March 2009

Striking a blow for private property rights, as well as religious liberty, a judge has ordered Boulder County to approve an expansion plan for the Rocky Mountain Christian Church within 45 days. This comes in the wake of a jury finding that the county had violated a federal law against religious discrimination by arbitrarily turning thumbs down on the church's expansion plan, using zoning laws as a pretext.

Unless appealed, this hopefully will bring a satisfactory close to this outrageous but not uncommon case, in which local NIMBYs and politicos conspired to block the construction or expansion of a church. The not-in-my-backyard element formerly rose up in opposition to power plants and land fills; today they reflexively oppose just about anything new, from churches to schools to youth sports fields.

It's gotten completely out of hand, in short, lending a patina of legitimacy to what's sometimes a subtle (or not so subtle, in this case) form of discrimination, not to mention the trampling of property rights. And if it takes a federal law to correct the situation, so be it.

But whether arrogant Boulder County has seen the error of its ways is debatable. "I think we had a strong case and still do," County Commissioner Ben Pearlman told The Boulder Daily Camera. It still might appeal.

Thank you, Rocky Mountain Christian Church, for refusing to be bullied, and discriminated against, by local zoning czars. By standing up for your rights, you stand up for everyone's.

Donna Lovelace-Flora, writing in today's Gazette, complains about the lack of a detailed plan for how ballot issue 1A, if approved, would create all those jobs. I can relate to her frustration.

Ask a supporter of the plan for any level of specificity or detail about how it will actually work in practice -- as opposed to theory -- and they switch to screen saver mode, defaulting to the simplistic and vague "jobs now" mantra.

Many weeks ago I submitted a number of nuts-and-bolts questions to the members of city council who voted to put this measure on the ballot, as well as to developer Doug Stimple, who was the originator of this idea on the city's Sustainable Funding Committee, in an attempt to ferret out more specifics. These weren't trick questions (judge for yourselves: questions), but just the sort of things voters would want to know before they commit tax money to such an endeavor.

Yet no one -- not Stimple, and not a single member of City Council -- even attempted to answer the specific questions.

I received a few polite responses from a few council people, indicating that they'd get back to me. But none did. The mayor agreed to grant me an audience, if I wanted to interview him in person. But I wanted the answers to come directly from the source, in writing, so I couldn't be accused of distorting what he or the others had to say.

One can only conclude from the non-response that supporters of 1A 1.) don't think I deserve a response; or 2.) don't believe that they need to offer specifics in order to get the support of voters; or 3.) can't provide answers because there is no plan.

If they just don't think I deserve a response, that's to some degree understandable, although I am a taxpaying citizen as well as an advocate. Judging from Donna Lovelace-Flora's letter in today's Gazette, however, I'm not alone in my concerns about the lack of specificity or detail from supporters of 1A. If Council won't answer my questions, maybe they'll answer hers. But I have a hunch that they won't, because they simply can't answer the questions.

Margaret Radford's response to my e-mailed questions, while lacking in specific answers, was nonetheless revealing, because it seems to confirm that council is just winging it. She wrote:

Geez, Sean, do you think you compiled enough questions?

I'll be happy to look at these, but FYI, what I voted to put on the ballot was the beginning of a process not yet completed.

Sometimes when you start processes, you don't know the answers to all of the questions, but you know you need to do something to get things moving forward.

I've learned over the last eight years that starting the process moving forward--even if you don't have all the answers--is part of actually leading, not just standing on the sidelines and complaining.

Mag

Maybe I could have asked fewer questions. But seeing as how the 1A program will be in place for 16 years, and could eventually cost taxpayers well over $51 million (assuming that property values eventually rebound), it doesn't seem like a lot to expect that supporters of the measure would at least attempt to answer some of them.

Moreover, I'm not sure how many voters believe they are voting for a "process." They're being told they'll have "jobs now," a very results-oriented promise, not "jobs maybe, once we figure out the process." Many voters probably assume that the city must have a concrete plan in place, and shovel-ready projects at hand, if it's asking taxpayers to pony up this sort of money. But they make such assumptions at their own risk.

Radford and others on council are simply asking that voters hand over their tax dollars and trust that this vague and ill-defined "process" will produce jobs. But local voters have historically shown a reluctance to issue blank checks -- to approve tax increases (and this is a tax increase) without much more detail about how those dollars will be spent. Here's hoping they'll exercise that same healthy skepticism this time around.

Hey, here's a cool new idea in today's Boulder Daily Camera. It's called venture capitalism. This is how it works.

You start with a group of private citizens who have a little extra money to spare, a nose for good ideas and a willingness to take a chance on a startup company that has potential. They pool their personal funds and go out prospecting for interesting new businesses, hoping that the new businesses will take off and turn a profit, which will bring a decent return on the initial investment. Sometimes these "ventures" succeed, and everyone benefits: the investors, the start-up, the new employees, the economy as a whole. Sometimes they fail -- but that's okay, since the costs of failure are only shouldered by the venture capitalists.

Here's the really interesting part. It's completely voluntary, and private. No taxpayers are involved! No politicians are involved! There's no need to coerce the public into making risky "investments" with tax dollars. The jobs are created, only without the need for government meddling and micromanagement. There's no favoritism involved, either, since winners and losers aren't determined by politicians, but by consumers, competition, market forces and the skill and ability of individual business owners. It's no longer the government's responsibility to create jobs, so it can focus on the things government does well.

It's a radical concept, no doubt, but maybe we should think about giving this "venture capitalism" thing a try here in Colorado Springs before we adopt the government-centered approach offered by backers of ballot issue 1A. Many of the folks funding the "jobs now" campaign are financially well-off, and count themselves as savvy business people: why don't they take the money they're contributing to 1A (almost $150,000 at last count), and take the money they give to the Economic Development Corp. each year, and create a private venture capital fund for local job creation? If they're so sure they know how to create jobs and "invest" in the local economy, why don't they leave the taxpayers out of it and put their own money on the line? Just a few questions to ponder for those who still haven't made up their minds on 1A.

It's strange and ironic to see good old-fashioned, private sector-centered, free-market venture capitalism alive and well in Boulder County, even while supposedly-conservative Colorado Springs is flirting with central planning and "municipal socialism."

Developer Doug Stimple and I have side-by-side columns in this week's Colorado Springs Business Journal, which spotlight the differences in thinking between supporters and opponents of 1A. I'll link to them both -- mine and his -- and let people decide for themselves who makes the better case.

I focus more on the brass tacks -- pointing out that the city's recent track record on "incentives" doesn't inspire confidence that 1A funds would be wisely "invested" -- while Doug sticks to the broad brush generalities backers of 1A prefer. Stimple's piece conspicuously ignores the elephant that lumbered into the room this week: a USOC "incentives" deal that seems on the verge of taking this city "from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat," to borrow an old sports broadcasting clich�.

The tumbling dominoes we read about almost daily, as this "deal" falls apart, while they're terrible news for the city, are also the most powerful argument yet for voting down 1A. There are huge risks involved in playing "the incentives game," because, like every game, not everyone who plays comes out a winner. While it might still be salvaged, the USOC case shows the risks that city officials are tempted to take when they're "investing" (and essentially gambling with) other people's money. They might gamble correctly and win a few hands. But they can also bet on the long shot and lose big, as the city seems to have in this case.

