In the 1957 musical The Music Man by Meredith Wilson, the protagonist Professor Harold Hill pulls a scam on a small Iowa town to sell non-existent musical instruments and lessons for a boys band he claims he will form to thwart off the purported malicious effects of a pool hall in the town. In the award-winning melody “Ya Got Trouble” Professor Hill breaks into song including the lyrics:
Well, ya got trouble my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in River City
. . . .
Pockets that mark the diff’rence
Between a gentleman and a bum,
With a capital “B”
And that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!
One of the reasons that the musical became so popular is that underlying premises have some believability concerning human nature. The Institute for Justice is a Virginia-based non-profit public interest law firm that somehow managed to lose by a 5-4 margin in the Supreme Court of the United States the case of Kelo v. City of New London whereby the court perniciously authorized the use of eminent domain to seize private property for the benefit of other private citizens in the name of economic development. The Institute has been raising money off its massive legal incompetence ever since.
The Institute for Justice was formed in 1991 by Clint Bollick and University of Denver Law School graduate “Chip” Mellor with seed money from moneyman Charles Koch of the famous, or infamous depending on your political views, Republican Koch Brothers. The Institute has revenues of only $18 million and must engage in endless money raising which depends on taking on highly public fights with municipalities and other governmental entities.
That is where Glendale comes in. The city sent out an innocuous notice that it was going to reauthorize the right of eminent domain for its urban renewal authority as it had in 2004 and 2013. Except this time the Institute for Justice had come to town. The Institute convinced the owners of Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs on Colorado Boulevard that Glendale must want to condemn their three to five acres for its “Riverwalk” project renamed “Glendale 180.” Except no one in Glendale apparently has any plan whatsoever to condemn the Kholghys’ or anyone else’s property in the city.
As reality doesn’t matter when you are ginning fake outrage, a massive publicity campaign went out to save the Kholghys’ property from a condemnation that is never going to occur. Camera crews from all major stations descended on the city as well as reporters from The Denver Post and other publications in the metropolitan area to report on and to condemn the non-existent condemnation of the Kholghys’ property.
When Phillip Applebaum from the Institute came before the Glendale City Council to pontificate, it was assumed he was an attorney since he did not identify exactly what he did. But lo and behold he is, in fact, an “Activism Coordinator” who took over the publicity campaign. He wanted the Chronicle to know that the Institute was not “retained” by the Kholghys for legal work but his department is instead engaged in “grassroots activism” whose ultimate goal we assume is fund raise over a made up crisis in Riverwalk City.
Of course the Kholghys are hardly innocent dupes. They bought the land in 2006 from Jimmy O’Connor after they saw an article in The Denver Post that the city was planning an entertainment development along Cherry Creek to be called the Riverwalk. They overpaid for the property, but they assumed that the Riverwalk project would greatly increase the value of the land, as landowners along Cherry Creek helped plan the entire project. It has been indicated that they want $20 million or more for property worth half that amount. They are apparently hoping they can raise enough of a ruckus that the city can cheat its own taxpayers and pay them whatever they want.
For any redevelopment project to work the city needs tax revenues to help pay for roads and other improvements. According to state law Glendale can capture county and special district taxes for the project, provided there is so called “blight” which East Virginia Avenue clearly fits.
The Institute for Justice somehow convinced the Kholghys that a finding of blight, like the existence of a pool hall in River City, is the devil’s work and even helped organize a Saturday event to protest the assertion of “blight,” even though it would be helpful in any re-development of the Kholghys’ property by the Kholghys themselves. The Kholghys have brought at least two lawsuits against Glendale regarding the non-existent condemnation plans. The media in Denver, like the parents in River City, can however be easily conned and panicked into running to help prevent a non-existent threat.
Glendale, at its last City Council Meeting, approved a Downtown Development Authority that includes most of the southern side of East Virginia Avenue along the creek excepting the Kholghys’ property. Apparently the rest of the landowners want a project even if it doesn’t include the Kholghys.
In the end, the Kholghys will have spent a small fortune on frivolous lawsuits against the city for a non-existent threat of condemnation and their property will be worth considerably less not being part of Glendale 180. The one group that will gain will be the lawyers as well as the Institute for Justice with Phillip Applebaum as Activism Coordinator in an updated version of The Music Man crooning:
Well, ya got trouble my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in Riverwalk City
. . . .
Blight marks the diff’rence
Between a gentleman and a bum,
With a capital “B”
And that rhymes with “C” and that stands for condemnation!
The Kholghys will be free to develop their property in any way they see fit except having to obey the zoning laws of the city just like every other landowner in the city. In the past the Kholghys seem to believe they are above the laws that apply to everyone else including providing parking and open space for any redevelopment. As with The Music Man one cannot help but admire the con the Kholghys and the Institute for Justice have pulled off on the media. But in the end most of the residents and businesses of Glendale hope that the Kholghys get what they justly deserve and that the laws are fairly and honestly applied to them as they would be applied to anyone else. The Institute in turn, will leave Glendale to go on raising money off of other made up River City crises, all the while losing legal cases that should never have been lost in the first place.
— Editorial Board
