by Charles Bonniwell | Feb 19, 2025 | Main Articles
155 Acres Will Be A Permanent Park
Wellington Webb Hailed As A Hero
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Victor: Former Mayor Wellington Webb helped lead the years-long struggle to keep the old Park Hill Golf Course as Open Space and not a dense mixed-use development.
Coming Soon: The old Park Hill Golf Course will be converted into a regional park to open this summer.
A decades long battle on whether the 155 acres which comprised the old Park Hill Golf Course would be a permanent park and open space or paved over for a dense mixed-use development has finally reached a conclusion. The Park Hill residents overwhelmingly appeared wanting an open space park but aligned against them was a developer (Westside Investment Partners) who stood to make tens of millions of dollars from development with the strong backing and power of the mayor, City Council, and all of the agencies of city government. It appeared inevitable that the development would occur notwithstanding what the residents earnestly wanted. Citizens almost never win this type of battle yet this time it was different.
Opposing the developer/government juggernaut was an underfunded rag tag residents group by the name of Save Open Space Denver (SOS) in conjunction with former Denver mayor (1991 to 2003) and Park Hill resident Wellington Webb. Notwithstanding the David versus Goliath nature of the battle, on January 15 the present Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced that the city had engaged in a land swap whereby Westside Investments would be given 144 acres of empty industrial zoned property near the Denver International Airport for the 155 acres of the old Park Hill Golf Course. The swap ensures that the Park Hill acreage would be a city park, the fourth largest in the City and County of Denver and the largest acquisition of park land in the city’s history. It makes certain that the entire greater Park Hill neighborhood will continue to be one of the gems of Denver. The tale of this miraculous victory by the residents over their own government and a powerful developer is one of the most heartwarming tales of 21st century Denver.
Park Hill
What is today the Greater Park Hill neighborhood began in 1887 when the German Baron von Winkler sought to subdivide 32 acres of land east of Colorado Boulevard for an upscale re
Clayton College Campus: The Clayton College campus was designed by Maurice Briscoe and Henry Hewitt in the Italian Renaissance Revival-style with sandstone masonry.
sidential neighborhood. The Silver Crash of 1893 greatly hindered his plans. In 1898 he committed suicide with the poison strychnine and a gun, but his dream of development would slowly be fulfilled.
Today, Park Hill, sometimes referred to as Greater Park Hill, has approximately 30,000 residents divided into three distinct neighborhoods running up Colorado Boulevard. It starts with South Park Hill running from 17th Avenue and ending at 23rd Avenue. It is predominately white, affluent,
Location: The new park will be at the southwest corner of the Northeast Park Hill neighborhood along Colorado Boulevard.
and contains some of the most beautiful homes in all of Denver. Next is North Park Hill which runs from 23rd Avenue up to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (formerly 32nd Avenue). It is generally affluent but less than South Park Hill and is more evenly split between black and white residents. Further north is Northeast Park Hill which runs from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to 53rd Avenue. It is largest of the three neighborhoods in size, but smallest in population and the least affluent. At one time Northeast Park Hill had an overwhelming black population. In recent years Hispanic and white residents have been increasingly moving in.
The Estate
The Park Hill Golf Course property is on the southwest corner of Northeast Park Hill starting on Colorado Boulevard and just north of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The story of the golf course goes back to 1889 when a successful businessman, George Washington Clayton, was found dead slumped over his desk. With his wife and child having predeceased him, he left his fortune and property to the city of Denver for the purpose of an orphanage for white boys born in Colorado from respectable families. Racism, class division, and corruption would be a constant theme regarding his estate and Park Hill. The estate was valued at $2 million dollars in 1889 which is equivalent to $75 million today and his estate included numerou
Jackpot Winner: Charlotte Brantley as CEO of the Early Learning Center came out as the big monetary winner regarding the old Park Hill Golf Course. She sold on behalf of the Early Learning Center/Clayton Trust a conservation easement on the Park Hill Golf Course but then turned around and sold the land to Westside for $24 million as if no conservation easement existed.
s real estate properties.
Federal judge Moses Hallett was made the executor of the estate and charged with creating the orphanage. In 1903 he was accused of mismanaging estate funds, including using assets for his own purposes, and illegally
paying himself from estate funds. Nonetheless, under his tutelage the construction of the orphanage was completed by 1910 to be called Clayton College for Boys and turned it over to the city in 1911.
