by Mark Smiley | Jul 20, 2018 | Editorials
Jolon Clark
Never in the 160-year history of the City of Denver has its governmental coffers been so bountifully filled as they are today. The extraordinary rise in property values have brought in untold millions of dollars in real property taxes even if it is breaking the back of small business in the city. [See Chronicle p. 1, July 2018.] Sales tax revenue is also skyrocketing and the myriad taxes on marijuana is a bonanza for the city. As for copious amounts of funds for capital projects the city’s voters approved an almost $10 billion in bonds. The original goal for bond proceeds was much smaller but grew and grew as optimism skyrocketed about the state of the city’s economy.
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce is gathering signatures for a statewide ballot to increase the state’s sales tax by 2.9 percent or 29 cents per $10 purchase for roads and transportation projects. Since Denver will be the largest contributor to the funding it can be expected to garner the lion’s share of the proceeds for projects it is interested in.
What is a little surprising is that, notwithstanding this mountain of cash, Denver appears to be ignoring various standard expenditures. One would perhaps not be shocked to find out, according to City Councilman Jolon Clark, that Denver Parks and Recreation has a $127 million deferred maintenance backlog. Mayor Hancock and the developers who own him see open space and parks as future apartment house and affordability sites. Why bother to maintain them when in the natural course of business in Denver they will be cemented over, turned into drainage ponds and/or monetized as concert venues and the like.
Nonetheless, Councilman Clark has proposed, and the City Council approved by a 12 to 1 margin, a dedicated parks sales tax of 0.25 percent or 2.5 cents per $10 purchase for park maintenance and acquisition of new or replacement parks. That would produce approximately $46 million next year. Given how fast the City Council is destroying parks and open space in the city, the $46 million would appear modest. The only person voting no was Albus Brooks who instead wants to turn all of the city’s sidewalks into runways for some reason known only to the mayor’s developer friends who want to make him the next mayor of Denver after Hancock retires in 2022.
Clark has noted that the remaining green space in the city “has become too crowded.” A good point since Denver has gone from one of the leading American cities in parks and open space per capita to one of the worst in only a couple of decades.
Kendra Black
This caused Councilwoman Kendra Black, affectionately known as “the dumbest person in America with a master’s degree,” to declare, “There’s definitely a need for this.”
It was left to Councilman Kevin Flynn to point out that what will happen is that the city will simply cut back park maintenance to almost nothing and let the dedicated park fund pay for it all. In effect the dedicated parks tax will become just another feeder to the general fund. Others have noted the Mayor, and his cronies, will use the fund to purchase virtually worthless land that no one wants, even the scummiest developers, from the highly connected. That inescapable logic caused Councilman Flynn to propose a successful amendment that the Council hold public hearings and take votes on five-year plans for the spending of the money. This way the crooks who run the city will have to grease not only the mayor but also individual councilmembers.
Others are gathering signatures for dedicated sales taxes for a myriad other good causes including, but not limited to, mental health and substance abuse treatment; college scholarships; and healthy food programs.
We say yes to all the sales tax initiative that make the ballot in Denver. All the money will eventually end up in the back pockets of CRL Associates, Norm of Arabia, the mayor’s favorite developers and other politically connected individuals. But the public does not appear to appreciate the fact that the mayor spends all his time working out and chasing skirts while the City Council does virtually nothing. Shouldn’t the people who run the city and do all the work be handsomely rewarded for their endeavors? We say yes and thus the voters must approve sales tax hikes for one and all. We are confident, based on past performance, that the Denver voters will do the right thing and vote yes on any and all tax hikes that make the ballot, no matter the purported purpose.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Jun 24, 2018 | Editorials
Plato
In the 4th century BC, Plato wrote the highly influential treatise The Republic. Plato was no fan of democracy — either direct democracy where every eligible citizen would have the opportunity to vote on legislation or representative democracy where eligible citizens would vote on representatives who would in turn vote on legislation. He postulated that the best system would involve rule by “philosopher kings.”
