Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Lifebridge Debate On The Radio
Last week Longmont's Lifebridge annexation was the subject on Colorado Public Radio’s Colorado Matters program. Longmont Mayor Julia Pirnack describes the project and why she voted for it, and she makes it clear she believes the development will “pay what’s required in terms of taxes”. She perceives a long-term net positive benefit to the city. Resident Jen Gartner who is leading the petition to challenge the annexation is interviewed as well. Interesting public policy themes addressed here – check it out online, it’s about ten minutes long.
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Virtually everything the mayor said is not true.
Here's a detailed rebuttal of her remarks (and her Op-Ed 'piece' in the Times-Call)
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WhatsInItforLongmont analyzes Mayor’s Opinion Piece
“To expect the public to become educated enough to make a reasonable decision…is ridiculous.”
Julia Pirnack, “The Truth about Union”, Guest Opinion, DAILY TIMES-CALL, 6th September 2007
* Why does the Mayor have so little faith in the people of Longmont? Our guess: In fact she fears that the voters do indeed have the ability to discern what’s a bad deal for the City, and thus she wishes to becloud the issues with her opinion piece.
* Why is the Mayor getting in the way of due process, when questioning the decisions of our government is the right and duty of all citizens? It is part of the checks and balances that keep government honest and focused on serving its citizens. The Mayor should sit back and let the democratic system work.
* The Mayor Says: “Don’t be hoodwinked by propaganda created by a Denver-based political group”
* We Say: Every member of this group is a tax-paying Longmont resident and we’ve been joined by over a thousand other Longmont residents. The Mayor and City Council need to address us. For example, the individuals who picked up the referendum petition packet from the City Clerk - and then contacted me - have lived in the area for over 30 years. David Petersen was born here and grew up with the mayor. The mayor could easily have confirmed this by checking with the City Clerk.
* The Mayor Says: If denied annexation the project would develop in Weld County; Union would receive our services, but Longmont would not receive property or use taxes, building permit fees, or a valuable strategic water right
* We Say: If LifeBridge develops in Weld County as they have gotten the right to do, Longmont will nevertheless collect sales tax revenue when Union residents make purchases in Longmont, notably at a Super WalMart immediately across Highway 119 from Union. And if Union develops in Weld County, Longmont residents will not need to bear the full risk of a failed development, and failure of the development is a substantial possibility (see later comments on housing and the sports arena).
* The Mayor Says: She is appalled that we are attacking the church. Disallowing a community of faith would be blatantly unallowable based on the First Amendment. Members of the church have lived in Longmont for over 100 years.
* We Say: We’ve never said anything about this. Furthermore, Richard Juday clearly stated that our expectation that the City Council will work in the best interest of current Longmont residents hardly constitutes an infringement on anyone’s right to freedom of assembly or expression of faith. LifeBridge themselves say that they will develop whether in Longmont or Weld County, so clearly they should not feel oppressed. The church fills a fine role in the community, but that is not justification that the City should, at taxpayer expense, support its plans for commercial-scale (many hundreds of millions of dollars) development. The expense to Longmont is not trivial! Tens of millions of dollars will go into capital infrastructure, and we show an annual loss of roughly a million dollars continuing after a presumed-successful build-out. LifeBridge will tell you that they will pay up-front the costs to deliver sewer, water, and electricity to the annexed land, but the City will rebate those costs over the life of the project.
* The Mayor Says: We know all the tax-exempt issues. Any activity or entity that does not qualify as tax-exempt will be taxed. Economic impact studies conducted by impartial credentialed companies that this project will have net positive economic impact to the City, even at its worst case.
* We Say: LifeBridge has not agreed to any assurances about their tax status. Repeatedly, they hide behind wording such as “We will pay all taxes legally required,” rather than agree to clarifications that would allow better computations of the tax income future for Longmont. (We hardly need remind you that it is taxes that the City runs on - that pave the streets, pay for police and fire protection, build and maintain parks, etc.) Why are we concerned? Because cities across the nation are tied up in costly litigation over similar projects:
o South Bend, Indiana: a retirement community whose residents have an average net worth of $1M seeks exemption from property taxes because its management is a religious order.
o Orlando, Florida: biblical theme park gets tax exemption
o Other areas: lawmakers and judges have approved what amounts to special tax treatment for religious organizations and some of their employees, including exemptions on personal-income and payroll taxes, and have made it easier for them to get tax-exempt construction loans on purely religious projects; these tax breaks are widely defended both as acknowledgment of religion’s contributions to society and as barrier to unjustified government limitations on liberty that religious organizations enjoy under First Amendment; but in some communities, tolerance of religious tax breaks is fraying as local governments struggle to provide basic services with limited resources.
* The Mayor Says: We have an extraordinary amount of information compared to what is required for annexation.
* We Say:
o No one performed an impact analysis to the City if the development fails. Why are we concerned? A good deal of the offsetting revenue to the City is projected to arise from a sports arena. However, this arena would be right between similar and competing and existing facilities: the Budweiser center in Loveland, and the (non-profit) event center in Broomfield. Among other problems, the project would bring 700 new houses into the local real estate market, and as of this writing there are 900 houses for sale in an already slow market in Longmont.
o Proposed development over the next 10 years does not return any significant tax benefits to the City, but will represent a significant drain on resources. Given the economic situation in the country, particularly the real estate market right now, the anticipated stifling of population increase as Colorado’s water supplies dry up in global warming or are consumed by new subdivisions, the huge national debt, and the inevitable prospect of “peak oil” during LifeBridge’s planning period for this development, it is all too likely that economic projections made on the basis of recent and current conditions will not be found accurate in the fullness of time.
