by Mark Smiley | Nov 23, 2015 | Editorials
If one was wondering how sleazy and dishonest the Hancock Administration has become, one need look no further than the appointment of former City Councilman Chris Nevitt to the city position of Manager of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Nevitt ran for the citywide post of Auditor and lost notwithstanding raising from real estate developers, and their lawyers and lobbyists, over 10 times the amount raised by his opponent Tim O’Brien. Even his supporter, former Auditor Dennis Gallagher, expressed his disgust with Nevitt the day after the election saying, “I haven’t seen such a bad campaign since Mark Udall.”
Nevitt managed to lose by being seen by the voters as little more than a cheap shill for the very worst real estate developers doing business in Denver. He confirmed the people’s low opinion of him when in one of his last meetings before leaving office he gave a speech declaring every part of the city must sacrifice in order to make room for extremely high density rather than risk the horrors of possible suburban sprawl. The speech was too much even for The Denver Post who blasted him in its editorial pages making him a persona non grata throughout the City and County of Denver.
But Nevitt had done the bidding of Mayor Hancock and his real estate buddies ever since Hancock had taken office. Hancock even indicated, prior to Nevitt’s election loss, that Nevitt might make a good successor to him as mayor. After his election loss, Nevitt at age 52 faced difficult job prospects. He was totally devoid of any skills which would make him employable in the private sector and thus it was believed he was only suited for working for the government.
It was extraordinary however, that city department after city department refused to even consider him. An exasperated Hancock was forced to create a whole new job position within the morally bankrupt Department of Community Planning and Development run by the highly controversial Brad Buchanan. Buchanan is considered the only individual in Denver government that the citizens of Denver consider being as or more unethical than Nevitt.
Buchanan’s Department publicly announced, to the guffaws of city insiders, that Nevitt won the job of Manager of TOD “after a competitive hiring process.” Garnering only a $120,000 position in the Hancock administration demonstrated how far Nevitt had fallen. Buchanan knew that Nevitt coming aboard his Department would not be welcomed by his highly demoralized staff who do not like being viewed by the public as simply tools for real estate developers. He put out an internal memo attempting to justify Nevitt’s hiring and the position he would occupy as Manager of TOD.
The job apparently is to be in charge of coordinating city efforts to encourage development along transit stops. Of course as massive development of high-rise apartments in Cherry Creek North showed that developers couldn’t care less about building projects along light rail stops and they control the city government and not the other way around.
Buchanan declared in the memo that Nevitt was “uniquely suited for this position based on experience working with private sector constituencies [i.e. real estate developers] involved with land development” not quite understanding that Nevitt’s job as a city councilman was actually not to work with developers but rather to represent his actual constituents and sit in a quasi-judicial capacity to vote up or down projects that came before the City Council. Buchanan was in essence implying that Nevitt might have been engaged in what some might consider illegal activity with developers.
The fact that this so-called “job” had heretofore never existed is indicative of how necessary it actually is. Luckily Nevitt is well known for his incredible laziness as his losing Auditor race demonstrated. Thus in some ways he is a perfect fit as a no-work politician being matched up with a no-work government job. He will lunch and cocktail with real estate developers he knows and others while they get approved building where they want to build in the city which is normally not next to light rail stations.
But is this the end of Chris Nevitt as a public figure in Denver buried in the belly of the government beast? It turns out that being too incompetent to qualify for an actual mayoral appointment has its real advantages. Unlike Rocky Piro as Planning Director or Lauri Dannemiller as Parks Director Nevitt can’t simply be fired by this mayor or any future mayor. He has full civil service protection. He can spend his next decade and a half or so doing little or nothing while pulling in six figures and a hefty pension. Upon a well-deserved retirement from arduous public service Nevitt can wander down to Florida or Arizona and vegetate until his ultimate demise.