He envisioned that a special class of people be given a specific education, available to few, which would include men and women as philosopher kings and queens. Out of this collective elite only the most virtuous and capable would become rulers. They would live simply and rule benevolently for the common good.
While his treatise has been widely read and praised for over two millennium no one has actually sought to institute rule by “philosopher kings,” at least until now. Here in Colorado we have begun to adopt a form of rule by philosopher kings that would have thrilled Plato.
Federal District Court judges in many ways resemble Plato’s ideal. They have a very specialized education (law) that is available to only a few. They live simply as federal court judges presently make only $169,300 annually. Like kings they are appointed for a life tenure. Among this class of philosophers (i.e. lawyers) federal district court judges are chosen by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the US Senate for their purported knowledge and virtuousness.
In Colorado we have seven regular philosopher kings (with one present vacancy) and five senior philosopher kings. They are almost evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans and include both men and women as desired by Plato.
To placate the Colorado masses, we have both pretend direct and pretend representative democracy but that is largely window dressing. Any time the masses do something egregiously stupid any of our philosopher kings can change it for the good of all of us.
Back in 2006 the Colorado hoi polloi in their atavistic ignorance and bigotry voted to have “their” state constitution define marriage as union of a “man” and a “woman.” Luckily philosopher king Judge Raymond P. Moore struck down that ridiculous bit of direct democracy as his legal wisdom was recognized as being correct in the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges.
Do not think that a dutiful philosopher king like Raymond Moore bothers himself with simply hotly contested issues. Recently in the case of Holland v. Williams he went after another bit of voter approved idiocy concerning campaign state finance reforms. In his wit and wisdom Moore decided he didn’t like the fact that private attorney generals (everyday citizens) could just bring claims against candidates or their campaigns without the claims being vetted by someone so he struck that provision down as unconstitutional.
It was the perfect case for a modern philosopher king where the plaintiff, Tammy Holland, and the defendant, Secretary of State Wayne Williams, both adamantly disliked the campaign finance laws in Colorado and so neither argued for it. Moore refused other parties who do support the campaign finance laws from entering into the case. What is so cool about the case is that since both plaintiff and defendant don’t like the law neither will appeal Moore’s decision to the Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit so that Moore’s ruling can’t and will not be reviewed by anyone.
The best thing about being a ph
Judge Moore
ilosopher king like Moore is you can be as lazy as you want to be at times. Moore was too special to say how you vet the campaign finance complaints, just somebody should do it.
Secretary of State Wayne Williams is widely viewed as an establishment Republican hack who protects at any cost other establishment Republicans like Bob Beauprez and Walker Stapleton. He has now declared that he will simply do all the vetting of any complaints himself. Obviously, the voters of Colorado did not want politicians like Williams being the gatekeeper, but who cares what the voters want. The philosopher king can’t be bothered to decide and in in his absence the politically avarice Williams fills the void.
Other Colorado federal judge philosopher kings have also been active in their benevolent rule. In order to be placed on the primary ballot in Colorado, Colorado statutes provide one of the ways to obtain a sufficient number of signatures is to have petition gatherers who are Colorado residents. Six-term Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn could not be bothered with getting Colorado residents for petition gatherers and he was in danger of not making the ballot. First, he went to state court and lost all the way up, including the Colorado Supreme Court.
Luckily Federal District Court Ju
Judge Brimmer
dge Phillip Brimmer somehow decided that having Colorado residents collect signatures was a stupid idea that he didn’t like so voilá, he declared it unconstitutional and the Republican Congressman was back on the ballot.
Federal District Court Judge William J. Martinez recently decided he didn’t like parts of Amendment 41 which made it harder to change the state constitution by voters. He simply found significant portions of the constitution amendment to be unconstitutional.
These are but a few of many wonderful decisions by Colorado’s federal district court judges that make it clear dem
Judge Martinez
ocracy is largely a thing of the past here in Colorado.
