By Seth Richardson
Gadfly Dave Hughes, in one of his comments on Douglas Bruce’s guest column in the Gazette on November 23rd, said, “Not ONE of those commenting, including Sean Paige, points the the BASIC REASON the Stormwater Fee was imposed, AND the need to ‘phase it out’ rather than just stop collecting now.”
He’s right. But neither has the Council, and therein lies the root of the problem.
The crippling of the enterprise systems is a response to arrogant and incompetent governance by the Council, but it’s going to have unintended consequences for the public that need to be addressed with alacrity.
The problem is that the City Council, Mayor and City Manger abused their “enterprise” discretion and misused the concept to generate “fee” funded income to the General Fund from government services and utilities that have traditionally been paid for through taxation and are not properly supposed to be profit-making branches of government. They did this mendaciously and dishonestly. This angered the public, as well it should have. The stormwater charade was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And, like all laws that constrain government, a law was enacted to constrain their ability to do this, and it’s entirely the City Council’s own fault that it happened. But that doesn’t resolve the very real problems with stormwater flow, intergovernmental agreements and the Clean Water Act. Colorado Springs has obligations to its neighbors and the federal government regarding water flow and the Clean Water Act, and the government will have to continue to meet those obligations.
What this means is that City Council needs to get off its collective butt and start the campaign for a tax to meet those obligations. Council members need to simply give up the idea that they can somehow salvage the enterprise systems as a funding mechanism, because they can’t.
As Bruce says, “As of Nov. 16th, the stormwater enterprise (and all others) must cease gifts or subsidies to the city, like free work on city-owned infrastructure, or paying bills the city owes the federal government. It cannot bill fees for what it can no longer do.”
Completing stormwater improvements underway involves doing “free” work on city-owned infrastructure, which is a gift or subsidy to the city, in that the city itself does not pay fair market value for the work, as it would if it had to directly hire private contractors to do the work. That work was being paid for directly by fees collected by the enterprise from landowners. Bruce is correct in saying that enterprises, which despite the legal fiction are still legally branches of municipal government, cannot collect fees if they are forbidden to do work that comprises a gift or subsidy to the city. That provision is in effect right now.
On the other hand, the City can (and indeed must) still fund the stormwater projects by appropriating funds from the General Fund, or by asking voters to approve a tax to fund such construction, just as it would if it hired an independent contractor to do the work. Remember, Issue 300 only bans gifts from an enterprise to the city, and it only phases out payments of money from an enterprise to the general fund.
Of course, the whole point of the Stormwater Enterprise was to give it independent fee collection authority to fund the contracts that the enterprise managers made with private companies to actually do the work. But now that this fee-collection and free-work authority has been revoked, the Stormwater Enterprise is a completely redundant and pointless waste of taxpayer money. All the functions of the Stormwater Enterprise should, and arguably must, be transferred back to the city’s engineering and contract staff, where it should have been in the first place, and all the employees who work for the Stormwater Enterprise who are performing duplicate functions that can be done by city employees should be laid off as redundant, including the CEO and other administrators. Administration of the stormwater improvement projects should be done by the City Manager. That’s what she’s paid rather a lot of money to do, after all.
It appears that all other enterprises will also have to be legally dismantled as well. Issue 300 effectively bans all fees collected by any enterprise, and all work done by any enterprise, since anything an enterprise does could be construed to be a “gift” or “subsidy” to the city if city property is utilized and the costs of providing that service is not paid for out of the city coffers. Therefore, all enterprises will simply have to be dismantled in the technical, legal sense, and the fee-setting authority returned to the Council for what will simply become services the city provides, like libraries, building permits, and electricity.
This is not be a bad thing, because it returns the Council to its proper place as overseers of the city’s operations and services and makes them directly accountable to the taxpayers. The inability of taxpayers to directly hold the enterprises accountable through recall is one of the things that drove Issue 300 to victory.
There is also an interesting question as to whether Issue 300 also bans “payments in lieu of taxes.” Arguably, it does, as Mr. Bruce seems to point out in his column when he says, “The first sentence phases out over a maximum of eight years “all enterprise payments to the city.” It covers payment of money from Utilities and other enterprises, and cash reimbursements for city services to enterprises.” While this clearly eliminates the practice of the city billing an enterprise for “shared services” like accounting, the PILT program is somewhat less clear, given that PILTs have their own statutory basis, which may exempt them from the language of Issue 300. That’ll have to be discussed with the lawyers, but in my judgement PILTs are also banned.
In any event, City Council is seeing its enterprise cash cows being slaughtered, and is imprudently balking and trying to weasel its way out of the handcuffs it placed on itself. Council needs to get over it and move on with the process of asking for a tax to fund the stormwater projects in process and those improvements that are required as a part of intergovernmental agreements and federal law. It also needs to get on with legally dismantling the enterprise systems and returning their functions to the fold of city government.
