Following Backlash, Jeffco Commissioners Drop Plan to Legislate Beltway

[Published April 26, 2012 in the Denver Post]

Last week I described the effort by Jefferson County’s Board of Commissioners to introduce legislation which would create an authority with “super eminent domain” powers to complete the beltway from northeast of Highway 36 though Jeffco and Golden to connect with C-470.

This Monday, that effort was killed by the Commissioners themselves, following quite a backlash from the public and from legislators who considered the proposal a massive overreach and an unwarranted gutting of long established local powers.

Commissioner Don Rosier told me at press-time (Tuesday) that the Governor and CDOT requested that they drop the proposal and return to the negotiating table.

Prior to this short-lived effort, the Commissioners had essentially given up on forcing a beltway though Golden and had created a public highway authority to secure private investors for a toll-road north of Golden connecting Highway 93 and Highway 128 but leaving gaps south through Golden and between Highway 128 and the beltway’s current end east of the Boulder Turnpike. (Nevertheless, the Commissioners and the highway authority continue to promote their toll road as “completing the beltway,” and the press has generally picked up on that inaccurate and lame phraseology.)

The proposed legislation was perceived by toll road critics (including myself) as a desperate last ditch effort to get the beltway completed, since negotiation with Golden to drop its opposition to the toll road had backfired and even led to Golden filing suit against the use of contaminated Rocky Flats land for part of the right-of-way.

An equally questionable strategy (already in place) for establishing the “privately funded” toll road has been the use of Jeffco Open Space funds (from sales tax revenue) to facilitate purchase of the 300-foot right-of-way though Rocky Flats. Here’s how it was explained to me Tuesday by Assistant County Administrator Kate Newman:

The County gave $1.225 million in general funds to the toll road authority, which put those funds into escrow to buy the 300-foot right-of-way. Meanwhile, the County put $5.1 million of Open Space funds into escrow as its contribution to the purchase of another parcel (Section 16) to be deeded over to US Fish & Wildlife, but that fully-funded transaction only closes when and if the authority closes on the right-of-way purchase. I wouldn’t be surprised if this comingling of purposes were to trigger another lawsuit, this time over the misuse of Open Space funds.

Jeffco Commissioners Ask Legislators to Create a Beltway Completion Authority With Unprecedents Powers

[Published April 19, 2012, in the Denver Post]

Democracy and due process are all good and fine, but they do have their limits, don’t they?  The three Jeffco Commissioners, fed up with Golden’s refusal to back down on its opposition to the toll road boondoggle north of town, have decided to ask the state legislature to do away with “home rule” cities’ ability to block projects within their city limits.

This is ironic, since the commissioners gave up years ago on pushing a beltway through Golden itself and merely tried to build a toll road connecting State Highway 93 with Highway 120 south of Flatirons Mall.  Having failed to bribe Golden to drop its opposition to that toll road, they have decided to get the legislature to pass a “beltway completion bill” that would not only order construction of the toll road but extend it through Golden itself.

Sen. Betty Boyd, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, has been identified as the “sponsor” of the bill, but the Senator’s secretary told me on Monday that she has not received a draft of the bill and “there is no such bill.”

Nevertheless, the full text of the non-existent bill, drafted by the Jeffco commissioners, has been released, and is even promoted in the county’s own employee newsletter, Frontline. You can find links to the bill and an interpretation of its impact on Colorado cities at www.JimSmithColumns.com.

This brash attempt to short circuit the democratic process is reminiscent of when Colorado’s two U.S. Senators passed a midnight bill without hearings which mandated construction of the “super-tower” on Lookout Mountain. Regardless of how you felt about the tower, it was shocking that two politicians could, in effect, say, “enough of this democratic crap, build the damn tower!” Our county commissioners are now trying to accomplish the same feat on the state level regarding their pet development scheme/beltway.

It couldn’t be clearer by now that completing the beltway has nothing to do with meeting transportation needs in the northwest quadrant.  CDOT’s own multi-million-dollar studies proved that.  Rather, the beltway effort has everything to do with lining the pockets of developers and those real estate professionals who will profit from their development.  If they succeed, we can look forward to the kind of sprawl that has overrun the other three quadrants of the metro area after their sections of the beltway were completed.

I emailed and called Sen. Boyd’s office asking the Senator for comment on the bill prior to deadline, but she never called me -- and still hasn't two days later.