Mark Twain sagaciously declared: “If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.” We here in Colorado can vote and approve directly or through the legislative process anything we want, but it really doesn’t matter. We have evolved into a form of Plato’s ideal of rule by philosopher kings. Hopefully our experiment will continually be improved upon and we can dispense with the cost and annoyance of the pretend direct and representative democracy. We can then just directly petition our philosopher king federal district court judges to direct all aspects of our lives. It has taken almost 2,500 years to recognize that we need to live under the rule of philosopher kings as outlined by Plato but we here in Colorado have finally gotten it right and it will only get better and better over time.
by Mark Smiley | May 25, 2018 | Editorials
The Colorado primary season will come to a dramatic conclusion on the evening of June 26, 2018. It has already been a topsy turvy primary season. The leading Republican candidate for governor, Walker Stapleton, had to abandon his petition drive after already submitting his petitions to the Secretary of State for fear that a large number of the signatures would be thrown out for using unqualified petition gatherers. Instead he went the Assembly route and only beat second place fi
Kent Thiry
nisher Greg Lopez, whose only claim to fame was being the young Mayor of Parker 30 years ago, by less than 10 points. Lopez was virtually an unknown individual at the beginning of the process. Lopez does not have any personal wealth and raised little or no money prior to the State Assembly, but he traveled all 64 counties of Colorado and gave a rousing speech at the Assembly.
In addition, six-term Congressman Doug Lamborn of El Paso County was thrown off the ballot by the Colorado Supreme Court for ineligible petition gatherers, only to have that decision overturned by Federal District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer.
Karen Kataline
On the Democratic side the three gubernatorial candidates — Jared Polis, Cary Kennedy and Mike Johnston — have raised and/or personally contributed record breaking amounts of money for their campaigns. Johnston hit a fountain of cash from anti-gun Bloomberg groups while Kennedy is being generously funded by Colorado’s public employee unions. Polis is perhaps the richest man ever to run for Colorado governor and is strongly backed by Bernie Sanders progressives.
The Democratic National Congressional Committee (DNCC) has recruited moderate “blue dog” candidates across the country in an attempt to win back the House from the Republicans. The DNCC has even run smear campaigns in Texas and other states against Bernie Sanders progressives in favor of their establishment candidates. In Colorado, progressive Levi Tillemann, a candidate for the Sixth Congressional District now held by Republican Mike Coffman, recorded Steny Hoyer, the second in command for Congressional Democrats, demanding he withdraw his candidacy in favor of DNCC candidate Jason Crowe, a lawyer who doesn’t even live in District Six.
But all of that brouhaha will be nothing compared to election night when who will take the primaries for the respective parties is absolutely unknown. This conundrum is due to three factors. First is Proposition 108, approved by the voters by a close margin in 2016. It provides that unaffiliated voters will get both a Democratic and a Republican ballot and they can choose one or the other. Prop 108 was the brainchild of disreputable and sleazy businessman Kent Thiry who spent millions to get it passed and desperately wanted to be Colorado’s governor in 2018. Thiry knows that the Democratic Party wanted nothing to do with him but he had calculated that a highly diluted Republican Party, with the help of unaffiliated voters, could be persuaded to make him its candidate if he spent enough money. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. Thiry’s cutthroat and unprincipled business tactics in running DaVita, a kidney dialysis company, were devastatingly exposed by television comedian John Oliver in a segment of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on HBO.
While Thiry’s political ambitions lay in tatters at least for 2018, the state’s voters are left with Proposition 108. Its intent was to allow middle of the road moderates, particularly Republicans, to prevail in primaries. Will it have that effect, no one knows. It will allow one party to play in the other’s primary. On the Republican side so-called “strategic voting” has become all the rage for the upcoming primary. Operation Chaos Colorado has been promoted by radio show host Karen Kataline who is urging Republicans to unaffiliate, get both ballots and vote for the weakest Democratic candidates. For example, most Republican strategists believe Jared Polis would be a far weaker candidate than Cary Kennedy in the day of the #MeToo Movement. Kataline points out that the Democrats have been playing this game for a long time, as demonstrated by the financial and other support that Democrats gave to Dan Maes in 2010, over a much more electable Scott McInnis.
