Winners and Losers in Lake County: Private Investors vs Taxpayers
Today we’ll discuss the not so sexy world of taxes, rather, the diversion of your hard-earned tax dollars and the ever-present quest for more from you. Please bear with me, before you reveal that deer in the headlights look, there’s some things you may not be aware of.
Leadville, Lake County has fallen victim to co-conspirators where winners and losers are chosen. I’ll let you in on a little secret: we the people are not the chosen winners. Leadville Urban Renewal Authority (LURA) was created in 2017 with the specified purpose of preserving historic buildings within the City of Leadville; however, according to an article in the Herald Democrat on November 2, 2017, a more precise objective is “to reduce, eliminate and prevent the spread of blight and to stimulate growth and investment within the plan boundaries.” https://www.leadvilleherald.com/news/article_ef2961d2-c009-11e7-a51b-2fe22efebf4f.html
While at first glance, the designation of blight seems to be a pretty serious matter and the verbiage itself seems reasonable, digging deeper reveals the term “blight” is a jargon term used in redevelopment that can be employed to further goals of generating higher tax revenue, sometimes by replacing lesser revenue generating taxpayers through the use of eminent domain. While you may believe it is a stretch to concern oneself with the threat of eminent domain, it is worth noting that the 2005 Supreme Court decision of Kelo vs City of New London, Connecticut set precedent for just that very act. Blight was no longer necessary to create a redevelopment project area; SCOTUS shockingly agreed that if the city thought it could make more tax revenue by taking your property through eminent domain and then selling it to an entity capable of producing greater tax revenue, they could do it.
As if that is not bad enough, you may be contributing to this egregious violation through the contribution of your own tax dollars. The Leadville Urban Renewal Authority seeks to implement Tax Increment Financing (TIF) which is tax revenue earmarked from a specific area and is then diverted from a taxing agency’s coffers to the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) to then help finance future public improvements and PRIVATE investment projects, thus choosing winners. Check out this screenshot of a Wikipedia definition of TIF.
Taxing districts including the City of Leadville, Lake County, Leadville Sanitation District, Colorado Mountain College (CMC), Lake County School District (LCSD) and St. Vincent Hospital all agreed to be part of the Leadville Urban Renewal Authority (LURA). They allowed the portion of their tax revenue that they would have received from Leadville Railyard property owners and others within the boundary area to be reallocated to LURA. Upon completion of the Leadville Railyard, the actual value is estimated to be $62 million with an assessed value of $8.7 million that will be diverted from entities like the hospital and school district. Why would these entities agree to say goodbye to millions worth of taxpayer revenue? PowerPoint Presentation (leadville-co.gov) (page 5)
Proponents of TIFs claim that public financing for redevelopment is accomplished without raising taxes, but when a portion of an entity’s revenue is taken from them and they have to resort to ballot initiatives requesting more tax dollars from the people, then it most certainly is a tax hike.
Lake County School District is now preparing to ask voters this November for a mill levy override, possibly as much as a 27% increase, in yet another ballot measure destined to bleed taxpayers dry. Oh, what’s that? You say you’re a renter and it does not affect you because you are not a property owner? Fear not, these taxes will be passed on to you through increased rent. The quest for government mandated affordable housing will produce the exact opposite it claims as its goal to solve. More taxation leads to higher rents. It seems that in most cases, the very problem governments purport to solve, they actually caused. Read up on the Hegelian Dialectic. Problem. Reaction. Solution.
But I digress. Do you taxpayers agree to this endless taxation? Does it make any sense? Why doesn’t Lake County School District divest themselves from this LURA agreement, especially since their portion has not yet been decided, and reallocate their own funds where it’s needed? Are there strong-armed tactics at play? Maybe, they, like the other taxing entities, believe that they will always have the taxpayer to fall back on, the gullible taxpayer that seldom vetoes a tax increase. (Last year’s ballot measure excepted.) What else is going on in Lake County that is not apparent on the surface? Well, true to Leadville’s mining heritage, more digging is required to find the gold.
Here's another interesting chart that details potential future revenue diversion to LURA: PowerPoint Presentation (leadville-co.gov) (page 40)
According to an article in the Leadville Herald dated August 19, 2020, LURA and Leadville City Council approved an agreement between the city and High Country Developers that the city will subsidize up to $4 million of the Railyard Development, again choosing winners, a practice aligned with corporatocracy. https://www.leadvilleherald.com/article_9dab8d60-e227-11ea-802d-1b0ad75a7e42.html
It is time to get involved, do your research and ask the hard questions. You will discover a leviathan of corruption interwoven into almost every aspect of governance, all at the expense of YOU, the hard-working Lake County taxpayer. Just last year alone, many of you were on the receiving end of 60-70% property tax hikes, some even more. Have you forgotten how badly that hurt? You think the property taxes are bad now? Just wait until next year when you receive your property valuation. The revenue must meet the ever-growing budget; the budget need not be constrained by the revenue. They can and are taxing us into oblivion. It seems none of them have learned anything from American history. (Probably because it’s not taught anymore, forsaken for DEI propaganda.)
If you want more money in your wallet, rather than in the waste baskets of local government coffers or lining the pockets of chosen developers, you had better start investigating where your money is really going and who is really benefitting, or you will face increasing theft by taxation, possible land grabs, and ultimately impoverishment leaving you no choice but to be herded into smart cities’ shipping container type housing like you see being assembled like Legos here in the Ville. If you want Leadville, Lake County to thrive it should be top priority to follow county and city government, hold the politicians accountable, and see just how well your tax dollars have been managed: in our case NOT at all!
Leadville Town Crier