especially considering how much of our children’s money we have spent in a feeble attempt to keep unemployment below 8 percent as Christina Romer and the Obama administration promised?

Fortunately columnist Al Lewis clarifies for everyone. First he explains the prevailing description of our current economic situation:

After trillions of dollars worth of Federal Reserve maneuvers and government-stimulus spending, it became more benignly known as “the recovery.”

It’s since been called the fragile recovery, the sluggish recovery and even the jobless recovery. With the national debt at staggering levels, you could even call it the expensive recovery. But it’s always the recovery. Never, the recession.

Just last week, Fed officials actually began calling it the “slowed” recovery.

Refreshingly Lewis doesn’t buy the term “recovery” and calls a spade a spade:

To call it any kind of a recovery is profoundly blinding…

Why?

We rarely hear from unemployed economists, because economists work for banks, and banks get bailouts, or they work for governments that tax and print money. If more economists got pink slips, we’d likely hear more about the damage that double-digit unemployment does to an economy over an extended period of time.

As Lewis puts it, we never really recovered in the first place.

The next city manager of Loveland will be the current assistant city manager of either Merced, California or Ocala, Florida or even perhaps the city manager from Maryville, Missouri.

We applaud the council for identifying professional qualifications this time in seeking a city manager instead of relying on Loveland’s closed loop good ‘ole boy network. In addition, all the citizens of Loveland should be grateful for the many hours the council has spent sifting through over 500 resumes to make their final choices their own instead of relegating the work to a scapegoat committee.

Now comes the awkward invitation to the city to meet the council, staff and citizens in an effort to size-up in person each of the candidates and their qualifications August 19-20. See LovelandPolitics story.

Any comments?

LovelandPolitics Exclusive

LovelandPolitics has obtained some of the evidence used against Drake resident Roberta “Bobby” Allen (who wants to acquire county property along the Big Thompson River in Drake) to get a restraining order preventing her from contacting county staff.

Allen’s daughter owns 21 acres adjacent to a parcel of county land acquired by Larimer County following the 1976 flood of the canyon when FEMA purchased all the land in the flood zone that is not developable.

Allen fears the public having access to the land creates a safety hazard for she and her daughter and sounds willing to do most anything to get the county to relinquish the property to her.

LovelandPolitics obtained recorded voice messages she left for county officals that are just two of many.

Defamatory comments will not be posted but general comments on the matter are permitted on this blog. Please be aware that her language is a little rough and probably should not be heard by impressionable children.