Prop 108, in combination with the all mail-in ballot election, makes it almost impossible to determine who will vote and in what primary. Moreover, establishment candidates of both parties once had an enormous advantage due to the fact that The Denver Post seldom promoted or even covered lesser known candidates. The slow demise of The Denver Post, which no longer even has an editorial opinion writer, means that the lesser known candidates may have a greater chance of winning than ever before.
So get the popcorn out and watch the results roll in on the night of June 26. There may be some amazing upsets.
by Mark Smiley | Apr 27, 2018 | Editorials
The most recent scandals of Mayor Michael Hancock involving his sexual harassment of Police Detective Leslie Branch-Wise and the payoffs to hide his actions with taxpayer funds, have raised the uncomfortable question of exactly what function does the 13-member City Council actually serve?
The City Council costs Denver taxpayers millions every year. The individual Council members annually make $91,197 with City Council President bringing in $102,197. They recently gave themselves a 10.3% raise to be phased in. In addition, they have a plethora of generous government perks and benefits. Each has his or her own paid assistant as well as a generous allowance for an office. But that is just the tip of the iceberg with an entire staff for the City Council as a whole, travel benefits and the list goes on and on.
What do we the citizens get for all that money? It appears to be virtually nothing. The City Council simply rubber-stamps almost every high-density development brought before them from the Community Planning and Development Department, notwithstanding the pleas and howls of residents from across the city.
Yes, we have a so-called “strong mayor” form of government in Denver but it is not technically yet a dictatorship, although a majority of the City Council seem to treat it as such. While claiming that the City Charter gives them little power, the Council a few years back gave up its role in overseeing the parks and open space in the City and County of Denver. As a result, the Mayor has destroyed or monetized park after park from City Park to Hentzell Park to Overland Park and on and on.
In theory, under the City Charter the City Council appropriates all money to run the city, passes or changes laws and investigates wrong doing by various city officials. In fact, it performs none of those functions. The mayor prepares the budget and doles out small favors to individual council members in return for passing the budget and then rubberstamps all expenditures thereafter. No meaningful legislation has been passed for years other than changing the zoning laws to make them ever friendlier to high density developers.
The joke of the investigative powers of the City Council were on full display regarding Detective Leslie Branch-Wise. Councilman Rafael Espinoza wrote a confidential letter demanding an investigation into the sexual harassment by the mayor, which was leaked to the press. The City Council first declined to investigate saying they didn’t want to re-victimize Ms. Wise-Branch. When Branch-Wise in fact demanded that they investigate and have open hearings they then stated that the City Attorney, who is controlled by the mayor, told them they can’t. Well that was easy.
In the last City Council election in 2015 we strongly endorsed Wayne New, Paul Kashmann and Rafael Espinoza. Each of them overcame long odds and all of the money of lobbyists and high-density developers and pulled upset victories. Each of them has regularly voted against the worst of the high-density developments and the destruction of open space and parks.
They are, of course, a minority of three in a 13-person council. But it is not sufficient to simply be the “vote of the people” but they needed to be the “voice of the people” and in that regard they have abysmally failed. Given their mild if not meek personalities they raise not one peep about the destruction of the city and the quality of life for its citizens. There is no public opposition in the public arena by any of them to any of the worst of the worst of the mayor’s and his administration’s actions.
Of course, while we have a strong mayor form of government, Mayor Hancock is anything but a “strong mayor” and in fact he is a total “empty suit” or more accurately an “empty workout outfit.”
Perhaps we should amend the City Charter and convert the government to one run by a High Commission. One person would be designated to it by the Brownstein Law Firm, one from the lobbying firm of CRL Associates, two from the crony capitalist executives comprising Colorado Concern with the High Commission rounded out with three high density developers. That way at least when Denver citizens petition the Denver government to address their grievances they are talking to people who could actually get something done. We would finally have that “open, honest and transparent” Denver government that Mayor Hancock spouts off about ad nauseum.