That's one danger I see in 1A.

The people who negotiated and approved the USOC deal will want to evade responsibility and accountability, by arguing that they had good intentions and deserve credit for trying to do something positive for the city. But every messed-up government initiative begins with good intentions. Sometimes, though -- as in this case -- doing something "positive" in a hasty or reckless manner can do more harm than good. Sometimes, as in this case, maybe doing nothing, or doing much less, is a better course of action.

The city undertook this endeavor in order to strengthen its partnership with the USOC, save USOC jobs and give its downtown redevelopment efforts a shot in the arm. Barring some miraculous turnaround in the situation, it may become an embarrassing setback on all three fronts -- making one wonder whether doing nothing would have been better than doing something.

The revelations just keep coming -- here and here and here – about the questionable economic development "deal" the city of Colorado Springs struck with developer Ray Marshall in an effort to keep the USOC from skipping town. The Gazette reported Wednesday that the DA is investigating criminal allegations. City Council will meet on the matter in a closer-door session Monday. Other published reports have the mayor scrambling around town, hat in hand, asking private donors for help.

The USOC itself seems in turmoil, having cut local jobs – jobs the downtown headquarters deal was supposed to save – and lost a leader. And the possibility that the organization could still bail out of the arrangement hints that the worst may be yet to come.

How this will be resolved; who should shoulder the blame if the venture fails; how much more it might cost taxpayers to salvage the project: it’s far too early to speculate on such things. But I think it’s safe to say, at this point, that the city will face hard questions about whether it rushed into the wrong partnership in its eagerness to do the “deal.”

And this ought to also raise questions about City Council’s fitness to manage the millions of dollars that will fall into its lap – all earmarked for just the sorts of “incentives” deals it struck with the USOC -- if ballot issue 1A passes.

Clearly, in this case at least, the city didn’t conduct the due diligence it should have before agreeing to the $53 million private-public partnership. The agreement was announced on a Friday afternoon, and approved the following Monday, meaning that only the insiders who negotiated and approved the deal knew the devilish details. Whether this represented a short-changing of the public process seems like a legitimate question to me.

It’s impossible to say whether some of these problems might have been anticipated or averted had council taken the time it should have to more carefully vet the proposal. But everyone seemed in a mad rush to make the big announcement and take credit for “saving” the USOC.

It’s the same sort of reckless urgency, and lack of careful consideration, we see in the effort to pass ballot issue 1A (which involves many of the very same people), which will get the city even deeper into the “incentives game” – a game with risks that should be all too apparent right now.

The water war between Pueblo and Colorado Springs has for years been a reliable vote-getter for Democrats, so some of them actually seem a little disappointed that the hostilities might be coming to an end. While the two cities finally seem on the verge of working things out, on the Southern Delivery System pipeline project and related issues, certain politicians seem inclined to keep stirring the pot, perhaps for fear of losing an issue they've exploited for votes.

What has SDS to do with partisan politics? Could politicians really be so cynical and self-serving? Answering the first question requires a bit of context. The answer to the second question would seem self evident.

Here's the context.

Pueblo has a lot of registered Democrats, and a powerhouse little newspaper, The Chieftain, that's done everything in its power to delay and derail the pipeline, by portraying Colorado Springs as an 800-pound gorilla taking advantage of the rest of the Arkansas Valley. And because Colorado Springs and El Paso County are heavily Republican in their voting habits, Democrats -- from Ken Salazar to John Salazar to Mark Udall -- have learned that they have little to lose and much to gain (including the endorsement of The Pueblo Chieftain) by playing to Pueblo's sense of victimization.

Some readers may recall that it was former Attorney General Ken Salazar, a Democrat -- and the current Secretary of Interior -- who first encouraged Pueblo County to use regulatory mechanisms (including so-called 1041 rules) to impede the pipeline. His brother, U.S. Rep. John Salazar, has incorporated Springs-bashing themes in the mailers he sends to Arkansas Valley constituents. And freshman Sen. Mark Udall also has played the issue for votes, by posing as the protector of Pueblo and the lower Ark against big, bad Colorado Springs.

All three men understood that they could secure the political support of The Chieftain, and gain whatever additional Pueblo votes that might bring, by playing off one community against the other. Instead of helping mend fences, they used their positions to help build them higher. And now, when a series of recent developments suggest that an end to the water war might be near, John Salazar and Mark Udall seem reluctant to embrace the good news and move ahead.

But they don't call it "water politics" for nothing.

T.A. Arnold once served as director of the Idaho Department of Commerce, so I trust he knows a thing or two about economic development and jobs creation. He also sits on the city's Sustainable Funding Committee, giving him a unique, insider's perspective on how the terrible idea now known as 1A made its way from that committee to the city ballot.

Arnold thus has both standing and credibility when he argues, as he does in today's Gazette, that 1A offers no clear or coherent strategy for creating jobs, but relies instead on blind faith and vague promises. The entire piece is a must-read, but here's a passage that will whet your appetite for more:

"Other than a proposal to allocate $50 million in property taxes with the hope of creating jobs, what do we really know about 1A? The "hope for jobs" proposal originated in a subcommittee of the city's Sustainable Funding Committee. I voted with the minority against that proposal as presented, not because I'm against jobs, but simply due to the haste with which it was proposed, without clarity of the problem to be remedied, without a plan or budget, or even a mention of the $50 million cost to the taxpayers."

Recent news reports indicate that the city’s $53 million “private-public partnership” to provide the USOC with a new downtown headquarters may be in significant trouble. This has to be especially bad news for folks backing ballot issue 1A.

After all, they’re asking voters to hand City Hall a $51 million blank check between now and 2025, trusting that the jobs creation experts on City Council will wisely and efficiently “invest” it in unspecified economic development activities. Yet this same City Hall may be bungling the single most important ED project in recent history (even as some of the USOC jobs it promised to “save” are being eliminated).

It has to make one wonder whether this is a preview of coming attractions if 1A is approved.

I take no delight in the USOC situation. It will be a major embarrassment for the city if it all falls apart. But it also serves as a warning about the dangers that arise when city insiders begin brokering business “deals,” and playing “the incentives game,” with other people’s money. And it’s not the only case that should raise red flags.

One could point back to the exciting but doomed flight of Western Pacific Airlines for examples of the city rolling out the green carpet for a company promising jobs, only to see the promises come to nothing. Next time you’re flying out of Colorado Springs, look around for the empty terminal, which is home to dust bunnies rather than bustling with air passengers. It stands as a warning about the risks involved in the “incentives game.”

But let’s fast forward from there.

It was 2005 when the city and the EDC, citing the threatened loss of Western Forge to North Carolina, shelled out $200,000 in cash in order to keep those jobs here. But Western Forge has conducted 2 rounds of layoffs in the last two years, demonstrating that you can pay a company to “save” jobs but you can’t keep those jobs from going away if they don’t make economic sense.

