Expect anti-tax activist Douglas Bruce to butt heads with City Council members tomorrow over a proposed ordinance crafted by the City Attorney’s Office to implement ballot initiative 300, which Bruce authored and voters approved in the Nov. 3 election.
“They’re planning to steal the election this Tuesday,” Bruce said last week.
“It’s a new low for the City Council. I didn’t think that they could think any lower,” he added.
Tomorrow’s council meeting starts at 1 p.m. But the possible fireworks between Bruce and council members won’t happen until later because the proposed ordinance is the last item on a long agenda. The meeting is on the third floor at City Hall, 107 N. Nevada Ave.
The initiative approved by voters calls for “all enterprise payments to the city” to be phased out over eight years or less “with all yearly savings passed on as reductions to each customer bill in dollar amounts as equal as possible.” It also prohibits “all loans, gifts and subsidies between an enterprise and the city or another enterprise.”
In a report to council members, City Attorney Patricia Kelly said it would be easy to comply with the requirements of initiative 300 “in the case of private business entities.”
But compliance is difficult for the city government and its enterprises “because there is only one legal entity recognized by the city charter and state law: the city,” Kelly said.
“Because the city and its enterprises are recognized as one legal entity by law, actions undertaken by an enterprise are considered by to be undertaken by the city,” she said.
Under the proposed ordinance, the city would be allowed to collect payments from the enterprises for services rendered, including the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes from Colorado Springs Utilities.
“For example, if the city had a piece of heavy equipment with a fair market value of $25,000, the city could ‘sell’ the equipment to an enterprise for $25,000 cash,” Kelly said. “Likewise, Colorado Springs Utilities provides utility services to the city in exchange for cash…So long as value is exchanged for value between an enterprise and the city, there is no violation of issue 300.”
Bruce vehemently disagrees.
“They’re trying to redefine issue 300 into oblivion,” he said.
Bruce called the proposed ordinance the “worst piece of legislation” he’s seen in 35 years.
“Page for page, word for word, this is the most atrocious example of governmental outright moral and legal corruption I have ever seen,” he said.
Bruce also is asserting that the council “is planning to slip this by in one hearing, not the usual two,” because the council is expected to take formal action Tuesday. However, the council has discussed the proposal once before, during its Dec. 21 informal meeting.
Bruce’s assertions are somewhat misleading because Bruce was aware of the first meeting.
City officials “are trying to give the people of Colorado Springs a Christmas present, which is a brightly wrapped package of cow dung,” he said before the Dec. 21 meeting.
“This will undo the plain meaning of issue 300,” he said back then.
You are incorrect in saying that the city can continue to collect fees in order to pay PILT. The materials with the ordinance specifically state that PILT payments are prohibited by Issue 300 and will cease.
The issue of value-for-value exchanges of city services for enterprise money is a different matter. I had a long exchange with Mr. Bruce about this very thing, and despite his insistence that “no payments means no payments,” his interpretation is based on the incorrect belief that enterprises are distinct legal entities separate from the city. The City Attorney correctly points out that they are not, and this does affect how the city may provide services in return for payments from a utility.
You might want to read my latest entry in The Broadside for some additional information on the subject of PILT and the city’s resort to the City Charter as a vehicle for funneling Utilities fees into the General Fund.
It’s illegal for them to do so.
http://thebroadside.freedomblogging.com/2010/01/10/the-pilt-is-dead-long-live-surplus-earnings/
Given a court challenge, shouldn’t the State Supreme court nullify issue 300 just like they did when they killed Amendment 2? That was also against the popular vote at the time.
Is this about generic enterprises inside and outside city Govt., or city enterprises? Or will it be applied to city-county coops, or state equalization/HUTF payments, or US DOT grants, the Obama stimulus enterprise, adapt-a-highway and city median gardening clubs, neighborhood watch and crimestoppers???
All these generic enterprises (and more) should start lining up to challenge 300
Seth is anybody at the Gazette doing research on the financial ramifications of 300 for the city? Anybody consulting outside experts on this?
Sometimes when things get as polarized and political as this now is, it’s easy for the debate to grow so shrill that we lose sight of rationality and do something really stupid that could cost all of us a hell of a lot more money in the long run. And as a fiscal conservative who believes in money wisely spent, I want to know what the experts, the economists, the auditors are saying about all this.
There is always a little truth in everything and Bruce has a legitimate duty to point out possible waste. But Bruce also is no expert on economies and his perspective on things is but one perspective among all. Add in a huge ego and an oppositional defiant personality, make this an “us versus them” battle, and you have a recipe for overstepping rational bounds.
Consider that Stormwater for example was an attempt head off federal and state lawsuits at the pass. Should those lawsuits now come back and the Springs be found guilty of violating state and federal environmental and flood control laws, now ordered to do the work by legal decree and fined too boot; And especially if all Stormwater equipment (as Bruce wants) is sold off, but then must be repurchased to do jobs ordered … one can see how in the long run buying into this whole “us versus them” battle without giving rational and considered thought to what’s at stake could cost us so very very much more money.
And it just seems to me that the data from true experts on this has been lacking. What could 300 do to this town? Or is it entirely survivable? We know what Bruce thinks. We know that the city thinks this is a catastrophe. We know what the Libertarian ideologues thinks. But dollars to dollars, what are outside economists thinking?
Oops .. guess that post should have been aimed at you, Dan Chacon. What can you tell us?
While I’m not happy with what the City Attorney has come up with so far, in terms of a draft ordinance, much of the blame for the confusion rests with Bruce, in my opinion, and the vague language of 300 — which means anything Bruce says it means, depending on the day and the circumstances. Even The Gazette concedes the confusing nature of 300 in today’s editorial. I write more on the issue at my Page by Paige blog: http://www.locallibertyonline.org/paige_blog.php
Single subject rule: Broadside talks about PILT from CSU, while Zen talks about the effects of killing Stormwater.
300 should be dissolved entirely due to this conflict, whether by the courts, city Attorneys or on the next ballot.
While we’re at it, what prevents voters from putting TABOR sunsets and deBrucing either the state or city (or both)?