In order to accomplish this necessary task, the Council is going to have to humble itself before the People and admit that it was wrong to try to raise slush-fund revenues by misusing the enterprise authority it once had. Council is going to have to bend to the will of the people and actually do their job as TABOR demands, and ask permission to impose a necessary and reasonable tax to fund necessary and reasonable government services.
This is the one thing that the Council seems completely unable to do. It’s as if they are two-year-olds balking at being told to eat their peas. Rather than choke them down and get on with life, they are going to have a temper tantrum of monumental proportions while trying every possible excuse they can think of, rational or otherwise, to avoid the inevitable. It’s simply astonishing how arrogant the Council and City Manager can be, however. Progressivism has infected even Colorado Springs, and our elected officials evidently actually believe that they are smarter and wiser than the public is. Well, when that happens, it’s time to take them down a peg or two, which is what Mr. Bruce and the voters have done.
Dear Council: Quit acting like two-year-olds, start acting like adults, and get on with the job of asking the public for the necessary funding by carefully explaining why you need it!
That’s all that TABOR requires. Just ask. Tell taxpayers the truth about why you need the money, give us the correct, complete and honest information about the necessity of the project and how much it’s going to cost, and then sit humbly by and wait for us to decide if we want to pay for it. If we don’t, then get over it and move on.
Pretty simple really.
© 2009 Altnews
Yes, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, especially our property rights and gun rights, are serious impediments to today’s would-be do-gooder learned elites. It’s amazing to me that Washington, Adams, Franklin etc were so learned, as evidenced by their writings and accomplishments, without having spent 12 years plus kindergarten in the public school system.
Tutt has the book so I’ll read it there. Speaking of CC, why does psychology professor Horner have a weekly column? Oh well, never mind, some questions have no answers. I’m presently reading Joan Didion and paying attention to her use of commas and I’ve noticed that punctuation, particularly that all-important comma, supports the transfer of razor-sharp thinking to paper, and thanks to those helpful little signposts, I’m able to follow her most intricate and convoluted thoughts about the otherwise dull subject of California’s history. So perhaps I will, after all, be up to the task of reading the somewhat dull Pestritto. Anyway, I’ll give it a shot.
Seth said: [progressivism] “is a political philosophy that is rife with arrogance, elitism, and megalomaniacal delusions of grandeur and self-importance.” Sounds like Hitler was a progressivist. I’ll get a library copy of Pestritto’s book, and fingers crossed, hope it’s not 800 pages and over my head. Thanks for the recommendation.
It’s about 250 pages, and it’s a bit dull, but it’s an important book because it so clearly illuminates what Progressivism is all about, and therefore why it’s so dangerous.
One of the really scary things about Progressives is that they really, truly believe that they are smarter and better suited to run everyone else’s lives.
Wilson was not a dictatorial madman like Hitler was, although both Hitler and Stalin admired Wilson’s work (as did George Bush the Junior…something I never knew but which explains a LOT about him), he genuinely believed that political society had a destiny, and that a strong, charismatic leader such as himself could best express the unified will of the nation more effectively under a more parliamentary system of government, such as what the UK has.
Wilson thought that Congress was an impediment to “scientific” governance by the intellectual elite, and that elected officials should be relegated to the role of general policy making, not the day-to-day details of making and enforcing laws and regulation. His ideal was a very “executive” form of government where the Chief Executive, who is the President, is nearly limitlessly free to direct the nation to achieve this unified national will he believed was manifest.
He also viewed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as serious impediments to achieving his vision for both government and society, thus his belief that there can be no “founding documents” of any kind, and that all rights, and all laws, are entirely subjective and may be adjusted, using “scientific” methodology, to suit the needs of the society from moment to moment and move the entire culture towards the ultimate manifest destiny he envisioned.
But he never really stated any maleficent intent, just an intellectual arrogance and elitism that utterly ignored the realities of human nature and the need for founding principles to protect the people from the excesses of the governing elite.
Seth – Thanks for this clear explanation of the storm water problem. You mention that COS is infected with ‘Progressivism”. Don’t know what this is, sounds like a political philosphy left over from FDR and the 30s, but I’ll google and find out. The Gazette website is a fabulous resource for keeping informed about what’s going on in COS.
Progressivism, in short, is the political proposition that all laws, including the Constitution, must “evolve” and change progressively with the changing needs of society. American Progressivism, put in to practice by Teddy Roosevelt (in part) and primarily by Woodrow Wilson and FDR, also stands for the proposition that the people are too stupid to know what’s good for them, and that government administration should be “apolitical” or “above politics,” and should be run by professional bureaucrats who are purported to be the intellectual elite.