Sure it is not much of a life for a person with talent and ambition but Nevitt never had the talent part anyway. The media, including this paper, will of course miss him as a figure to kick around and make fun of. Surely he will be tempted at some point to try to revive his mayoral ambitions, but he is better suited living the sleepy government apparatchik life. But should he someday unwisely decide to leave his sinecure for a more public role we in the media will certainly be there to greet him with open arms.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Nov 2, 2015 | Editorials
Robert Speth v. Happy Haynes
On November 3 there will be an off year election here in Denver for which there is little excitement except over the endless attempts to get Denver taxpayers to pay for everything from redoing the stock show grounds to paying for the college education of the political elite’s kids and those belonging to politically favored groups.
But there is one hotly contested elective office fight and that concerns three positions on the seven person Denver Public School Board. The most interesting is the at large contest between current DPS Board President Allegra “Happy” Haynes and Robert Speth, a senior strategic account manager for Sprint.
The race boils down to corporate oriented reformers versus teacher union supporters as it does in almost all DPS elections. Corporate oriented reformers presently control six of the seven positions with the sole teacher union supporter Arturo Jimenez not running for re-election.
Challenger Robert Speth appears to be a highly intelligent individual with a wife and two children in the Denver Public system at Valdez Elementary School in northwest Denver. His campaign slogan is “A Parent. Not a Politician.”
For those not in the know, his opponent, 62-year-old Happy Haynes, is a lifelong politician who has never had children, much less one in the Denver Public Schools. Some of her opponents have long claimed that she does not even really live in Denver. She is, in fact, is perhaps one of the strangest and least qualified presidents of a school board in the country.
Haynes was recently handed the high paying city job of executive director of the Denver Parks Department by longtime political ally Mayor Michael Hancock without interviewing a single other candidate and halting the national search to help locate qualified individuals for the position. Her appointment was widely condemned across almost all political spectrums with park advocates pointing out she had absolutely no background or qualifications for the post. But being unqualified for a job under the Hancock Administration is not deemed an impediment as long as you are politically connected to the mayor.
She has also refused to resign as school board president to take the Parks Department position saying that during the day she would be head of Parks and a DPS president at night. Good government types have pointed that she has endless conflicts of interest between her two jobs. As president of the DPS she previously spearheaded the partial destruction of Hentzell Park to benefit the building of a new school. Okay for DPS, but a disaster for the park. The utterly spineless Denver Ethics Board, however, blessed her having the two jobs at once. What is all the more amazing about Haynes holding two jobs at once is that Haynes is not known for being a particularly hard worker. In all her time on Denver City Council she did not have a single accomplishment. She is best remembered by her fellow councilmembers as a person who failed to return almost every telephone call from her constituents. Incumbency in Denver is such a powerful force that once you are elected it is almost impossible to be voted out even if you, like Ms. Haynes, stiff-arm the people who put you in office.
Perhaps because she never had any children herself she has shown almost no actual interest in Denver’s school kids. She has been little more than a rubber stamp for literally every proposal of controversial DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg and the corporate backers of Mayor Hancock.
Ms. Haynes’ primary attribute for her entire adult life appears to be having a politically connected mother, Jo Anne Haynes, and fortuitously being nicknamed by her mother at an early age “Happy.” Who wouldn’t want to vote for someone named Happy.
Ms. Haynes appears to recognize that her primary qualification to any job is her nickname as all of her yard signs simply say “Happy!” not dissimilar to Republican presidential candidate John Ellis Bush’s campaign signs simply saying “Jeb!”
Our primary concern with Robert Speth is that we do not agree with his strategy for improving Denver schools, including severely limiting charter schools and choice in the Denver school system. He wants teachers limited to those who are “certified” and wants teachers promoted based on seniority. By straitjacketing the choice that a parent has in Denver to a “neighborhood school” you make the Denver Public Schools even less attractive than they are now and cause more parents to abandon the public school system.
However, we are also cognizant that the majority of the school board will be pro-reform no matter the results of this election. Having no dissenting voices on the DPS School Board is not a good idea. Superintendent Boasberg has grown ever more arrogant and self important over the years and there needs to be at least one voice that will act as query to the actions of the school administrators.