Backers of 1A insist that the city only offers “performance based” incentives. But no one at City Hall, as far as I know, has asked Western Forge to refund the money. Once the 1A funds are sitting there, just waiting to be “invested,” the temptation will be great to spend first and worry about performance later. And how do you get a refund if a beneficiary has left town or gone belly up?

It’s an open question whether Intel should be counted as an incentives game success or failure. But the fact is that those jobs, too, are now gone, underscoring the limitations of any city effort to create and retain jobs -- which also undermines the key premise behind 1A.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was the near-debacle involving the Frontier Airlines hangar “deal,” which had a city enterprise on the verge of financing the construction of a $40 million maintenance hangar for a bankruptcy-bound air carrier, to be paid back with a 30-year lease.

Frontier was in trouble at the time this “deal” was announced to such fanfare; a Google search would have revealed that the company’s stock price was plunging and other indicators of potential trouble were there. Yet the city forged ahead, oblivious to the warning signs, and only averted a 30-year marriage to a bankrupt company due to a delay in signing on the dotted line.

I was surprised during a recent debate on 1A to hear one member of council defend the near-debacle as an economic success story, because, he argued, Frontier agreed to boost the number of flights into the airport as part of the deal. That misses the point. Those who negotiated and trumpeted this “deal” demonstrated an alarming lack of judgment, foresight and due diligence. That they can’t admit as much argues against entrusting them with 1A money.

Which brings us back to the USOC. It’s arguably the most important single economic development “deal” in the city’s recent history. The city’s prestige and a lot of taxpayer money are riding on the outcome.

Yet it appears to be in serious trouble, for reasons that have yet to be fully revealed. City officials will have to share in the blame if things go south.

Am I the only person out here who wonders whether the frantic push to pass 1A is motivated, at least in part, by the need for a taxpayer “bailout” of the developer who landed the project? It’s not inconceivable that the first infusion of 1A funds could go for such a rescue mission, since backers of 1A offer only a vague and open-ended explanation for what these funds would and could be used for. Salvaging the USOC deal would easily fit the bill.

By pointing out these things, it’s not my intention to be dismissive of all economic development efforts undertaken by the city or the EDC. The people who back these efforts are well-intentioned, even when their efforts have failed and their approaches are flawed. And they’ve had some successes, I’m sure.

But because the passage of 1A represents a dramatic change of approach in how the city does economic development -- and because it puts so much taxpayer money directly at risk -- it’s important that we look candidly at the mistakes, misjudgments and failures, as well as the successes.

The city’s track record in the “incentives game” just isn’t good enough to merit the major promotion -- the additional new resources and significant new powers -- it is seeking with 1A. If past is prologue, entrusting this new responsibility to City Hall will almost certainly lead to the waste and misapplication of taxpayer dollars.

How many more reasons do you need to vote “no” on 1A?

Dave Gardner and I disagree on many, many things, but he makes some very good points in his guest column in today's Gazette. I especially liked the following passage, pertaining to 1A:

"The growth industry is attempting to exploit our fears and sentiment about the economy and unemployment. Builders/developers conceived 1A and are the ones heavily promoting it. A developer established the Jobs Now issues committee. They've amassed a $100,000 war chest in a few short weeks, hoping to turn that small investment promoting 1A into $50 million of taxpayer funding for growth industry ad campaigns, junkets and incentives.

Unfortunately, their brand of economic development is designed first and foremost to keep the market of new home buyers expanding. Instead of employing our unemployed or increasing your income, that just increases costs for our community.

I wish we could snap our fingers and put our unemployed to work. But the citizens deserve the truth. Unless you're a carpenter or bricklayer, 1A is not an effective way to get you a job. It will attract people to move to our city and compete with you for any new jobs. And if you think revving up homebuilding will restore our community to a healthy state, please review the results of our last 15-year growth boom."

I have only one correction to Gardner's points: the "JobsNow" issue committee has collected nearly $150,000 as of the last filing (which Gardner probably didn't have available when he submitted the piece). The group made a major blunder, though, when it spent $16,000 on yard signs from which the most important piece of information -- the word "1A" -- is missing.

And these are the people who want taxpayers to entrust them with more than $51 million of our money?

Gardner's critique again demonstrates that people of the right, left and center can readily see the flaws in 1A, once they take a moment to really study the issue. Let's just hope a majority of voters do so before marking their ballots.

If you dump chum in the ocean, sharks sooner or later come cruising.

So couldn’t we have anticipated, after the taxpayers became “partners” in a city-orchestrated “deal” to keep the United States Olympic Committee from leaving town, that other organizations would soon come out of the woodwork, expecting (and sometimes demanding) similar treatment?

The Gazette reported Wednesday that USA Boxing is now threatening to leave town "if the city doesn't provide $3 million in a line of credit or unsecured loan."

"USA Boxing leaders, who say they are in relocation talks with four potential markets, will meet this week with Mayor Lionel Rivera in hopes of striking a deal that would cement the NGB's future here and give the federation 25 years to reimburse the city."

No word yet on how the mayor and city council will respond to the ultimatum (since such discussions occur behind closed doors). But they'll have a hard time simply saying no, since they're enthusiastic boosters of the (now in trouble) USOC deal and all but one on council support ballot issue 1A, which if approved will earmark more than $51 million in taxpayer money for creating or retaining jobs.

USA Boxing provides local jobs, so it could, under the vague and open-ended criteria used by backers of 1A, qualify for taxpayer support. And we already established a precedent by handing out tax money to the USOC, under strikingly similar circumstances, so on what basis can we turn down USA boxing?

Here we see the crux of the problem with 1A -- and with the growing enthusiasm for playing "the incentives game" among the city's political and business elite. Once you surrender to such approaches, and agree to pay private entities or businesses not to leave, you open the taxpayers to a never-ending series of shakedowns, with no clear basis for picking winners and losers except the whims of local politicians.

How can City Hall say no to USA Boxing if it said yes to the USOC? How will it say no to USA Badminton if it says yes to USA Boxing? And how will it say no to USA Bikini-Waxing if it says yes to USA Badminton?

It can't possibly make such choices without (quite justifiably) raising cries of favoritism, cronyism and blind bias.

Such dilemmas will proliferate if 1A passes, and City Council suddenly has a pot of money to dole out to any company promising jobs. Yet the backers of 1A seem blind to the Pandora's Box they’ll be opening.

The shakedown attempt by USA Boxing was predictable -- and it's a preview of things to come if City Hall manages to secure a "dedicated funding stream" for economic development handouts. There is no such thing as the “law of unintended consequences." That's the copout of those who don't think the likely consequences through before taking action.

A report in this morning's Washington Post offers a sobering and even shocking assessment of President Barack Obama's first budget proposal. And the critiques come not from Congressional Republicans or Rush Limbaugh, but from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which reports that Obama's budget, if approved as written, would effectively break the bank.

Reports the Post:

"In the first independent analysis of Obama's budget proposal, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that Obama's policies would cause government spending to swell above historic levels even after costly programs to ease the recession and stabilize the nation's financial system have ended.

Tax collections, meanwhile, would lag well behind spending, producing huge annual budget deficits that would force the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade -- $2.3 trillion more than the president predicted when he unveiled his budget request just one month ago.