The Golf Course
The estate became the George W. Clayton Trust with the City and County of Denver as the sole Trustee. The orphanage was housed i
Ceremony: Mayor Mike Johnston brings up to the podium the victorious former Mayor Wellington Webb at a January 15, 2025, press conference announcing the land swap and creating a regional park at the old Park Hill Golf Course.
n beautifully constructed buildings and called Clayton College for Boys. Across Colorado Boulevard from the buildings at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was a 155-acre dairy used to help teach the orphans agricultural skills. The dairy farm operation ceased and in 1932 the land became the Park Hill Golf Course under a lease agreement with an operator.
The City and County of Denver as the sole Trustee proved to be no less corrupt than federal judge Moses Hallet. The city managers of the estate were found to be selling trust properties to friends and business associates at far below fair market prices and other acts of self-dealing. In 1982 the city was replaced by a foundation called the Clayton Foundation with no assets and a volunteer board to be the sole trustee of the Clayton Trust.
The orphanage was closed in 1957 due to the lack of boys fitting the restrictive provisions. In 1969 the Colorado Supreme Court court amended the provisions of the trust to eliminate the restrictions with regard to race, gender, and family background. In 1991 the Clayton Foundation became the Early Learning Center for the purpose of assisting low-income families with children from birth to three years old. In 1995 it became associated with the federal Head Start program. Critics have declared the program to be little more than a federally supported day care center whose main beneficiaries were the overwhelmingly white female teachers and administrators who paid themselves handsome salaries along with generous perks and pensions. It was ruefully noted that the Early Learning Center was as racially segregated as Clayton College for Boys with the white female teachers serving almost exclusively black and Hispanic families with no white male boys in the mix.
Like the managers and trustees before them, the white female teachers and administrators led by CEO and president Charlotte Brantley, were accused of attempting to convert the assets of the trust (the Park Hill Golf Course land) for their own benefit.
Marketing The Property
The 155 acres is located on the southwest corner of Northeast Park Hill. In the 1950s and 1960s real estate agents and bankers started a real estate stampede known as “white flight” by going door-to-door telling white residents that they needed to sell as soon as possible because blacks from Five Points were increasingly moving in causing property values to plummet.
Eventually many of Denver’s black political leaders came from Park Hill including Denver’s first black mayor Wellington Webb. In 1997, in order to prevent the land from being sold to developers to meet the money desired by the Early Learning Center, Webb arranged a deal whereby the city paid two million dollars to the Early Learning Center in return for a conservation easement on the land, whereby it was to remain a golf course or open space.
The Early Learning Center quickly blew through the 2 million dollars and soon hunted for more funding. In 2011 Micheal Hancock became the second black mayor of Denver, but unlike Webb had no interest in parks and open space and was almost universally deemed to be in the back pocket of developers. Neither the Hancock Administration nor Early Learning Center seemed to care that the property had a conservation easement for open space on it which the citizens wanted to keep. The Early Learning Center’s Brantley started talking about envisioning the 155 acres, but no mention of returning to the taxpayers the money it had taken.
In 2017, a convoluted agreement was drawn up with the city buying the land for $20 million and indicating the Early Learning Center would jointly develop the property. The agreement was so convoluted that the City Council balked.
Wellington Webb wrote: “In 2017 the Denver city administration and the landowner, Clayton Trust [managed by the Early Learning Center] , thought they would be able to terminate the conservation easement between themselves simply with a wink and a nod and city council approval. Had it not been for Arcis Golf, the company that operated the golf course crying foul, termination of that agreement would have flown under the radar, tucked into a measure for a vote by Denver City Council to approve the sale and development of that 155-acre, tree-filled green space.”
Before that litigation was resolved the state legislature enacted a new law in which an impartial judge would have to rule that conditions had to have changed so that the purposes for easement no longer existed. The legislation appeared to save the land as open space but no. A Denver judge would later rule quixotically that the citizens had no standing to enforce the easement.
The Rise Of Opposition
But the initial contract to sell and subsequent lawsuit alerted Park Hill residents that Park Hill Golf Course land would be paved over for development unless they organized and fought back. SOS was formed with the help of two lawyers, Penfield Tate III and Woodsey Garnsey, soon to be joined by Webb.