We may not agree with some of the positions of Robert Speth but he is at least a very concerned and intelligent DPS parent whose decisions on the Board will directly affect his own children. Happy Haynes is a lifetime politician who has repeatedly shown her only interest is what is good for Happy Haynes. Moreover voting for Speth is also at least one clear symbolic vote against the corruption that has overtaken Denver City Hall.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Sep 25, 2015 | Editorials
Michael Hancock’s appointment of CRL Associates lobbyist and former politician Allegra “Happy” Haynes as the head of Denver Parks and Recreation was the final straw for many Denver citizens regarding whether the municipal government of Denver can be reformed as it is presently constituted to respond to the wishes of its citizens. With the ethically challenged Brad Buchanan in charge of Denver Community Planning and Development and the citizen boards of both Planning and Parks stuffed with lobbyists and political shills, there is almost no effective citizen input anywhere in the process. At one time local neighborhood associations thought they had the ear of their duly elected city councilperson, but in many cases that is no longer true.
Citizens have fought back bringing lawsuits in the case of numerous ill-conceived projects, but lower Denver courts to date appear to believe their job is to prevent any of the cases from ever being heard by a jury of Denver citizens. Many residents increasingly believe the system most definitely does not work and the deck is stacked against the average citizen in favor of real estate developers and other politically connected groups.
Historian Phil Goodstein has queried why we even pretend that people like Happy Haynes and Brad Buchanan are anything but bought and paid for hacks of CRL Associates and Brownstein Hyatt. He has suggested, somewhat facetiously, that we monetize the process similar to Hancock’s efforts to monetize Denver parks. Under the Goodstein plan the positions of executive directors of parks and planning would be put out to bid to the likes of CRL Associates and Brownstein Hyatt “who would pay to name their puppets to office.” Would his suggestion actually be any worse than the present system?
At the spring municipal election three candidates — Wayne New, Rafael Espinoza and Paul Kashmann — upset candidates strongly supported and funded by Mayor Michael Hancock and his coterie of lobbyists and real estate developers. But as Rafael Espinoza has articulated the Denver City Charter invests enormous power in the Denver mayor. Maybe it’s finally time to take some of that power away and in turn empower average citizens of the City and County of Denver.
Concerned citizen Dave Felice has suggested that we alter the City Charter with a citizen initiative to provide for a separately elected independent parks commission that would appoint its own executive director. While we are at it, a separately elected Community Planning and Development commission would also be appropriate.
Of course Denver is not the only municipality in Colorado that has seen its planning process hijacked by real estate developers. In Aspen and Steamboat Springs the citizens got so tired of an endlessly corrupted process that they changed their city charters to require a public vote to approve certain real estate projects. You have the feeling that some truly destructive neighborhood projects now under construction in Denver would have never seen the light of day under such a system.
The City Council could hardly object to such charter changes. In 2010 they merrily gave away to the mayor any and all control of the parks in Denver. The suggested charter changes would simply in turn take it away from the mayor and give it back to the people not only for parks but also development and planning. As a practical matter what in the world do the citizens of Denver have to lose from such changes to the City Charter?
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Aug 31, 2015 | Editorials
While the country as a whole is in a slow growth mode, Colorado is booming and the Denver real estate market is going wild. Denver has been rated the hottest home buying market in the entire country according to the Standard & Poor’s city home price index. Finally all of those in the political and big business coterie are going to get their chance to tax the lumpenproletariat into a spending oblivion. Yes, it’s true that because of the annoying TABOR Amendment to the state constitution, the little people must approve new tax measures, but that is where the more recent marriage of the politicians and big business comes in handy.
In more antediluvian times the business class often opposed new taxes sought by the political class. That was before big business learned that new taxes could be fun and profitable. Take for instance sales tax and property tax hikes. Big business figured out how to direct a significant portion of those taxes to themselves in the form of “tax increment financing” and tax rebates. A perfect example is the Colorado Regional Tourism Act which was designed by Colorado Springs businessman Steve Schuck to have the public pay for his proposed NASCAR race track in Aurora. When his project fell through, the folks from Gaylord Entertainment in Nashville glommed on by hook and by crook all of that potential tax money for their proposed Aurora hotel. Sure it got tied up in litigation, but someone had to take the public for a bath.