Although Obama would come close to meeting his goal of cutting in half the deficit he inherited by the end of his first term, the CBO predicts that deficits under his policies would exceed 4 percent of the overall economy over the next 10 years, a level White House budget director Peter R. Orszag yesterday acknowledged would "not be sustainable."

The result, according to the CBO, would be an ever-expanding national debt that would exceed 82 percent of the overall economy by 2019 -- double last year's level -- and threaten the nation's financial stability.

"This clearly creates a scenario where the country's going to go bankrupt. It's almost that simple," said Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.), the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who briefly considered joining the Obama administration as commerce secretary. "One would hope these numbers would wake somebody up," Gregg said." . . . .

. . . . .The CBO is the official scorekeeper for budgeting on Capitol Hill, and the new report could complicate efforts to win congressional approval for Obama's $3.6 trillion request for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. While Obama had predicted a deficit of nearly $1.2 trillion for 2010, the CBO puts next year's budget gap at nearly $1.4 trillion. And this year's deficit is now projected to soar past $1.8 trillion, or 13 percent of the economy -- the deepest well of red ink since the end of World War II.

This is "change you can count on," perhaps. But is it change we can afford?

The Gazette had a very good editorial this morning on what seems to be a genuine breakthrough on the Southern Delivery System pipeline project (something I touched on several posts back). But the piece also included several paragraphs of very pointed commentary aimed (it seems to me), at ballot issue 1A, which the paper editorialized against on Sunday.

Or maybe I'm just reading into things. You decide:

"Unfortunately, for some politicians and short-sighted business executives the phrase "economic development" has morphed into code speak for a weird sort of Ponzi scheme throughout the United States. The practice of enticing economic development has been reduced to communities shopping and bidding for the favor of a few corporate executives in the business of shopping for cash incentives or veiled cash incentives instead of genuine, sustainable business opportunities. Give me this and give me that and I'll move to your town with glitz and glamour promises of prestigious white-collar jobs. Of course, the incentives shoppers never stop shopping. They're always looking for their next artificial fix from some other community that wants pie in the sky.

Fortunately, Colorado Springs doesn't seriously engage in that quick-fix game. Instead, our community strives to maintain an environment of limited government, low taxes, minimalist regulation, and the infrastructure needed to provide opportunity for those who really mean business."

That, in a well-polished nutshell, is a great summary argument for voting against 1A. 1A offers the "quick fix" the editorial references, when our city instead should be working to "maintain an environment of limited government, low taxes, minimalist regulation, and the infrastructure needed to provide opportunity for those who really mean business."

Thank you, Gazette, for once again recommending a "no" vote on 1A.

The letters section is probably the most well-read part of any editorial page -- despite what those who craft the house editorials, and select and edit the page's other constituent parts, might like to think. And so I was always grateful during my years at The Gazette for our letter writers. All were appreciated for the contribution they made to the page (even if some felt unappreciative of the editing we did on their masterpieces), but some stood out for the quality of the writing and cogency of the arguments.

Dick Timberlake was one of those letter writers. Today he weighs in on an issue near but not-so-dear to my heart: ballot issue 1A. Enjoy:

"JOBS measure a shell game

Issue 1A is an example of the broken window fallacy. Nineteenth-century French economist Fr�d�ric Bastiat explained that government taking money from one person or group to give to another is like a hoodlum breaking a shopkeeper's window. The shopkeeper will pay a window fixer to replace the window, the window fixer will use the proceeds to pay his employees, and the employees will use their wages to buy lunch.

Everybody can see this money flowing, and it seems to be helping the economy. But what is unseen is that the shopkeeper had to spend money for a new window that she might have spent on something else. She is left with a shop in the same state as before, but she is poorer by the cost of a new window. The money she might have spent on a family night at the movies is gone, so the movie theater and its employees lose.

Issue 1A will take money from property owners and give it to a board which is supposed to promote Colorado Springs to prospective employers. The actions of this board will supposedly create jobs, and the cost for a homeowner of a $100,000 home will be a mere $5.70. Since the median home here is worth $187,000, it will be more like $10.65 for the average Joe. That's $10.65 next year, and the year after, ad infinitum.

This ballot issue will metaphorically break hundreds of thousands of tiny windows, now and forever. Some jobs may come here - that's what is seen. But some jobs will be lost because of this tax increase, leaving the economy no better off and property owners a little poorer.

Vote no on this economic vandalism. Vote no on Issue 1A.

Richard H. Timberlake, III, Colorado Springs"

Hey Dick: If you ever want to put some of those writing skills to work in the "new media," give me a ring.

Good work, as always.

The economist Milton Friedman famously said "there's no free lunch," by which he meant that somebody -- usually the taxpayer -- ultimately has to pay for everything the government gives away for "free." So there's some irony in the flier below, which I received yesterday via e-mail, which has the supporters of ballot issue 1A bribing college students with a "free lunch" -- hot dogs and chips -- if they'll show up at a rally.

Just as some hidden hand pays for the "incentives" backers of 1A are offering college students, in order to turn bodies out for a rally, homeowners and businesses will have to pay more in property taxes than they otherwise would be, in order to pay for the "incentives" and "free lunches" that the city will be giving out to business beneficiaries if 1A is approved. Backers of 1A like to pretend that these "jobs creation" activities will be virtually cost-free, by consistently minimizing the burden they'll impose on homeowners and other businesses, when, in fact, they'll be taking $51 million from some pockets in order to line other pockets.

Just a little food for thought, as this battle heats up.

So, enjoy your "free" hot dogs and chips, UCCS students, but don't imagine for a minute that you won't in some way be paying for the vague promises made by today's speakers.

Subject: JOBS NOW Rally - March 19th
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:32:27 -0600
From: CSEDC@csedc.org

Local employer Ramtron will be laying off employees, according to a report in today's Gazette, as part of a major restructuring. But maybe they wouldn't have to, and just think about how many Ramtron jobs we could save, if the EDC and City Hall had a little cash to spread around -- the kind of cash they'll have if 1A is approved.

With just a little help (and handout) from the taxpayers, maybe we could help Ramtron out of a jam. If they can't get credit from the Silicon Valley Bank, maybe the city could float them the loan, backed up by the $3.2 million funding source that will become available if 1A passes.

I'm being facetious, of course. The problems facing Ramtron are probably too big for even the backers of "JobsNow" to overcome. But that might not prevent them from trying to help Ramtron if that money pot were available, all in the name of saving local jobs -- and that's the danger lurking behind 1A. Under present circumstances, there will be plenty of opportunities for City Hall to intervene, and offer a quick cash infusion, to companies that are struggling -- often for reasons that are beyond control of the jobs creation and retention experts on City Council. And once that pot of money is out there, dedicated for such purposes, temptations like a Ramtron rescue will be hard to resist.

Would handing Ramtron 1 year's worth of 1A funds -- $3.2 million -- be enough to solve the companies problems and prevent the local job cuts being announced? Of course not. But the company might be tempted to ask the city for a financial band-aid, and city leaders might be tempted to provide it, in a moment of desperation, if the 1A money were available.

The fact that it's not available will prevent the city from wasting taxpayers money on a probably futile rescue mission. But once it's there, all bets are off.