In 2018 the golf course was closed and in 2019 Clayton Early Learning announced that it had agreed to sell the land to Westside Investment for $24 million, which shocked observers since the property was worth about $3 million with the conservation easement. It was assumed the fix was in with the Hancock Administration agreeing to lift the easement and approve any redevelopment.
Westside and the City then went on a full-bore public relations campaign to get the public behind the redevelopment. The city hired a firm to poll what the citizens wanted for the area which unsurprisingly came out with affordable housing. SOS was able to show that reality using a push poll, whereby the questions led the person being polled to the conclusion that the poller wanted. The city also set up the Park Hill Golf Course Area Visioning Process whereby city staff would meet up with various neighborhood groups to work through what they wanted to do with the land. The city staff, of course, were not honest brokers, which was demonstrated when they threw SOS out of the process saying that only those who wanted redevelopment could participate and not groups hoping to keep the property as an open space park.
SOS however continued to be proactive. It put on the November ballot Ordinance 301 which would require a citywide vote approving the lifting of a conservation easement. Westside then also got Ordinance 302 on the ballot which required such a vote in all cases except Park Hill Golf Course. SOS crushed Westside at the polls with Ordinance 301 winning with over 60% of the vote and Ordinance 302 losing by the same margin.
Westside through generous campaign contributions directly and indirectly had control over a large majority of the 13-member City Council. Westside got its small area plan approved by an 11-2 margin. The City Council also hoped that a scheduled April 4 vote on lifting the conservation easement would be favorably influenced by the approved redevelopment plan.
With tens of millions at stake Westside threw in everything it could including the race card. Westside and the City proclaimed if the land was a park it would make the area far more attractive and “gentrify” the area. Gentrification was a code whereby affluent whites would buy up properties
Driving Force: Andy Klein, the founder and CEO of Westside Investment Partners employed every trick and artifice to turn Park Hill Golf Course into a mixed-use development but ultimately failed to overcome the Park Hill Residents desire for a park.
displacing blacks. It is the flipside of “white flight.” The Westside redevelopment plan provided significant affordable housing which would attract black buyers and keep the area with a majority of black residents.
Given the enormous resources Westside would pour into the racist flavored campaign, and how little SOS and the other neighborhood groups had to spend, it was assumed Westside would win. To the shock of many Westside lost badly with over 60% voting to keep the conservation easement.
The Stunning Swap
Wellington Webb and the neighborhood groups had stopped the redevelopment of Park Hill Golf Course by their incredible election victory but were not any closer to making it a park. Westside still owned the land subject to a conservation easement which allowed golf course operations as well as open space. In a pique of anger Westside fenced off the property and did minimal maintenance.
Westside also threatened to turn a part of the property into a multi-story Top Golf driving range serving alcohol with loud music. Mayor Hancock had declared that the city would never buy land for a park, as it was way too expensive for the city budget.
For open space advocates the long nightmare of Mayor Hancock was to be over in 2023, with the mayor term-limited out of office after 12 long years. But the leading candidates appeared no less unfriendly to parks and open space. While the two runoff candidates, Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough, agreed on very little but they did agree that the property should be redeveloped by Westside and not become a park.
It was therefore one last surprising turn of events concerning the Park Hill Golf Course when Johnston announced on January 15 of this year that Denver was acquiring the land for 144 acres of industrial zoned land close to the Denver International Airport to swap for the old Park Hill Golf Course. The 155 acres will become a regional park improved and maintained by Denver Parks and Recreation.
At the press conference the mayor recognized Penfield Tate and Woody Garnsey of SOS and brought up Wellington Webb to a hero’s welcome.
The residents had, against all odds, “beaten city hall.” Future generations of Park Hill residents will be the beneficiaries of the unbelievable fight and victory of Wellington Webb, SOS, and an intrepid band of fighter residents from the Park Hill neighborhood.
by Charles Bonniwell | Jan 16, 2025 | Main Articles
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Bull & Bush Expansion: The tent was established during the Covid 19 era with the assistance of the City of Glendale and still stands today for overflow customers.