In the meantime, the 13 City Council members will continue to draw their soon to be six figure salaries while doing absolutely nothing other than ignoring the voices of citizens who still bother to go to City Council meetings having not yet heard that they are talking to little more than cardboard figures placed behind a large dais in the ornate Denver City Council Chambers. The High Commission form of government comprised of the real powers to be in Denver sounds reasonable in comparison and would be a lot less expensive for all involved.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Mar 23, 2018 | Editorials
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them One ring to bring them all and in the daRkness bind them
Norm Brownstein
David Sirota, senior editor for the International Business Times, called the Denver based law and lobbying firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck, LLC (the “Brownstein Law Firm”) the Octopus as its corrupting tentacles stretch to every important institution in Colorado and even Washington, D.C.
Norm Brownstein, Jack Hyatt and Steve Farber formed the firm 50 years ago just out of University of Colorado Law School. Today the law firm law has over 500 attorneys in 11 offices across the country. From the start Brownstein and his fellow attorneys were never the most talented or brightest lawyers, but operated on the maxim — “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”
The firm has and does pour enormous sums of money to politicians and other movers and shakers in Colorado and Washington, D.C. In turn the Brownstein Law Firm expects, or more correctly demands, favors in return. One can go nowhere in Colorado in any hallway of power and not run into a present or former Brownstein attorney. Brownstein attorneys have been the City Attorney for Mayor Michael Hancock, the Chief of Staff for Governor John Hickenlooper etc. etc. It is not simply state and local offices as the United States Attorney for Colorado, Robert Troyer, is a former Brownstein partner who will undoubtedly return to Mordor once his term serving Donald Trump is over.
The Brownstein Law Firm is only interested in power and thus it makes no distinction between Republicans or Democrats. Troyer himself was appointed to the United States Attorney’s Office by President Obama, but the Brownstein Law Firm had enough pull in Republican circles to get Troyer appointed to a permanent U.S. Attorney for Colorado position.
If you have been wronged by the Brownstein Law Firm do not think you can successfully seek justice in state or federal court in Colorado, as many, if not most, of the judges have been appointed to their positions due to the influence of the Brownstein Law Firm.
The most recent scandals involving Denver Mayor Michael Hancock show just how far the malodorous influence of the firm extends. Back in 2011 The Denver Post and Channel 9 News discovered that Hancock had been a client of the Denver Players/Sugar brothel. Bruce James, the managing partner of the Brownstein Law Firm, who was the co-campaign manager of the Hancock for Mayor effort, convinc
Doug Friednash
ed those two news organizations not to publish anything concerning the Hancock scandal until after the election promising to provide proof that Hancock was innocent.
After Hancock won James reneged on his word. It was believed that Hancock had been filmed going into the brothel by the Denver Police. When the Post and Channel 9 News submitted a joint open records request for the video, James volunteered to sign on to show Hancock was “open and transparent,” but, in fact, he surreptitiously and separately sent a second secret letter to Police Chief Gerry Whitman on behalf of the mayor-elect. The police chief, of course, knew that in a matter of weeks Hancock would have the power to fire him without a moment’s notice. In the secret letter James instructed the police chief to send him all the evidence and then not tell the public what had been done. Unfortunately for James the second letter was discovered by Channel 7 News. Allegedly the members of the Brownstein Law Firm were unfazed at the bad publicity, allegedly laughing about how clever and utterly unscrupulous the firm’s attorneys were.
Bob Troyer
The scandal went away when The Denver Post simply declared that there was all of a sudden no proof tying Hancock to Denver Players/Sugar. Since that time The Denver Post has acted as little more than a cheerleader for Hancock.
Now when the Post identifies Norm Brownstein it often no longer calls him a lawyer or a lobbyist but rather a “philanthropist.” Cynics note that even Al Capone gave back a little bit of his ill-gotten gains to soup kitchens in Chicago, but the Chicago papers were never so debauched as to call him a “philanthropist.”
Don’t want the Winter Olympics in Colorado in 2026? Not to worry; the Brownstein Law Firm doesn’t care what you think or want and they have a partner on the Denver Olympic Exploratory Committee to help with the legal work to bring that financial and logistical nightmare here. Don’t want the massive taxpayer giveaways to b
Bruce James
ring Amazon’s second headquarters to Denver? Once again don’t worry, the Brownstein lobbying arm has a lucrative contract to try to make it happen, citizens be damned.