After years of hearing that a breakthrough was imminent in the seemingly endless water war between Colorado Springs and Pueblo over the SDS pipeline project, only to be disappointed, I now believe it's possible.

Why? Because the Pueblo Chieftain is bitter: editorial.

The paper's editorial page has been a tenacious -- and that might be an understatement -- critic of both the pipeline project and Colorado Springs, serving as a major obstacle to mutual understanding, fair negotiations and cooperation on the ground. And the fact that it seems to be conceding defeat, at least on permitting for the pipeline, is the strongest evidence I've seen that a bona fide breakthrough is at hand.

More study is needed before we can know for certain how much in "concessions" Colorado Springs gave up in order to gain (or is it "buy") the support of Pueblo city, county and water board officials. My suspicion, based on the stories I've seen in the Chieftain -- and the reference in today's editorial to having "squeezed about as many concessions as possible from Colorado Springs Utilities" -- is that Pueblo's cooperation isn't coming cheap. Maybe this will be the subject of a later blog post.

But Colorado Springs Utilities nonetheless deserves credit for persevering in the face of so many obstacles -- many of which were erected by The Chieftain's pit bull-like editorial page.

That a paper's prerogative, of course. There's something admirable about tenacity in defending one's position. And I always had a grudging respect for the way the Chieftain held its ground, even when I believed it was slowing the project, costing CSU ratepayers a lot of money and poisoning relations between cities that should be better partners. But perhaps we'll see a tempering of tone if the permitting is approved and the project moves forward.

The Chieftain will continue to watchdog the project, no doubt. That's as it should be. But maybe with a little less of its biting and snarling, the two cities can heal their divisions and move forward on some mutually-beneficial endeavors.

Peace between Pueblo and Colorado Springs? It now seems possible. Maybe there's hope yet for settling that Arab-Israeli thing.

Today's well-argued recommendation of a "no" vote on ballot issue 1A from The Colorado Springs Gazette, which follows a similar recommendation Thursday from the Colorado Springs Independent, underscores a point I made several days back -- that opposition to the proposal doesn't cut cleanly along ideological lines -- and will hopefully send a strong signal to those backing the measure that this approach to quick-fix economic development is flawed in both principle and practice.

As someone who has been involved in such endorsement decisions, as former editor of The Gazette's editorial page, I know they aren't easy. There's tremendous pressure to conform with what the city's movers and shakers think is the right course of action, even, as in this case, when it's not only contrary to the proud (and unique in media circles) libertarian editorial tradition of Freedom Communications newspapers, but to common sense and prudent policy-making. And those pressures must have been particularly great on new publisher Steve Pope. He and Editorial Page Editor Wayne Laugesen deserve credit for withstanding the pressure, thinking the matter through carefully, and coming to the courageous and correct decision.

Voters will have the final say, of course. And it will be interesting to see whether the significant sums of money 1A supporters are spending, combined with a catchy but empty slogan, can carry them to victory, despite inferior arguments, no clear plan for how 1A funds will be spent and terrible timing (since area voters signaled just last fall that they're in no mood to pay more taxes). But stranger things have happened in politics, so we in the opposition will have to continue making our points and getting the word out.

Along those lines, I’ve been invited to participate in a televised forum on the ballot this coming Tuesday, March 17, co-hosted by KOAA and The Gazette. It’s in the Carnegie Reading Room of the Penrose Library downtown, and runs from 11:00 to 11:50 a.m.. I believe it will be televised live, and replayed in the days following.

Keep coming back to Local Liberty Online for all the latest developments.

Went downtown today for the St. Paddy's Day Parade, hoping, as a good Irishman, to mix pleasure with a little politicking. And a dedicated contingent of 1A opponents were able to get a lot of information into a lot of hands along the parade route (thank you, volunteers). I found a lot of people receptive to our message.

They could relate when I explained that the city was trying to amass a $51 million pot of gold, promising prosperity for all -- JobsNow!!! -- at the end of the rainbow. But most were less charmed when I told them the pot of gold will be filled with their property taxes, between now and 2025. Most focused a little more closely, and tucked the flyer in a pocket for future reference, when I brought up that second part.

It was a delightful day to be downtown, all in all, but one that ended on an off note for me and a lot of other people, I'm afraid.

When I returned to my car, which was four or five blocks off Tejon, and parked in a metered space, there sat that little white envelope, stuffed with a parking ticket, because I hadn't bothered to make the return trek, every 2 hours, to keep feeding the bulldog. Given that this was a special event, and an opportunity to showcase downtown for Springs residents who may not frequent the area, I didn't obsess about the meter. Surely the city would cut people some slack, I thought, as an act of good will toward parade-goers. The city is always touting downtown; surely it wouldn't try to turn parade day into a revenue-raising opportunity.

But no slack will be cut anyone when revenues are down, apparently, so the ticket-writers were out in force, trying to squeeze every bit of green -- cash, that is -- out of the public.

Happy St. Pat-Down Day, everyone. Thanks for visiting downtown Colorado Springs.

Now please pay your parking ticket.

Backers of issue 1A try to paint opponents of the measure as a bunch of right wing government-bashers, who oppose it in purely ideological grounds. But a gaping hole was blown in that argument today, when the Colorado Springs Independent – which leans to the left —also recommended a “no” vote on 1A.

The Indy made its own thoughtful case for opposing 1A. And its reasons differ in many respects from our reasons. But the critical thing this points out is that concerns about 1A cross ideological lines, and have more to do with the measure’s terrible timing, flawed premise and lack of a detailed plan than anything else. 1A is wrong on principle, in our opinion. But many of the strongest arguments against it are of a practical nature.

Few people are so blinded by ideology that they can’t see eye-to-eye when a proposal defies common sense. That’s why the right, left and center can all oppose 1A.

The city's parks department got exactly what it wanted earlier this month, when it threatened to not turn on the popular Uncle Wilber fountain this summer as a result of -- what else? -- budget cuts. The ploy generated headlines and drew attention to the plight of the poor, beleaguered parks department, just as city government insiders intended. And a generous private citizen, Lyda Hill, moved to action by the thought of all those disappointed (and dry) kids, stepped forward to fund the fountain start-up.

One can't help but be awed by Hill's generosity and civic-mindedness -- just as one can't help but feel that she was taken advantage of by city officials, who have learned to use our parks as pressure points, and pawns, in their efforts to shame the public into voting for tax increases. The county tried this last year, leading up to the vote on a proposed sales tax increase, suggesting that parks might have to be sold off if the voters didn't come through with more cash. But it was all a bluff -- as the city's threat to shut off Uncle Wilber was almost certainly a bluff.

Now the parks department has ginned up another crisis, using another popular fountain as a pawn; the Julie Penrose Fountain in America the Beautiful Park. Having discovered that threatening to leave a fountain dry will bring benefactors out of the woodwork, the parks department is now demanding that citizens pay up, or it won't turn the fountain on.

Reports today's Gazette:

"First it was Wilber; now Julie's facing the shut-off valve.

The Julie Penrose Fountain at America the Beautiful Park will stay dry unless the community pitches in 2.5 million pennies.