It is widely acknowledged that one of the joys of urban living is the availability of a wide array of restaurants of all different types and cuisines. But it has been extensively reported that many Denver restaurants are suffering with the number of restaurants dropping a whopping 22% since 2021 according Denver’s Department of Excise and Licenses.
At the same time according to the sales tax records of the city of Glendale, which is completely surrounded by the city of Denver, the restaurants have been experiencing steady growth every year since 2021.
Popular Restaurant Owner: Paul Sullivan, owner of Esters Neighborhood Pub operates two locations in Denver, and one in Wheat Ridge.
Minimum Wage
One of the key reasons for the disparity is the minimum wage differential for tipped employees between the two cities. Denver imposes a minimum of $15.79 per hour compared to $11.79 per hour in Glendale. Moreover, Denver has a very complex set of rules concerning what the minimum wage entails. Denver restaurants have had to pass those added costs to the customers who are price sensitive these days or suffer on the restaurants’ bottom line.
“The tipped minimum wage has ripple effects,” said Paul Sullivan, owner of Esters Neighborhood Pub. “We have cut back significantly on benefits that we offer to our co-workers that we had offered for years, we have reduced the number of people and the number of hours, and we are still making less money because of the tipped minimum wage. This comes directly out of the operator’s bottom line and that crushes us.”
COVID 19
Restaurateurs: Steve Lemonidis, General Manager of Reivers Bar & Grill (right), and Dave Peterson, co-owner of the Bull & Bush Brewery in Glendale, have different experiences when operating in their respective cities.
COVID 19 badly hurt restaurants throughout Colorado starting in 2020 but Denver’s approach was far more harmful than Glendale’s. According to Glendale restaurant owners the city tried to ameliorate the draconian restrictions imposed by the Tri County Health Department (who had jurisdiction over the city) and led the fight to in fact dissolve Tri County Health due to its draconian bureaucratic approach to the crisis.
David Peterson, co-owner of the Bull & Bush Brewery in Glendale, said, “During COVID, we put up a giant 100-person heated tent because, for a time, you could only serve food and drink outdoors. The permitting process in Glendale was extremely simple and took about 10 minutes and the permit was granted immediately for a change of premise liquor license.”
“To this day, we still use the tent as overflow,” said Peterson. “The city came to me and suggested altering the change of premises from temporary to permanent. That way, I didn’t need to reapply every year. They [the city] were proactive in something I should have been proactive in.”
The attitude of Denver was quite the opposite according to Steve Lemonidis the general manager of Reivers Bar & Grill in the Wash Park neighborhood of Denver. The city, he indicated, refused to educate his staff on exactly what the rules were but simply sent in inspectors who constantly handed out citations. For his restaurant the myriads of citations totaled $53,000 and failure to pay immediately would have resulted in revocation of the liquor license and the closure of the business.
“There was no explanation on where the restrictions came from,” said Lemonidis. “Yet, our mayor [Hancock] was on an airplane on Thanksgiving morning telling us all not to be with our families, but yet he was on an airplane to fly to see his family on Thanksgiving Day. It seems like the city was talking out of both sides of their mouth and it hurt us.”
The bureaucratic, almost anti-business, attitude toward restaurants is somewhat surprising given the fact that Denver’s most noted recent mayor (2003-2011) U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper was a restaurateur, as owner of restaurants such as Wynkoop Brewery, Wazee Supper Club, and Cherry Cricket.
But his successor, Michael Hancock, was attentive to the needs of real estate developers and not much else, while the new mayor Mike Johnston concentrates his administration’s efforts on the homeless who do not go to restaurants very often.
As Troy Guard the owner and chef of Guard and Grace told the Colorado Sun, “Honestly, I love Denver … But it’s becoming more and more difficult to open restaurants.”
Red Tape
Glendale: Bull & Bush Brewery opened their restaurant in Glendale in 1971. It is the oldest restaurant in Glendale. Photo by Mae Lynn Photography
One of the reasons businessmen do not want to open a restaurant in Denver these days is the enormous amount of red tape involved in building permits, inspection reviews, construction restriction, greenhouse gas rules, etc. Denver estimates the time to go through its process for a new restaurant is eight months, but those who have undergone the process say that a year or more can be anticipated.