There is virtually nothing in Denver which citizens hate that the Brownstein Law Firm hasn’t had a hand in and made a profit from. It has gotten so bad when a member of the Denver illuminati sees horrendous traffic jams or when parks and open space are destroyed or when neighborhoods are ruined by high density apartment houses he or she simply shrugs and notes: “Well I guess we have just gotten Brownsteined again.”
Over the last 50 years since the founding of the Brownstein Law Firm, Norm Brownstein and his partners have gotten incredibly rich, but they have done so on the backs of every man, woman and child in the City and County of Denver. Happy 50th Lord of the Rings. May justice someday come to your doorstep.
by Mark Smiley | Mar 1, 2018 | Editorials
Denver media recently hyped that the eating and entertainment district along Cherry Creek near Virginia Avenue known as Glendale 180 is once again right around the corner. Channel 7 News declared that the “city could break ground as early as next year.”
Deputy City Manager Chuck Line is quoted in a February 19, 2018, story in The Denver Post about the project: “Before, we were barely getting out of the driveway, and now we’re definitely driving down the interstate.”
Oh, pleaseeeeee! Members of this Editorial Board were instrumental in envisioning The Glendale Riverwalk which was later retitled Glendale 180 as far back as 2003. Since then, every few years the city has publicly announced that a groundbreaking would occur in the next 12 to 18 months.
Of course, it is not entirely the city’s fault. After an announcement that the city was envisioning building a Riverwalk modeled after the one in San Antonio, Texas, Mohammad Ali Kheirkhahi and his family who own Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs rushed out and outbid the city for the 3.8 acres of developable land fronting Colorado Boulevard from longtime owner Jimmy O’Connor.
Grossly overpaying for the land, Kheirkhahi and his family apparently hoped to hold up the city for over three times what they paid for it. When the city declined, they went out and asserted the city was threatening eminent domain and organized potentially violent marches with the para-military groups like the Oath Keepers and others in an attempt to cow the City Council.
When that failed, the rug merchants brought a series of highly expensive lawsuits utilizing some of the most expensive lawyers in Colorado and the nation to stop any d
evelopment on land other than theirs. Having lost those lawsuits after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kheirkhahi and his kin have filed numerous questionable ethics complaints with the highly dubious Independent Ethics Commission.
But the rug merchants may have finally outsmarted themselves. At their request the Kheirkhahi land was excluded out of Glendale’s Downtown Development Authority. Thus any development on their land cannot by law receive any tax increment financing. Because of that fact Kheirkhahi’s land is now worth a great deal less to any potential purchaser.
Having beaten back the rug merchant’s vicious attempts to destroy Glendale 180, the city has now entered into a Development Agreement with the highly regarded Lincoln Properties. But that is only the first step, and not the last, in getting Glendale 180 to become a reality. The next crucial step is agreeing to a “Financing Agreement” whereby the parties concur on how to pay for everything. Many a project in Colorado has died due to disagreements on who and how everything is going to be paid.
If that huge hurdle can be overcome, Lincoln Properties must submit a Site Plan for the land which would meet the public’s approval and garner a majority of the City Council. Even if that is obtained there is no assurance that the bonds and other financing instruments envisioned by the “Financing Agreement” can be successfully marketed. That will in part depend on how Colorado’s economy is doing when the city goes to the financial markets.
Thus, with all due respect to Mr. Line, we are afraid the city is hardly cruising along the highway to the destination of a completed project but rather Glendale has but simply left the driveway. When a “Financing Agreement” has been signed and a “Site Plan” approved, talk of a possible groundbreaking ceremony becomes viable, but even then, by no means assured.
We will let our readers know from time to time how Glendale and Lincoln Properties are doing regarding their goal of getting to a completed project. Excessive hype in the early stages of an actual project is not always helpful. Congratulations to Glendale and Lincoln Properties on the Development Agreement, but a great deal of hard rowing still awaits all involved.
— Editorial Board