Government entities are prohibited by law to spend money to back new tax initiatives so business groups like Colorado Concern and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce foot the bill provided mem
bers of the Chamber and Colorado Concern get their cut of the action. We here in Denver love new taxes of virtually any sort as our esteemed mayor knows. When Mayor Hancock planned to quietly move the National Western Stock Complex from Denver to Aurora for the benefit of the incredibly greedy Gaylord Entertainment, he proposed that the move be paid by Denver taxpayers and not those in Aurora. Killjoy City Councilman Charlie Brown managed to thwart that con job, but few doubt that if it had gotten to ballot we Denver voters would have approved it despite the fact that it would have significantly harmed the city as a whole.
Now is the time to get any and all new taxes approved as the voting taxpayers are feeling flush. Moreover, Hancock and the City Council are counting on the contention that Denver voters are probably too dumb to figure out that massive increase in home values also means that there will be a massive increase in the property taxes we have to pay. If you live in an apartment complex don’t worry you won’t miss out on the fun as your landlord will simply add the cost of the tax increase along to you by bumping up your already exorbitant rent.
But we have to act fast, as those future property tax increases will become apparent to even the dullest homeowner in a couple of years. Where will all that increased property tax money go? It will go right to employing more municipal employees and provide large raises to one and all but in particular those represented by public employee unions. Don’t worry your city councilmember already voted herself/himself a hefty raise last year which will kick in over the next couple of years.
The Denver City Council as a whole is doing its part in the courageous tax effort. Just this last month it voted to put a .08 percent sales tax increase on the ballot for the so called Denver College Affordability Fund that will reimburse nonprofit organizations that provide scholarships as well as paying down the loans of graduates saddled with debt. So do you think you will ever see any of that money? Well, of course not. Only the politically connected need apply which of course includes the children and relatives of elected officials. O.K. you had to a pay a small fortune for your own college degree and that of your kids so why should you have to also pay for the politically favored to go to college? Because that is the way it works and if you are even thinking about voting “no” it proves you have no community mindedness or human compassion.
But what about the things like the hotel tax and the car rental tax. Can’t we raise those too? Don’t worry the mayor and the City Council have a massive proposed bond issue to pay for a makeover of none other than the National Western Stock Complex. At least because of Councilman Brown the National Western Complex will remain in Denver at least for a little while.
But what about also adding on some more taxes to our load through the auspices of the state? Now you’re thinking smart. A new group entitled “Building a Better Colorado” has been formed according to The Denver Post headed by none other than our beloved octogenarian, bipartisan, philanthropist Daniel L. Ritchie. Forget about the fact that some who know him call him a smug, unctuous Harvardian snob who loves to turn up his nose at anyone who doesn’t have a net worth of at least eight figures. This time Ritchie is working hard for all of us in coming up with a whole plethora of new state taxes we can approve this fall and next in order to build a better Colorado for himself and his business buddies. Hopefully, by our next issue we will know more about some of the fruits of his and his group’s Herculean labors on our behalf. Yes, if we can all work together we can take the average Denver taxpayer for a ride she/he will never forget or recover from when the good times end as they inevitably will.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Aug 3, 2015 | Editorials
On July 20, a brand new Denver City Council was sworn into office. A majority of the members of the Council (seven) are new. The Denver City Council over the last decade has increasingly been seen by the citizens it purports to serve as utterly corrupt and controlled by real estate developers and unions that fund most of the members’ campaigns. Few people believe that the public quasi-judicial hearings before the City Council are anything more than a form of kabuki theater, with the decisions made behind closed doors prior to the hearings, in violation of state and local law. The public now knows that their participation before the City Council is a sham.