Under Wilsonian Progressivism, political bodies like the Congress must be relegated to discussing political philosophy and general policy, but the actual operations of government, including laws and regulations, must be left in the hands of the President and the professional bureaucrats who work for him.
This political philosophy also holds that there is a manifest destiny or ultimate “best” form of government, and that the evolution towards that goal is best accommodated by a strong, charismatic leader who, Wilson presumed, knows what the “unified public will” is, and who must be given full power to effectuate that will.
It’s a political philosophy that is rife with arrogance, elitism, and megalomaniacal delusions of grandeur and self-importance.
I HIGHLY recommend that you obtain and read “Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism” by Ronald J. Pestritto. Pestritto follows Wilson’s political evolution from his early days as a Harvard professor to his presidency, using quotes from Wilson’s voluminous writings.
It will scare the living daylights out of you, and you will come to understand how we ended up with FDR, Kennedy, Clinton and Obama, and what they are trying to do to this country.
TODAY DEC.-6-2009—I’m writing this to Seith–Gazette–And any TV news station to see WHAT IN THE HE11 IS GOING ON 11111111111111——5 members of city council stole the vote of #300 Stormwater from the the PEOPLES VOTE!!!!! we the people won the vote of #300–WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT only took 5 Rotten CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS–to say your winning the vote, is not convenient for us, so we are just going to turn it around and SCREW you, Colorado Springs. There is NOTHING IN THE NEWS PAPER—NOTHING ON TV–You reporters should be all over this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You must be doing everything,THE ROTTEN Mayor wants you to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think most residents realize we need stormwater improvements . The problem is the way city council went about it. I would like to see input from citizens and and a plan put together that at least the majority of citizens can feel comfortable with.
Who the heck is Seth Richardson and why do we care? Your anti-community, pro-all-about-me rantings on this web site are sad and uninformed. But you have solidifed my opinion to get my family the heck out of this town and leave you all to your misery. Life is too short to live in a place like this (short-sighted, no future, angry, and mean spirited) – I simply will not subject myself, my spouse, or our family to this place any longer. I’m sure some of you will be happy, telling me to not let the door hit me in the behind on the way out. Don’t worry, there isn’t a door left to get me….
Hm. Interesting assessment of the thrust of my writings. Entirely inaccurate, but interesting. Thanks for your input.
May I suggest Boulder County? There you will likely find the kind of prying, intrusive, overweening, dictatorial Liberal/Progressive political and social atmosphere that you appear to prefer to individual liberty and small government.
Best of luck to you and your family!
the blogs by seth richardson are the most informative I’ve read. And commentary is likewise infromative, measured, reflective. foremost I agree with Zen that Council members should be well-paid and at least minimally of fair character. I’m encouraged by Glenn, Gallagher and Paige.
Thanks for clarifying the operating style of Colorado Springs City Utilities since it wandered from the Straight-and-Narrow in 1992. That must have been when Westsider Phillips retired. I’m confident of the direction of information flow, if not many Council members. But I think their misfeasance is in decline, considering the results of our recent election.
Curt Neeley
In your fourth paragraph, you wrote about the “City Manger.” Is that where all the council members were born?
The Springs is screwed. If I was a councilman making $6250 a year I’d just quit and say to hell with you all … I don’t get paid enough for this sh*t. Which is why if the Springs wants good representation from competent leaders it best pony up the money for real full time councilmembers making real (and competitive) full time salaries. Otherwise you’ll just get more of the same.
And though they may not be smarter I think its more than fair to say if you sit on council for even a year, you are certainly more knowledgeable. Honestly Seth I am appalled at how little knowledge area citizens have of the things they critizize. More often than not they’re swayed by opinion, assumption, hearsay, innuendo, gossip more than fact. Because getting the facts requires research, observation, involvement. And few actually do that. And you know that’s true. I for one am blow away by just how few understand what their vote on 300 means and the consequences that will result. Frankly the people naively bought into a conspiracy fronted by an unhappy, bored and lonely few with little else to do. And few ever actually checked facts. It’s easy to do you know – hell Bush got the average America to blow a trillion bucks going after WMDs that never existed too.
As a citizen who has paid this fee in full for the past few years, I feel as though I have again been urinated upon by Council. In todays Gazette it was stated that the City planned no recourse against those who refused to pay but would continue billing for two more years. The citizen trying to do the right thing is being penalized while the malcontent smiles.And, does anyone really believe all stormwater construction and repairs will ever be completed? In the City’s march to the border of Kansas there will always be stormwater issues. As I e-mailed Mr. Paige this evening, not with my money, not this time. I will wait for the Courts.