o No market analysis substantiates the developer’s assertion that there would be a market for the types of houses and business development planned for Union. In fact, the City’s own 2006 retail development survey states that there is already a surfeit of commercial space in Longmont (look around at shuttered stores on Main Street), and that to add space will detract from existing occupancy. All reports on economic vitality, areas needing stimulus, etc., focus on Main Street, and Main Street is a long way from Union.
o There are no letters of interest from potential retailers (per Planning Director Brad Schol on August 2nd)
o Longmont City Manager Gordon Pedrow stated that Longmont’s 2007 revenue projects did not pan out. Pedrow also stated that Longmont must “apply its limited resources to meet our most critical needs.”
o BBC, which conducted the tax and property revenue analysis for the City, also worked for LifeBridge. Given the impact of this development, if annexed, the City should have conducted a completely independent and impartial analysis rather than use the same analysis package that LifeBridge manipulated to provide (ultimately unsupportable) rosy projections.
* The Mayor Says: It’s fiction that the City will have to build a fire station just for Union. Then she says that building a new fire station is always the case. Ultimately, the City will provide fire protection. The developer, at his expense, will install sprinklers and pay for paramedic response. Also donating land for a future station.
* We Say: So if the City always has to build a fire station, why did the mayor decide that our argument was fiction? Who will staff the fire station, given the City’s decision to cut jobs and services in 2008? The City’s most recent fire station was built in the Clover Basin area, and the City did not build it - the developer did, and the residents local to that station will be paying additional taxes for years to pay it off. Why should the Union Annexation be given preferential treatment?
* The Mayor Says: As do all developers, they must provide water to the City to compensate for new users. The Union project will dedicate a valuable water right associated with Union Reservoir to the City. This water right represents a net gain.
* We Say: What is the valuable water right that Longmont will receive? There has been talk of digging and trenching at Union Reservoir, but for West Union. In an action before the Water Court as of this writing, the City will be able to reclaim and reuse its processed waste water from the St. Vrain, but water delivered to the Union Annexation would pass along to Weld County and not be reclaimable by Longmont.
* The Mayor Says: The developer will pay millions of dollars in transportation impact fees to the City for road improvements to alleviate transportation impacts. The project will pave CR-26 and pay $600,000 for other transportation improvements. A detailed traffic impact study was performed.
* We Say: We’d like to see more information before the Council commits Longmont taxpayers to a real estate deal. The people of Longmont want clear answers, in writing.
* The Mayor Says: The project will comply fully with both of these standards (affordable housing and school capacity benchmarks) as it builds, just as any developer would.
* We Say: It’s great that LifeBridge finally came around on these issues. LifeBridge originally asked for these exemptions and held out for months, which is why we’ve discussed them.
* The Mayor Says: The Union project was processed under PUD guidelines, as are most projects in the city. We use the PUD process to encourage quality standards by allowing the design team some flexibility. Allowed only 2 variances as an expected outcome.
* We Say: LifeBridge was allowed to support an employee within the City Planning Department, dedicated to furthering LifeBridge’s application process. Richard Juday states, “It has been disquieting to see City employees rise before Council and have to refer questions from Council to LifeBridge staff.” This project has been unduly hurried through the approval process, an egregious example being that the Comprehensive Plan has been modified simultaneously with the project’s stages of approval. Longmont’s long-standing process has been that a proposed development is compared with the Comprehensive Plan, which is evolved with time allowed for the citizenry to comment and participate. Approval should be given to only such development as meets the existing Comprehensive Plan, but the process has been subverted in this instance. In fact, one member of the Planning and Zoning Commission quit over this kind of subversion, and another publicly stated that he recants his vote in favor of the development. Such a recantation is, to our knowledge, unprecedented.
* The Mayor Says: No one has conducted a valid survey upon which to base the statement that the majority of Longmont residents oppose annexation.
* We Say: The Times-Call straw poll shows 73% of Longmont residents opposed to the development. Additionally, calls to the T-C Line have been against the development; there were 2 hours of public comment against the development at the August 14th meeting; 880+ Longmont residents petitioned Council to reconsider at the August 14th meeting. Additionally, no one has conducted a valid survey to refute the idea that the residents oppose this annexation.
* The Mayor Says: City Council has all the answers and the signatures of the 880 Longmont residents who asked the Council to hold off on annexation don’t count for anything.
* We Say: The “signatures,” which the mayor so easily dismisses, came entirely from Longmont area residents.
o The mayor can say that this will be good for Longmont as often as she likes, but saying something does not make it true. We want to see guarantees in writing. We want to see the impact on the City budget, which does not look good for 2008.
o The cost of providing services and amenities to the development were not taken into account by the City when it claimed that the annexation will provide net revenue. When all the costs are factored in, the City will be subsidizing the development to the tune of $1M per year.
o In addition to this recurring subsidy, there are capital costs for fire station, extending water, extending sewers, and extending electric to the area which is separated from the City by about half a mile, and for park areas that the City has agreed to develop at taxpayer expense.
o Many concerned Longmont residents, including Richard Juday, have been at numerous meetings. But regardless of how many people showed up at Council meetings, the fact that so many were against this particular annexation from the beginning should have been reason enough to put the annexation to a vote.
o Why didn’t the Mayor publish her editorial BEFORE the August 14th meeting and BEFORE the referendum petition?
o If the City Council is so highly educated about this, why could Council members and other City employees not answer questions at the August 14th meeting? We think it arrogant of Council, in the face of clearly expressed sentiment of the voters, to take it upon themselves to make the decision to annex.
You should also check to see if this is going to be a Residential Improvement District or Metropolitan Improvement District. It can have a major effect on potential residents.
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