In Glendale the process can be completed in weeks. Dave Peterson of the Bull & Bush noted he recently had to install a new roof and had to get the approval from the City of Glendale and Xcel Energy. When he indicated that he thought if he called the city he could get an inspection that afternoon the Xcel Energy official he was working with (who was used to working in Denver) laughed saying it would take weeks if not months to schedule an inspection. Glendale came over that afternoon, and as a result the restaurant had to close only half a day for the roof replacement.
Parking
An ever-growing problem for Denver restaurants in various parts of the city is ever diminishing parking in Denver. The city’s goal is to make parking increasingly difficult to force its citizens, and anyone traveling to Denver, to take public transportation for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gases and other societal goals.
Glendale, on the other hand, has not only not decreased parking but is expanding it. Glendale is presently finishing a seven story 1,200 car garage facility on Virginia Avenue to help its Four Mile Entertainment District which will house various restaurants and bars.
Glendale’s City Manager Chuck Line stated that: “We are taking the exact opposite approach from Denver. I believe restaurants and other businesses in Glendale will prosper because of it.”
Denver: Esters Neighborhood Pub opened their location in Virginia Village over nine years ago (pictured) and their location in Park Hill six years ago. Photo by Mae Lynn Photography
Crime And Homelessness
Restaurants in various parts of Denver such as Downtown suffer from the perception that they are not in a safe area and suffer from the homeless encampments. On the night of January 11, 2025, a 24-year old man stabbed four people on the 16th Street Mall, killing two. Pro forma statements about Downtown safety by Mayor Mike Johnston did little to improve the adverse publicity.
In Glendale there are simply no homeless encampments, Dave Peterson notes that the Glendale police respond to calls in minutes. He knows of no-one who feels unsafe in Glendale.
Look Toward The Future
Paul Sullivan who owns two Esters Neighborhood Pubs in Denver opined, “The cost of doing business recently, in the city of Denver specifically, is not sustainable at the current moment. There are a few different reasons, and it is sort of like death by a thousand cuts. There is a lot of stuff coming at us in the city of Denver.”
The fact that there are still over 2,000 restaurants in Denver is a testament to the resilience of the restaurant community in the city. However, it is difficult to see why the number of restaurants in the city will not continue to drop unless and until Denver’s Mayor Mike Johnston and his Administration decide to reach out to restaurateurs and start to address their many concerns on how the city operates with regard to its restaurant industry.
Glendale, on the other hand, appears to be poised to undergo boom times such as it hasn’t experienced since the 1970s.
by Charles Bonniwell | Dec 17, 2024 | Main Articles
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Former IEC Commissioner Bill Leone
Denver District Court issued a devastating decision to the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (IEC) in its almost 10-year multimillion dollar legal battle against the City of Glendale and by implication all home rule cities and counties in the State of Colorado. The court ruled in a decision written by District Court Judge Jill D. Dorancy that the IEC has no jurisdiction over Glendale or its elected officials and employees on ethics complaints.
The IEC was established by a statewide vote on an amendment to the state constitution ostensibly to adjudicate disputes over gift limitations to elected officials and others. But under Chairman Bill Leone (who has since left the IEC) it attempted to break free from virtually all constraints to become a super agency.
Assistant Attorney General Gina Cannan
The IEC had gotten the courts to rule that it was not subject to any ethics rules itself including those pertaining to open meetings and open records. It did so on the theory that since the IEC was adopted as a constitutional amendment it supersedes any prior constitutional provisions as well as any state laws adopted by the legislature. The IEC asserted that Its powers provided in its constitutional amendment could only be constrained by a future constitutional amendment adopted by a vote of the citizens.
To become a true superagency, the IEC had to expand its powers to hear disputes far broader than simply claims concerning gifts to politicians. Leone thought he had found a way to do that by use of subsection seven of the state ethics law, which provides that the IEC can hear claims on public employees of violations of any code of conduct, not just gift bans.
But the same does not apply “to home rule counties or home rule municipalities that have adopted charters, ordinances, or resolutions that address the matters covered by this article.” This exception was a major problem for the power-seeking Leone as the vast majority of Colorado citizens live in home rule cities and counties. Leone and legal counsel for the IEC, Assistant Attorney General Gina Cannan, needed a small home rule city to concede in a case that the IEC alone could decide whether a home rule city’s ethics code was adequate. If not adequate the IEC would have jurisdiction over it. The City of Glendale refused to fold, notwithstanding the fact that legal fees fighting the IEC are exorbitant.
