Fear and Loathing in Castle Pines North

It was a weird week, no doubt about it. I attended the council meeting on Tuesday the 27th, having missed the past three. (Family vacation for spring break, water efficiency meeting in Albuquerque, and no one told me the other meeting was public. Due to restrictions imposed on Doug last year, I'm not invited to attend executive sessions. Given the recent course of events, I'm happy about that. As you may know, the Treasurer does not vote. These two factors give me welcome plausible deniability.)

The Tuesday meeting saw citizens voice significant concerns about the dissolution petition filed by City council towards the Metro District, and the move to declare portions of Castle Pines North "blighted" in order to create an Urban Renewal Authority. Should the Metro District be dissolved? Of course not. The District can be improved, as can all human endeavors. It might combine some functions with other water providers, and there may be a couple things it could share or bequeath to the City, but somehow merging the City and the District into one consolidated blob is not a valid notion. And besides, that's decision is now the business of the District and NOT the City. The District will present a plan to the voters, and we get to vote yes or no. The City can withdraw the petition at any time. In a perfect world, the City and the District would pull together on this, and the petition would go away. Right now things are all crazy, and there are too many "control" issues taking over avenues of communication. This too shall pass.

As to an Urban Renewal Authority, of all the gin joints in all the world, is Castle Pines North blighted? Of course not. My understanding is the City wants the HOA to renegotiate a contract with The Canyons so that the commercial areas can be developed, and density can be increased. If that happens, the City gets $850,000 in cash from the developer. The HOA didn't move here to see urban sprawl, and has no interest in renegotiating the contract. The Urban Renewal Authority could declare the Canyons blighted. That designation could then set aside the contract. The developer would get the commercial development. The City would get the $850,000. The HOA would get the shaft. That's not nice. It's the law until June 1st. The City will try to take action on this May 25th. After that, a new law just passed by the legislature takes effect and this would no longer be lawful. In a perfect world the developer will give the HOA something it really needs (perhaps a surface water supply and a wastewater services connection at a reasonable price), the HOA will give the developer something it can live with, and we move on along.

After listening to citizen comment, the vote was 5-1 for the Urban Renewal Authority, Jeff being the lone no vote. Jeff did make a motion to withdraw the dissolution petition. It failed due to lack of a second. The council wouldn't even discuss the idea.

Jeff also voted no on a motion to hire another communications consultant. We paid for the CH2MHill communications guy to fly in from Atlanta, but he wasn't even given the opportunity to speak. Instead, a new firm was hired to "tell the truth" about things the Metro District has been saying about the City. Maureen asked for a three month contract worth $28,500 to fund the effort. I asked what the predicted response rate was, and what the impact metrics would be to assess the value of the endeavor. Doug reduced the initiative to $5,000 and one month, and expanded the scope beyond message to counter Metro District messaging. Most of that runs less than $200 an hour, plus the cost of any deliverables.

Our legal fees ran over $15,000 this month, with $5000 being spent on chasing the Metro District over dissolution. Most of this runs $200 an hour. It's good work if you can get it.

There was a special meeting on Friday, April 30th. The day before Doug and Jeff got into it over Doug's attendance at a staff meeting. It apparently got heated, so the thought was to come together to talk about everybody just cooling off. All that stuff got talked out Friday morning, so the meeting was largely a non-event. John made the case to hire immediate past Metro District manager Jim McGrady to work as a consultant for the City to help draft a plan for the two entities to work together. Jim ran the District from February 2005 to February 2010. Council voted 7-0 to approve negotiating a personal services agreement with Jim. Talk is +/- $120 per hour. This is going to be interesting. If Jim stays with what he believes about integration, Council isn't going to like what he has to say.

Rather than a takeover of the Metro District by the City, the best plan is more of a take under of the City by the Metro District (until development at The Canyons takes place). In a perfect world, the City would continue the land use function, the District would combine a lot of functions under contracts or an IGA with the Castle Pines Metro District, and Jim would be hired by both districts to be a hunter-gatherer of water assets for both communities. We could notch down the cost of the City until development takes place at The Canyons, but still preserve the land use authority if we want to annex additional parcels, determine things like the speed limit on Castle Pines Parkway, or set the tax rate on goods purchased in CPN. Jim is also affiliating with a water rights broker. If he shows the Districts good deals, they should consider buying them. He would receive a commission on those deals. We should keep in mind it's not what you pay, but what you get in such matters.

Jeff passed out information to the Council on what Moodys says it takes to get them to give a potential bond issuer a credit rating. He explained this would be the first step in the City looking at raising its own taxes to repay a bond. The people would have to be asked for higher taxes in order to issue the bond. The bond rating would determine the rate of interest paid on the bond in this economic environment. Credit markets have been extremely stressed the past couple years, so nothing is a given in the world of bond issuance. Dee Wisor of Sherman and Howard is an attorney who could give us advice on these matters. He is bond counsel for Douglas County, and other entities. We heard some Council members opine at the meeting on bonds and such. We should keep in mind the job of council is to set policy, not be experts in topics before the City. So, let's thank them for their community service, and then hire an expert to advise us in these matters. Dee's hourly rate is likely ugly. You get what you pay for, and he's very good.

Even if we can consolidate with the Metro District, and the Metro District can combine functions with Castle Pines Metro District, the City may still need more money to operate. I asked Council to look at authorizing a repair and replacement reserves study for the assets the City already owns. They said OK. Book value of city assets is thought to be seventy million dollars. We may have to put aside some money to keep those assets in good working order. We may also want to fund a capital budget to purchase new things for the community. I don't know what those things might be. We should talk about it. The notion of the city was sold to resident on "no new taxes". We should do everything we can to spend other people's money efficiently, but I've never ever believed that to be true. Those numbers never crunched in my view. So, here we are. Time to saddle up.