Rooney Valley News

The Jefferson County Commissioners, led by Commissioner Dahlkemper, embraced yet more Metro District Abuse for the unsuspecting future residents of Red Rocks Centre (RRC).

This time the “trickery” was almost comical.

• They did a shuffle step away from giving the developer more votes on the “Super District” referenced in the prior blog – a maneuver that they have used in two other districts and violates the equal protection clause of the U. S. Constitution.

• Instead, they created false districts where no resident will ever live and gave the developer those permanent votes.

• The staff and Commissioners endorsed the developer’s pre-textual “need” to provide the residents with “more opportunity to participate in their own government.”

• Actually limiting the residents’ right to self-governance

• By taking 2 districts providing all the same services

• making 5 districts out of 2 districts.

• Creating a “super district” (Community Authority Board) to manage the new 5 districts because 5 districts (which used to be only 2 districts) is now so “unmanageable”

• Having each district board elect a representative to the “super district”

• And here’s the fun part – 2 of the three NEW districts are 100% permanent open space – storm drainage and detention pond area.   NO PEOPLE.  JUST FROGS.  NO RESIDENTS.  NO VOTERS.

•  SO THE STORM DRAINAGE AND DETENTION POND DISTRICTS WITH NO PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE CONTROLLED BY THE DEVELOPER AND GIVE THE DEVELOPER A MAJORITY ON THE BOARD.

• The third NEW district is a narrow strip of a comparatively small number of homes that will be the last to be built – GUARANTEEING THAT THE RESIDENTS WILL NEVER HAVE A MAJORITY (3/5)  OF THE SEATS ON THE CONTROLLING “SUPER DISTRICT CAB” UNTIL THE DEVELOPMENT IS BUILT OUT.

Until this cute little trick, the future residents of RRC could vote and serve on the board as soon as they bought a home.  They can still do that.

BUT, instead of voting on their own taxes and spending like normal local governments, their board only gets to elect one out of five of the people on the “super district”.  And it is the “super district” which decides taxes and spending for all the districts.

The residents will never have more than two votes until the development is all built out because the developer will always have two votes for districts where no one will ever live and then the area of the last  relatively few homes to be built at the end.

Neat trick.   To disenfranchise the residents.   And the only check and balance – Jeffco – enthusiastically joined the developer in promoting the abuse.

Here’s what it looks like and sounds like in real time:

Here is the misrepresentation by the staff and developer:

Here are the  actual districts WHICH DON’T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE THE STAFF/DEVELOPER DRAWING AND REPRESENTATION THAT THEY WILL HAVE PEOPLE IN THEM.  

THE ACTUAL DISTRICTS APPROVED HAVE 2 NEW districts with no people in them and the 6th and last with very few people – the last to be built  –  ensuring the developer will have a majority until build out:

THE “NEW” DISTRICTS ARE 4, 5 AND 6.

“NEW DISTRICTS” 4 AND 5 ARE STORM WATER DRAINAGE AND DETENTION POND AREAS WITH ZERO RESIDENTS BUT CONTROLLED  BY THE DEVELOPER.

THE STORM DRAINAGE AND DETENTION POND DISTRICTS WITH NO PEOPLE

• WILL EACH HAVE A DEVELOPER BOARD OF 5 MEMBERS,  

• APPOINTED BY THE DEVELOPER SINCE NO ONE WILL EVER LIVE THERE,

• WHO WILL VOTE TO SEAT ONE OF THEM ON THE “SUPER DISTRICT”

• WHICH WILL MAKE ALL THE TAXING AND SPENDING DECISIONS FOR THE RESIDENTS . . . .

• PLUS THE TWO STORM DRAINAGE AND DETENTION POND DISTRICT FROGS.

Here is what it sounds like, featuring Commissioner Dahlkemper and the developer attorney in their tag-team routine:

• First, the developer’s attorney, followed by Commissioner Dahlkemper:

Note in the above conversation, the attorney wants to talk about after build out – when all the tax and spend decisions have already been made by the developer.  She is in essence admitting that the developer will control all the taxing and spending decisions until they are done 5 to 15 years from now (based upon prior districts’ experiences).

Here again is the map of the districts.

• The housing areas on the map are districts 1 and 2.
• Districts 4 and 5 will have no houses and no residents so will always be developer controlled.
• District 6 is a small section of houses that they will keep undeveloped until the end.
• So the developer will control the “Super District” until District 6 is built out.
• The residents will only have the two votes on the Super District from District 1 and 2 until build out of District 6 since no one will ever live in Districts 4 and 5, except frogs.

Here is even clearer confirmation of this fact and the “dance”.  The developer’s attorney has to work hard to avoid coming right out and admitting they are manipulating the vote – “gerrymandering the districts” – to suppress resident control of the residents’ own taxing and spending in a local government the developer will control, absolutely.

Its simple.  The developer does not want residents making decisions about taxing and spending until he has all his money.    He doesn’t want any checks and balances in how he taxes and spends the residents’ money.

He insists on manipulating Title 32 and a local government so that he absolutely controls that local government to the exclusion of the actual residents, voters and tax payers who are supposed to provide the checks and balances on his spending and taxing under any sense of self-government.

The developer can’t have it both ways.  They can’t create a government to impose taxes and then forbid those being governed from representing their own interest which are in absolute conflict with those of the developer.

If they don’t want voters and taxpayers, then don’t create a government.  Instead,  pay for infrastructure the way its done most everywhere else (a whole lot cheaper) – through the cost of the developed lot.

Final note.  None of this abuse happens without the attorneys.  They went to a lot of trouble and used a lot of creative thinking to come up  with this trickery.  What a disgrace it is that legal professionals are willing to compromise the fundamental principles of local government solely for the purpose of gaining more profit for their clients.   Shameful.

What a disgrace that public officials are willing to play along apparently influenced by the money and power.   All of which ultimately comes from all those metro district dollars that could be used for genuine public services such as roads, water, law enforcement, mental health and other public priorities.  Guaranteeing exponentially high profits for developers at taxpayer expense – the expense of people who have no representation – is not on that list.

John Henderson