In the end, the District Court ruled that the IEC did not have jurisdiction over the City of Glendale. It is assumed the IEC will waste even more money and time and appeal the decision to the Colorado Court of Appeals. Glendale indicates it hopes that the Colorado Court of Appeals will finally end the IEC’s costly power grab once and for all.
City of Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon stated with regard to the city’s legal victory: “The IEC exemplifies everything that is wrong and harmful about the administrative state in Colorado. Maybe Colorado can have a Department of Government Efficiency like the one they are doing federally to start to get rid of these state super agencies that are starting to drive people out of Colorado to states with less burdensome governments.”
The IEC has 49 days to file a notice of appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
by Charles Bonniwell | Nov 15, 2024 | Main Articles
A Recent Case Proves This To Be True
by Charles C. Bonniwell
The Legal Losers: The representation by the law firm of Elkus and Sisson of Randy Roedema (at right), on the same charges as Jason Rosenblatt, resulted in their client being found guilty in the death of Elijah McClain, and then sentenced to four years in jail.
Randy Roedema (left) and Jason Rosenblatt (right)
The Legal Winners: The law firm of Springer and Steinberg used their legal talents to obtain a not guilty on all charges for client Jason Rosenblatt (at left) relating to the death of Elijah McCain.
The prosecutions of the two Aurora police officers that Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser say were responsible for the death of 23-year-old Elijah McClain seems to indicate that your chance of going to jail may depend less on the application of justice than the quality of the criminal defense attorneys you hired to defend you.
McClain, a black American, was walking home from a convenience store in Aurora when he was stopped by Aurora police officers following a suspicious person report. McClain was put in a neck hold, pinned to the ground by police officers, and given an overdose of the sedative ketamine by paramedics.
The applicable District Attorney from Adams County refused to charge anyone with the homicide based on the fact that the coroner could not determine what exactly killed McClain, the choke hold or the overdose of ketamine or both. The killing occurred in 2019 shortly after the police murder of George Floyd which set off riots across the country.
The Colorado murder case went into media hyper drive when Aurora police officers made fun of McClain’s death by picturing a reenactment of the chokehold that killed and the picture of it that was leaked to the press.
The lack of charges in the McClain case resulted in the unusual move by Governor Jared Polis who appointed Col-
orado Attorney Phil Weiser as a special prosecutor to bring charges against the three police officers and the two medics.
Victim: Twenty-three-year-old Elijah McClain was killed in an encounter with the Aurora police while just walking home from a convenience store in August of 2019.
The police officer who put a choke hold on McClain, Jason Rosenblatt, and the officer who held him down, Randy Roedema, were tried together under a myriad of homicide charges claiming the two men acted in concert to kill McClain. Under this legal theory the bad acts of each officer could be held against the other. Thus, logically and legally it was assumed by court observers that either or both men would be found either guilty or both found innocent.
Since Rosenblatt had applied the chokehold, he was deemed the most legally vulnerable of the two defendants. He hired one of Colorado’s premiere law firms, Springer and Steinberg with Harvey Steinberg, famous for representing sports figures in criminal cases, being the lead attorney. He was assisted by Stephen Burnstein.
Rosenblatt in turn hired a smaller and less well-known firm of Elkus and Sisson from Greenwood Village, both principals Donald Sisson and Reid Elkus splitting trial duties.
Attorney General Phil Weiser was a strange pick for a special prosecutor as he had never tried a criminal case in his life and apparently did not believe any lawyer in his Attorney General’s office could handle the very high publicity case. As AG he therefore went, for the first time in Colorado history, to a national law firm of Quinn Emanuel. They brought in top attorneys from Chicago and Los Angeles and luckily for Rosenblatt and Roedema neither lawyer had ever tried a criminal case in their entire legal careers.
At the trial neither defendant testified in his own defense, and the defense called no witnesses. Therefore, in the end, all that mattered were the opening and closing statements of Harvey Steinberg for Rosenblatt, and Sisson and Elkus for Roedema. If your attorney was brilliant the police officer could be a free man, and if he or they were unconvincing prison awaited. In a shock decision the jury found Jason Rosenblatt not guilty on all charges while Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault for which he would be sentenced to 14 months in jail. It was a laboratory experiment on the efficacy of an attorney.