"At this point in time, it is not scheduled to be turned on," said Paul Butcher, Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services director. "We need to get a critical mass of funding."

Hopefully, it will be in dollars, but pennies are welcome.

He said $25,000 is needed by early May to keep the fountain going at full strength all summer.

A week ago, when Uncle Wilber in Acacia Park faced the same fate, local philanthropist Lyda Hill's Hill Foundation gave a $25,000 check to the city."

This is, for lack of a getter word, a shakedown. And such shakedowns will probably continue now that the parks department – which is continually adding new acreage to a fiefdom it can’t afford to maintain – has discovered that be can extract “donations” from less cynical types, by holding playgrounds hostage.

Maybe the city next will start posting sentries at area jungle-gyms, charging kids a nickel to use them.

Nice to see that El Paso County is undertaking a review of its permitting fees and land use rules, in deference to builders and developers hurt by a slumping housing market. "The county said in a release that the proposals are intended to reduce barriers to business and provide efficient, cost-effective service to land-use applicants," reports the Gazette.

But why does it take an economic crisis to put some momentum behind regulatory reform at the local level? Isn't that something local governments should be constantly attending to, even when economic times are good, if we want to maintain an optimum business climate in the Pikes Peak region? The county seems to be saying that making builders jump through hoops is acceptable practice, until the economy takes a dive. And it's that sort of complacent, cavalier attitude toward the business climate that contributes to our local economic woes.

This is one of my major beefs with the folks backing ballot issue 1A.

There is obviously a lot more that local governments and business groups could and should be doing to clear way barriers to job creation and expansion, as this news story illustrates. But instead of doing the blocking and tackling required to get these nuts-and-bolts changes made, and instead of attending to these issues consistently over time, they now want to throw a hail Mary pass called 1A, by using taxpayer money for "job creation."

You might be able to win a few games throwing a hail Mary. But the most consistent winners do it by mastering the fundamentals -- by executing the blocking and tackling of economic development. Before we add a hail Mary to the city's playbook, shouldn't we first insist that they work on getting the fundamentals right?

Vote against 1A -- and insist that local governments, and local business leaders, steer clear of expensive shortcuts and get back to the business climate basics.

Respected local economist Dr. Paul Prentice has a letter in today's Gazette, objecting to what he thinks was biased headlining on Saturday's report about 1A. Here's the letter:

Headline spun jobs issue

There goes The Gazette again, disguising opinion as news. The headline, "Item would aid economic development," in Saturday's paper was nothing but opinion disguised as news.

Raising taxes from the private sector in order to spend it on the private sector cannot create jobs, it can merely move them around. Can you fill a swimming pool by taking water from one end and pouring it into the other end? I think not.

A more truthful headline would have been, "Supporters of 1A believe it would aid economic development, but others disagree."

Furthermore, the jobs taken from the private sector in taxes would be replaced by jobs chosen by the public sector through political spending. Do we actually believe the City Council has the wisdom and expertise to decide just what jobs it should create? Again, I think not. Vote no on 1A.

Paul Prentice, Ph.D., Colorado Springs

I too thought the headline was unfortunate, because the story was otherwise fair and accurate. But as someone who has worked in the business, and understands how disconnects can sometimes occur in what is very much a collaborative process, executed under deadline pressures -- and as someone who has flubbed a headline or two myself over the years -- I'm probably a little more forgiving than Prentice is.

At least this time.

The on-line Gazette carries a letter today from Douglas Bruce on ballot issue 1A, responding to a write-up that ran Saturday. Bruce is probably most effective when addressing the perennial debate about what constitutes a "tax increase":

"The story notes a proponent says 1A is free - i.e. "without raising taxes." Of course, 1A is a tax increase - $3.2 million yearly for 16 years is more than $51 million, plus future inflation. The money coming from for this corporate welfare comes only from our pockets.

We will pay $51 million more if 1A passes than if it loses. That's a tax hike in any honest person's book."

Here's the way we addressed the same issue in a point-by-point rebuttal of pro-1A statements and claims posted yesterday in our "Special Reports" section:

"If you are a homeowner entitled to, and expecting, a decrease in your property tax, and that tax is extended until 2025, you will be paying more taxes than you would have been if the .665 mill levy is allowed to sunset. Your rate of taxation hasn’t increased, but you are paying more in taxes than you otherwise would have. Reasonable people might call that a tax increase. How can you trust the people backing 1A if they have to resort to semantic gymnastics to sell their proposal? Their plan will take more than $50 million from taxpayers and put it in the pockets of City Hall’s hand-picked beneficiaries. If you want to keep your money, vote against 1A."

For a more complete debunking of pro-1A claims and statements, please see "1A, Point by Point," on the front page.

The government doesn't do anything else efficiently: why would we think it can "create jobs" on the cheap?

A news report in today's Las Vegas Sun might be an eye-opener for those who believe that government economic stimulus efforts -- whether at the federal, state or local level -- can consistently be counted on to offer a good "return on investment."

"Nevada has handed out tax incentives worth an estimated $45 million to lure solar and geothermal projects to Nevada over the past four years.

So far, the state has received in return promises that the projects’ developers will create 89 permanent jobs.

It’s a number so small that some lawmakers are questioning whether taxpayers are getting a good return on their investment in the incentives."

That works out to around half a million dollars -- $500,000 -- in "incentives" paid out for each permanent job created, so far. And while supporters of continuing the program argue that the number of jobs created is only one measure of its overall economic impact, this also illustrated the fact that taxpayer-funded job creation doesn't come cheap, or guarantee that the promised jobs will materialize on que.

Incentive recipients include:

According to the Commission on Economic Development, the Southern Nevada projects are:

"• Nevada Solar One, a solar thermal plant in Boulder City. The company promised 28 permanent jobs with an average wage of $19.61 an hour. On its $106 million investment, the project got $15.4 million in tax abatements over 10 years.

• El Dorado Energy, the Boulder City project that promised to hire one person at an average wage of $21.63 an hour. Its tax abatements on a $97.5 million investment are $3 million.

• Powerlight Corp./SunPower, which built a photovoltaic project at Nellis Air Force Base. They promised one permanent employee at $21.15 an hour. On their $98 million investment, they will receive a $9.3 million rebate."

Nevada tries to hold incentive recipients accountable for performance -- something the backers of ballot issue 1A also promise to do -- but that's proven to be tricky.

"The Nevada Taxation Department is required to audit companies after two years and again after five years. If auditors find there is not “substantial compliance” with the agreement, the state can claim what it believes it is owed.

The judgment on whether a company has complied with its end of the bargain is “more subjective than objective,” according to Taxation Department Director Dino DiCianno. And audits won’t be released to the public unless the company appeals to the Tax Commission, he said.

Based on their effect so far, Townsend said the incentives should be “dialed back.”

“We can’t keep giving it away here,” he said."

But "giving it way" today for unenforceable promises of jobs tomorrow is what the "incentives game" is all about -- which is why it's a game Colorado Springs just shouldn't play.

When the Rocky Mountain News went under several weeks back, only a handful of its talented staff could be taken in by an erstwhile rival, The Denver Post. I was glad to learn that former Rocky Editorial Page Editor Vincent Carroll was one of them.