A lawsuit filed by seven citizens, Whitelaw v. The Denver City Council, Case Number 2015CV3247, threatens to unmask the entire corrupt process by which zoning decisions are made in the City and County of Denver. It is assumed the office of the City Attorney will do anything and everything it can to prevent this case from ever getting its day in court. The City Attorney’s Office played a similar blocking role in the case of Hunter v. The City and County of Denver. In that case the City Attorney’s Office’s role in hiding evidence and conducting phony investigations concerning the Denver Sheriff’s Department and the City Jail were exposed. As a result, the City Attorney Scott Martinez was threatened by Federal District Court John L. Kane to have his law license revoked for his part in the cover-up.
A key difference in the two cases is the Hunter case was in United States District Court while the Whitelaw case is in the District Court for the City and County of Denver. It will take a Denver state court judge who is as brave and intrepid as Federal District Court Judge John L. Kane to ferret out the dishonesty that takes place on land use votes at Denver City Hall. Is there such a person on the state bench? If the past is any indication it is not encouraging. In case after case state court judges appear to be part and parcel of the cover-up, refusing to allow even a single instance for a claim to ever go to a jury. But it took years and years of Sheriff’s Department malfeasance at the City Jail before the Hunter case reached the desk of Judge Kane and then everything blew up. Before the Hunter case many people also assumed reform at the Sheriff’s Department was virtually impossible.
What about the City Council reforming itself and the way it conducts business? On the encouraging side, the voters voted in
three individuals — Rafael Espinosa, Wayne New and Paul Kashmann — dedicated to reforming the system, as well as an auditor, Tim O’Brien, who is not under the control of Mayor Hancock and real estate developers. But there are 13 members of the Denver City Council. Six returning council members rushed in the final days of the old council to approve every corrupt decision possible before the new council members were sworn in. In addition the Mayor and the developers were able to elect two new members, Kendra Black and Stacie Gilmore, who good government advocates have labeled the “Dirty Duo” for their absolute craven obsequiousness to the most revolting aspects of the Hancock administration.
Part of the problem and the difficulty of the system reforming itself is that some of the checks and balances that were built in the City Charter have been thoroughly compromised. The City Charter provides for an 11 person citizen Planning Board pursuant to which residents can bring their thoughts and concerns and the Board, in turn, advises the mayor and Denver City Council on land use matters, including planning and zoning. Unfortunately under the Charter the mayor gets to appoint every Board member. Mayor Hancock, instead of appointing representatives the community has chosen, developer controlled hacks and people under his control are appointed. At one time, being on the Planning Board was considered an honor, but today is a black mark disqualifying a former member for elective office in Denver as Anna Jones found out in this last election in her race against Wayne New.
In theory Denver employees and elected officials are supposed to, under the City Charter, “adhere to high levels of ethical conduct so that the public will have confidence that persons in positions of public responsibility are acting for the benefit of the public.” A five person board is supposed to enforce the Denver Ethics Code. That has become a joke. The only thing that citizens can be assured of is that the persons appointed to the Ethics Board by the mayor and the City Council are void of any personal ethics or they would not have been appointed to the Board in the first place. The Board’s latest disgrace, in a long line of disgraces, is its opinion concerning Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore, a close friend of the mayor and wife of the acting head of the Denver Parks and Recreation Scott Gilmore, who is also a close friend of the mayor.
Some people assumed that being on City Council while your husband heads up Parks and Recreation would present various conflicts of interest — but, not a problem. On cue, the Ethics Board issued an extraordinary opinion coming to the absolute opposite conclusion.
The Ethics Board claims its hands are tied by a too permissive Ethics Code including the conflicts of interest rules and that it will be making recommendations to beef it up. We would suggest that the Ethics Board recommend abolishing itself as it has lost any and all credibility with the citizenry who now knows it serves only as a fig leaf for approving the most corrupt of practices of the Denver city government.
Is the government of the City and County of Denver in fact capable of reforming itself? The answer is probably not anymore than the Sheriff’s Department was capable of reforming itself. As a result, the citizens of Denver should watch with a careful eye all the developments in the Whitelaw case as it may represent the last great hope for honest government in land use decisions in the City and County of Denver for quite a period of time.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Jun 25, 2015 | Editorials
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