After the verdict Rosenblatt and his family cried and all hugged Steinberg thanking him profusely. The reaction from Roedema and his family was understandably markedly cooler to Sisson and Elkus. McClain’s mother Sheneen McClain appeared to refuse to interact with her son’s attorneys and left the courtroom with her right hand held high.
If you are unfortunate enough to be criminally charged in Colorado this may appear to demonstrate that whether you leave that courtroom a free man or shackled off to prison may depend on which attorneys you select to represent you.
by Charles Bonniwell | Oct 18, 2024 | Main Articles
Split Decision After Millions Spent And No Fine
by Charles C. Bonniwell
Another Defeat: Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi one of the principals of MAK faced another defeat when the IEC declined to fine Mayor Mike Dunafon in the case MAK brought against him a decade ago in the IEC.
After a decade and millions of dollars spent, the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (the “IEC”) has finally rendered a decision concerning a February 3, 2015, Glendale City Council meeting. The IEC ruled in a split decision that Glendale Mayor, Mike Dunafon, violated Colorado law when he failed to publicly announce at that meeting and two subsequent council meetings that his girlfriend of 15 years, Debbie Matthews, was his girlfriend, notwithstanding the fact everyone in Glendale and at the meeting already knew that fact.
The Council Meeting
Ms. Matthews had presented a development site plan for a marijuana dispensary next to the nightclub Shotgun Willie’s to the Council. She was the majority owner of both businesses. The IEC found that Mr. Dunafon did not have “a personal or financial interest” in Ms. Matthews’ businesses, nor did he “attempt to influence the other members of the Glendale City Council” regarding Ms. Matthews’ businesses.
But the majority of the IEC declared that Dunafon violated C.R.S. Sec.24-18-109(3)(a) in that he had a “personal or private interest” in Ms. Matthews, and therefore her businesses, and had to publicly declare and disclose that his long-term girlfriend Ms. Matthews was, in fact, his girlfriend.
The IEC declared that no fine would be imposed because of the violation.
In a dissent, Commissioner Cole Wist pointed out that there was no definition of “personal or private interest” which could mean virtually anything. He suggested that it had to mean a “pecuniary” interest. He pointed out in a small town like Glendale (pop. 4496) almost any matter will involve people council members know. Explaining in public any or all connections would be a monumental waste of time and always be subject to second-guessing by anyone unhappy with a decision.
The Backstory
One of the first questions asked by observers of the IEC is why this relatively simple, if strange, decision took the IEC a decade to decide and cost millions of dollars in attorney’s fees and costs for the parties to the litigation. The reason is that nothing in the dark and byzantine world of the IEC is what it appears to be.
The IEC was formed as part of constitutional Initiative 41 titled “Ethics in Government. It was the brainchild of multimillionaire, and now Governor, Jared Polis. It was sold to the voters as a way to strictly limit gifts and gratuities to elected officials. The limitations would be lightly overseen by an independent ethics commission composed of citizens appointed by different political bodies and officeholders.
The IEC was to have a very limited staff and very limited powers. But as with many bureaucratic entities, the IEC has over the years endlessly sought to gain ever expanding powers and potential control over a significant portion of the Colorado citizenry.
It has become a boutique place where political insiders can bring to heel their political enemies which have included the Colorado Secretary of State and even a Governor of Colorado.
Being a boutique operation, the IEC does not have to take any case it doesn’t want to. It can dismiss cases because of “lack of jurisdiction” or it being “frivolous” with no explanation for the decision.
The Glendale Case
Winning Resolve: Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon and the City of Glendale continue to refuse to give into the tactics of the IEC.
The Glendale case in the IEC had its genesis in a political war started by the Iranian owners (MAK Investors) of Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Virginia Avenue. MAK wanted to take the 5.4 acres of land it had acquired from its landlord and make a fortune by building huge skyscraper apartment houses and condominiums along Cherry Creek.