Not only would an important voice in Denver media not be silenced, I thought, but this would bring more balance to the Post's opinion page, which still leans too far left for my tastes, despite the hiring a few years back of the very talented David Harsanyi. It's just unfortunate Carroll will only be a columnist, and not sit on the editorial board, because that's where the Post -- which isn't The New York Times, to be sure -- could use his common-sense conservatism (I apologize if he prefers the libertarian label).

Carroll's editorial pages were better than the Post's, in my humble opinion, and not just because they leaned more to my side of the ideological spectrum, or because they featured the work of the great Pete Blake. Vince's personal columns were for me a must-read: They could always be counted on to make clear, substantive, well-argued and well-aimed observations about the Colorado scene. And his interests mirror my own, making it feel at times like he was reading my mind (and beating me to the punch on picking up on something).

He hasn't missed a step since moving to The Post, as today's column shows.

The first half of Carroll's piece highlights one of many oddities about Obamanomics -- that the president and his top aides seem to think any and every American job is worth "saving," except jobs in the one sector of the American economy that actually generates real value and real jobs, and is indispensable to our economic strength -- the energy sector. There the president seems to be making war on American jobs.

“Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama grandly told the nation that during "every moment of economic upheaval" in the past, the government "created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive."

But what about old businesses, you might wonder. Isn't their health of equal importance?
Apparently not. Take the energy industry, which the president identified as one of the three keys to our economic future. The recovery plan actually "begins with energy," he declared.

In fact, his administration's job destruction plan begins with energy. At the very moment Obama is poised to direct waves of subsidies into forms of renewable energy that account for a minuscule slice of the nation's electricity, he would strip oil and natural gas producers of incentives to drill.

New jobs in green energy could easily be engulfed by jobs lost in domestic oil and gas production.”

Carroll then takes up a topic near and dear to my heart: the madness of the Endangered Species Act. And here he echoes things I've written about Colorado’s regrettable experiment with the Canada lynx:

“Will a 3-foot-long cat become for this state the guest who takes over the family room — forever?

"A new lynx conservation plan could be a factor in whether Breckenridge Ski Resort will be allowed to expand onto Peak 6," the Summit Daily News reports. The lynx is a "threatened" species, you see, so any use of its habitat is a minefield.

At the moment, the Forest Service is merely studying the area around Peak 6 before it decides how to rule. That would be routine, except for one thing: The lynx in question are newcomers. They're guests we invited here between 1999 and 2006, importing them from Alaska and Canada in an attempt to restore the creatures to the southernmost reach of their original range.

Biologists doubt that lynx were ever plentiful in Colorado, as sightings were rare even in the state's early days. But since the release of the lynx a decade ago, they seem to have flourished.

Some of us predicted what is happening now. Putting lynx in the wild is fine, we warned, but the state should proceed only if the federal government pledges that the species will not be used to restrict land uses. Listing the lynx as "experimental" would have done the trick, but the state didn't even seek that status until after the cats were here. Naturally, the feds said no.

The lesson is clear for the next "re-introduction" of a species (wolves? wolverines?). Before we transport them here, first ensure that their rights won't trump ours.”

The lesson seems clear -- but is apparently lost on those who recently launched a lynx-like recolonization effort at Fort Carson with the black-footed ferret, which I’ve commented on here and here. If the Carson colony flourishes, it's only a matter of time before the presence of the animals is used by gang green to argue for training restrictions at the facility. Where will Fort Carson and Colorado Springs be then?

Federal stimulus funds are beginning to trickle down to Colorado Springs, according to today's Gazette, spurring a debate about how to get the most bang for the bucks, even as City Hall and backers of issue 1A are pushing for "son of stimulus" here in Colorado Springs, which was also written-up in today's Gazette.

Both efforts are based on a sketchy premise -- that government priming of the pump with taxpayer money is the only way to jump-start the economy -- since few experts can agree on exactly what the problem is, and if government spending were really the secret to economic success, America would never suffer an economic downturn. Taking money out of the economy with one hand -- in higher taxes or more government borrowing -- in order to pour it back into the economy with the other -- at the discretion of politicians whose job creation acumen is questionable -- seems like a fool's errand to me. But that's not the main point today.

Today's question is: why doesn't the city hold off on "son of stimulus" -- 1A -- until we have time to determine whether the funds flowing to the region as a part of "papa stimulus" have beneficial effects. If federal funds succeed in "stimulating" the local economy, we don't need to tax local folks an extra $50 million over the next 16 years to duplicate the effort (which they're also paying for, just as an aside). And if -- as I suspect and predict -- the federal funds coming in have a negligible impact, we'll have confirmation that such approaches don't work well for improving our long-term economic prospect -- and we'll be grateful that we didn't jump on the "stimulus" bandwagon at the local level.

Let's watch what happens with the federal stimulus funds, in short, before we take the risky and unprecedented step of trying stimulus lite locally.

If federal stimulus funds really succeed in lifting all boats, backers of 1A will have a stronger case to present to voters than they do now. They can come back and try again, with something more than vague promises to sell the voters. And in the meantime they can come up with an actual plan -- something they're lacking right now.

One stimulus at a time, please. Many of us taxpayers are feeling overstimulated.

For years we've been hearing the mantra that City Council is horribly overworked and embarrassingly underpaid, so it’s odd, not to mention inconsistent, that members now seem so eager to shoulder a weighty new responsibility -- of speculating with and "investing" the $50 million in “jobs creation” funds that will be at their disposal if issue 1A is approved.

Deciding how best to distribute these millions – weighing out which proposals and beneficiaries have merit, and picking winners from losers among all the businesses that come asking for help -- will be a tough and time-consuming task, for part-time council people who already have their hands full. This presumably will mean more meetings; more public hearings; more briefing papers; more time on the job; more decisions to make -- and more heat from the public and press when their “investments” are controversial or go bad. All this with no increase in pay or reduction in existing workload.

In addition to becoming experts in utility operations and hospital operations and parking garage operations and airport operations, they’ll have to start wearing the hats of wheeler-dealer venture capitalists, betting that a few hundred thousand “invested” here and a few hundred thousand “invested” there will pan out as promised – a role few on council have experience with. And as they spread themselves even thinner, their ability to focus on any one task may suffer. The pressures of the job will only grow, while the pay most likely stays the same.

I’m poking a little fun, of course. But there’s a serious subtext to today's message. Council members have made it loud and clear over the years that they have a tough job, which demands too much and pays too little. Yet not a word about the workload issue was heard when seven of the nine voted to potentially add to the job, and significantly expand their roles and responsibilities, by putting 1A on the ballot, which if approved will give them unprecedented new powers.

This seems like a textbook case of biting off more than you can chew.

I think it’s unfair and unwise to place this additional burden on their shoulders, when we’ve been hearing for years what a hard job they have. Let’s give our overworked City Council a break -- by voting against 1A.

City and county officials are masterful when it comes to knowing what pressure points to push when they want to send a message to the public that they need more revenues. The threatened closure of parks is a particularly popular ploy, and seems almost as effective in rousing the squeaky wheels as threatening the shutdown of senior centers or suggesting that criminals will run wild if a few police positions are nixed.

