UPDATE! Not a single commissioner of the Arvada Urban Renewal board has replied to this letter, nor has the non-Arvada-resident executive director of AURA.
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Re: Arvada Urban Renewal Authority Board of Commissioners meeting of Wednesday, May 3, 2017.
Arvada citizens are gradually losing the unique character of Olde Town -- in its place we are getting serious traffic issues on and near Wadsworth. We are on the way to multi-story "walls" of high density housing surrounding the entire area. Two major projects are complete and at least another two are in the Community Development ('Planning Department') pipeline.
We must send a strong message to Arvada City Council that it is time to put a stop to this inappropriate overdevelopment of our historic neighborhoods and original center of Arvada. These projects are not improving our city.
By signing this petition, you will be telling city council that enough is enough -- stop approving high density development in and around Olde Town immediately. Please respect and protect our great city.
It has all the aroma of boss politics and cronyism ... in Arvada elected municipal offices are non-partisan, but the reality is definitional of the political machine.
Political machine, in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state. Encyclopædia Britannica
Boss politics was on stark display at the May 2017 Arvada Urban Renewal Authority (AURA) Board of Commissioners meeting. As Mayor, Marc Williams appoints the seven members of that board, has appointed himself twice, and he even nominates all of the officers of the board. One of the AURA board members was his 2015 campaign co-chair and he has received campaign contributions from three of them -- including two maximum contributions.
This is important because there isn't any direct accountability by this agency and its board to the residents and taxpayers of Arvada, yet it promotes developments that affect all aspects of our quality of life in this city -- traffic, tax collections, property values, noise and air pollution, population density, free enterprise, etc.
Yes, this is the AURA Board of Commissioners that makes deals discounting millions of dollars worth of public land and gives away millions and millions of dollars of future tax revenues.
The Board of Commissioners regularly conducts secret, i.e., 'executive session' negotiations with developers and landowners. The board then approves agreements with the developers that all too often includes sweetheart land deals, and sales and property tax rebates worth millions and millions of dollars. Then later the city council -- including the mayor -- is supposed to sit in a quasi judicial (meaning impartial) setting when the proposed project comes up for a vote on the Preliminary Development Plan.
In Williams's case it is obviously pretty hard to be impartial when you've been neck deep in making the deal from the very beginning and when the members of the initiating/proposing board are your appointees and political supporters. (Williams has been called on this before; see Call for Arvada's Mayor to Disclose and Sorry Safeway ... "We're pursuing Wal-Mart")
And understand this ... there isn't any regular, official public input on projects being considered or proposed by AURA and its board. By the time the public becomes aware of the deals they have already been negotiated in secret and signed -- no public hearings, no publicly notified question-and-answers forums, no avenue for citizens to offer ideas or suggestions. Then they present things like the Trammell Crow and Hilton sweetheart land schemes and the tax giveaways as done deals.
This is not democratic; not accountable; not the actions of a truly representative government.
Which is why an AURA board of cronies run by a political machine is so wrong.
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The voice making all of the nominations is that of Williams: Arvada Urban Renewal Authority Board of Commissioners meeting of Wednesday, May 3, 2017.
Arvada Urban Renewal Authority Board of Commissioners
Fred Jacobsen, AURA Chair Principal, Sportline, Inc. Contribution to Williams campaign: $200 6-10-15
Alan Parker, AURA Vice Chair Co-Chair Williams 2015 Reelection Campaign Contribution to Williams campaign: $500 6-3-15; $250 8-13-15; Total $750
Tony Cline, AURA Treasurer Managing Broker, Cliffdwellers Real Estate
Michelle DeLaria, AURA Commissioner Scientist, Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment
Sue Dolan, AURA Commissioner
Moni Piz Wilson, AURA Commissioner President, Grandma’s Frozen Noodles Contribution to Williams campaign: $750 8-13-15
Marc Williams, Arvada Mayor, City Council Member Representative Attorney, Helm, Less & Williams, LLP
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