The only problem was the land was not zoned for such development and their project was widely opposed by Glendale residents. MAK, used to playing extreme hardball to get what it wanted, commenced a war with the town’s mayor, Mike Dunafon, and the City Council. MAK hired the powerhouse law firm of Ireland Stapleton to bring a myriad of highly expensive lawsuits in state and federal courts against the city. MAK also hired the far right-wing paramilitary group The Oath Keepers to march fully armed through the streets of Glendale to intimidate the citizens and then to march to City Hall to harass the mayor and city council at a council meeting.
The rug merchants also went to the Denver FBI, who were rumored to have informants and agents within The Oath Keepers, to see if it could get the federal government involved to pressure Glendale to grant the rezoning MAK needed for its skyscrapers.
MAK, after years of litigation, lost all of its lawsuits brought by Ireland Stapleton and the city continued to refuse MAK’s rezoning demands. But MAK had one more arrow in its quiver. Bernie Buescher, a lawyer at Ireland Stapleton, had been Acting Secretary of State of Colorado and was reputed to know how to use the IEC to attack political enemies.
MAK poured over the minutes of the meetings of Glendale City Council to try to find anything it could use for a complaint to the IEC. MAK came across the February 3, 2015, minutes and thought they could use it in the MAK battle plan to force a rezoning for its skyscrapers.
MAK brought its complaint to the IEC almost a decade ago.
IEC’s Interest In Glendale Case
The IEC itself had no real interest in MAK’s push to make Glendale rezone its property but took the case, and is believed, to be a political favor to Bernie Buescher. However, the IEC came to see the Glendale case and saw it as a vehicle to expand its power over home rule counties and municipalities in Colorado, which includes almost all larger cities and counties in the State.
The major impediment to the expansion of IEC power was the express provision in Section 7 of the enabling provision which states:
“Any county or municipality may adopt ordinances or charter provisions with respect to ethics matters that are more stringent than any of the provisions contained in this article. The requirements of this article shall not apply to home rule counties or home rule municipalities that have adopted charters, ordinances, or resolutions that address the matters covered by this article.”
To get around this limitation to its powers the IEC came up with a strategy to accept cases against elected officials from small municipalities and counties that had their own ethics codes, since these entities do not have millions of dollars to fight off a claim of IEC jurisdiction over them.
Infamously the IEC went after County Commissioner Julie Cozad from a home rule county. To receive a plea deal, the IEC got her to concede the IEC had jurisdiction over the county.
The IEC then decided to accept a case concerning Dunafon as a mayor of a small home rule city assuming a small town like Glendale (pop. 4,496) would not have the resources to protect its own mayor on the jurisdiction question. But the IEC was badly mistaken as Glendale has an extremely large tax base for a small city and a history of fighting off governmental bullies like the IEC. Now, 10 years and millions of dollars spent, Glendale forced the IEC to make a ruling. Some IEC observers wondered why the IEC imposed no penalty against Mayor Dunafon even though it found a violation. Was the IEC trying to be magnanimous? The IEC was most likely anxious to penalize Dunafon to the maximum amount possible. But if it imposed a fine, no matter how small, its actions could be subject to review by the courts.
The IEC Wants To
Avoid The Courts At All Costs
The IEC has asserted that as the IEC was created by an amendment to the State Constitution, state laws and the state legislature have no power to constrain the IEC. The IEC asserts that no ethics rules apply, including the Colorado Open Record Act and Colorado Open Meetings Act. Thus, it believes only the Colorado judiciary could possibly limit its power grab and thus the courts must be avoided at all costs.
With a decision made in the Glendale case it would normally be subject to judicial review. But the IEC came up with an ingenious legal argument that the court could review decisions only in cases that the IEC imposes a penalty. In the Glendale case the IEC has argued that since it imposed no fine on Mayor Dunafon no court could review the Glendale case.
Ever More Litigation
Glendale does not intend to give in to such legal sophistry and now has brought an action under Section 106 of the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure to a Colorado District Court on whether the IEC has jurisdiction over home rule cities.
Whatever the District Court rules, the decision will be appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals and then eventually to the Colorado Supreme Court. Is decades of litigation and millions in attorney fees and costs what the Colorado voters envisioned when it approved the “Ethics in Government Act” in 2006?
Probably not, but as Lord Acton noted, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The IEC in seeking a form of absolute power is revealing how corrupt the IEC has become.