But in holding Uncle Wilber hostage -- effectively punishing kids as a way of sending a message to their skinflint parents -- the city's parks department has taken the tactic to new lows.

Today's Gazette reports that the popular Uncle Wilber Fountain in Acacia Park Reports may soon fall victim to -- what else? -- budget cuts. "Wilber is a complicated piece of machinery and a one-of-its-kind in the country. It takes anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 a year for startup," Parks director Paul Butcher told The Gazette. "That's generally what we spend each summer to make sure we get a good summer out of it. We don't have that amount to put into it." Butcher also indicated that water-frolickers will have to get wet at their own risk this summer, as a result of budget constraints. "We won't have the pool attendants, and again it's because of funding," he said.

They can't keep up with the maintenance of a popular park attraction in the hub of downtown. But Butcher and his department do have a spare $1 million with which to purchase White Acres, adding 43 new acres to the city's ever-expanding inventory of parks and open spaces. This situation seems to hand ammunition to those who argue that a greater share of the city's trails and open space tax -- TOPS -- should be used for the care and maintenance of existing parks, and hope to change the funding formula by passing ballot issue 1C.

And maybe that's exactly what holding Uncle Wilbur hostage is meant to do.

The Colorado Springs Gazette yesterday reported something that many Coloradans understand anecdotally, but may lack the hard evidence to prove in an empirical way: that this state is still a pretty good place to live if you're the liberty-loving sort.

According to "Freedom in the 50 States," a study by the Mercatus Center at Virginia's George Mason University, Colorado ranks second nationally in terms of the "economic and personal freedom" enjoyed by residents, having barely been edged out for top spot by New Hampshire. Read the entire report here.

Explains The Gazette:

"William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens, co-authors of the George Mason report, adhere strictly to the idea that adults "should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others."

"The fewer regulations the better, in our view," Sorens said.

Lower taxes, too, are better in their eyes.

The authors take a dim view of seat belt laws, campaign finance limits, smoking bans, gun-control laws, restrictions on gambling and alcohol, and especially any attempt to regulate education.

Colorado scored third highest in the economic-freedom ranking and 15th on personal freedom."

It's a high honor, in my view; as important as almost any the state could receive. It should be trumpeted by state officials, much as they tout our natural grandeur or highly-educated workforce, making this state a national magnet for organizations, businesses and individuals who understand that political and economic liberty are still key to unlocking the American dream.

But this ranking can't be taken for granted, and could even be improved upon, which is why this website and its parent organization, Local Liberty Action, exist. Our mission is to ensure that the Pikes Peak region remains the standard bearer for liberty in the freest state in the union. And that effort starts here, at the local level.

If we embrace this ranking as a virtue to be cultivated, rather than an inheritance to be squandered, Colorado could make itself a safe haven and sanctuary for refugees fleeing states that embrace command and control models. We'll remain true to the founding ideals, while they stray. We'll flourish, while they wither on the vine. We'll prosper, while they stagnate. And if these findings are to be believed – and we can all quibble with the criteria used in such ratings – it seems we already have a solid foundation on which to construct such a vision.

Colorado’s still reasonably free, relative to many states, where the Spirit of 76 has been all but smothered under extreme taxation, government expansion and rules and regulations regimentation. But that's threatened, as the Californianized "new West" supplants the "old West,” and a formerly red state turns deep hues of blue.

No one put it better that Jefferson did, when he (purportedly) wrote: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

So let’s stay vigilant out there.

It's been over a week since I handed the questions below to Classic Homes CEO Doug Stimple during a Feb. 21 KVOR radio debate on Question 1A. He took the list, looked the questions over, said they seemed reasonable and promised to get answers for me. I'm still waiting to hear back.

These aren't trick, or even tricky, questions. They're just the first ones that sprang to mind when I began thinking the matter through. And they shouldn't take this long to answer, if the backers of 1A had a plan of action to present, as opposed to vague and open-ended promises and slogans. They're the sorts of questions I think most voters would want addressed before committing more than $50 million in future property taxes to this venture.

A refusal to provide answers suggests that backers of 1A either 1.) haven't really thought the details through, 2.) need a few more weeks to scrape together a plan, or 3) arrogantly believe that they can get their hands on the money, and win over voters, simply by repeating the mantra, "jobs, jobs, jobs."

Tomorrow I'll be sending the questions to the seven members of City Council who voted to put the measure on the ballot, on the assumption that they wouldn't have done so without a clear idea of how this will work in practice. I'll post their responses here as they come back to me.

The question the JobsNow folks need to answer, in short, is jobs how? But so far, there's been a deafening silence.

Here, once again, are the questions, for your consideration. Or send members of City Council some of your own.

1.) What criteria will be used for vetting proposals and recipients?

Is it in writing somewhere?

If not, why not?

2.) What guidelines are there for determining appropriate versus inappropriate uses for these funds?

3.) Who will be charged with writing and approving such criteria?

Will the public have a voice in the process?

How will that work?

4.) Will an independent annual report be published, indicating progress and measurable outcomes?

Who will research, write, publish and pay for that report?

How much staff work will be required?

Will city staff be involved?

5.) Who will handle negotiations between the city and potential recipients?

6.) Will those deliberations be subject to open meeting and open records laws?

7.) How do backers of the proposal define “primary job” -- and are those the only jobs eligible for assistance? Are all jobs created equal, in the eyes of the committee?

8.) Will fund recipients be subject to audit?

Who will pay for, and conduct, auditing and oversight?

9.) Will committee decisions be subject to legal or administrative challenge, by disappointed companies that didn’t get the help they sought?

How will that work?

10.) Who will research and vet the proposals and prospects?

Will this be done independently, or will city staff be involved?

11.) What kind of staff or consulting support will the committee need?

Who will pay for that?

12.) What recourse do taxpayers have if their money is squandered or misspent, of if fraud occurs?

13.) Will there be written, legally-enforceable agreements between the city and the recipient.

What is the legal basis for such agreements?

Could this lead to litigation?

Who will handle and fund any legal work involved?

14.) What if a recipient violates the conditions of that agreement?

Who will investigate and adjudicate such matters?

Who will enforce any sanctions that are brought?

Can the city be sued in such cases?

15.) Has the city researched the legal or liability risks involved?

If not, why not?

If so, what were its findings?

16.) What influence, if any, will citizens have in advance of an expenditure being approved? Will there be a hearing and public comments taken before City Council can act on a proposal?

How will this fit in with regular City Council business?

17.) Could this money be used to pay for City Council or advisory committee members to go on “business development” trips, to conventions or on “fact finding” missions?

18.) Can the city be challenged in court if it fails to live up to the terms of agreement? Who will pay to for dealing with administrative or legal appeals?

19.) Are there plans to get any return on investment, or repayment, aside from a promise to create jobs?

If not, why not?

20.) Will the program end when the economic downturn ends?

If not, why not?

What criteria will be used determine this?

21.) Will advisory committee members and City Council members be required to sign ethics statements, indicating that they will recuse themselves from deliberations or votes on matters in which they might have a conflict of interest?