Peter Blake / The Complete Colorado

How much is one vote worth? If it’s the governor’s, it’s either 46 cents or tens — maybe hundreds — of thousands of dollars.

Two controversial bills got the 33 and 18 votes they needed to pass the House and Senate, despite intense lobbying against them. Now the opponents are working just as hard to get the one last vote — or veto — they need to kill the bills: Gov. John Hickenlooper’s.

One group is spending a ton of money, the other not so much.

Senate Bill 25 would authorize a collective bargaining process for firefighters in Colorado’s 260-plus cities and towns, even those designated home-rule. It is being fought by the Colorado Municipal League and many of its member cities. A similar bill was vetoed by former Gov. Bill Ritter four years ago, and the hostility he got from labor was one reason he didn’t run for re-election in 2010.

Senate Bill 252 would require rural electric cooperatives to boost the energy they produce from renewable sources to 20 percent from the current 10 percent by 2020. As introduced the quota was 25 percent but it was lowered during the process. Tri-State Generation & Transmission, which supplies 18 of the state’s rural electric associations (REAs) with power, calls the bill a “war on rural Colorado.” But urban, investor-owned utilities like Xcel Energy must provide 30 percent renewables.

The municipal league’s arguments are set out in a five-page letter it sent to Hickenlooper on May 8, the last day of the session. It claims, among other things, that the bill infringes on the powers guaranteed to home-rule municipalities by Article XX of the state constitution.

Tri-State also wrote a letter to the governor. But apparently afraid it might not be delivered, it also paid to have it published as full-page advertisements in The Denver Post, Greeley Tribune, Colorado Springs Gazette, Pueblo Chieftain, Grand Junction Sentinel and Durango Herald. It has also bought television ads urging Hickenlooper to veto the bill, which it claims would cost REA customers “billions” over a period of years.

Just how much have Tri-State and its allies spent on their campaign to win one vote? “We’re not disclosing that information yet,” said spokesman Lee Boughey. Presumably it is less than the “billions” it claims the bill will cost.

Veteran political operatives like Katy Atkinson could recall no similar campaign waged so publicly, and so expensively, to gain a veto. What’s more, the newspaper ads didn’t even call on readers to lobby the governor themselves. “If there’s not a call to action, that really is weird,” said Atkinson.

Veto solicitations are usually waged by letter and by personal visits — which have also been made.

We’ll soon discover whether the Big Spenders or the Non-Spenders get their way. It could be both, it could be neither. The governor must act before June 7. …read full column

Veteran Colorado political columnist Peter Blake writes weekly on state and local issues for The Complete Colorado.

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Peter Blake / The Complete Colorado

Credit cards and computers make it possible for you to do really important things privately and without human intervention — like getting cash from an ATM even when you’re traveling abroad.

The possibility of fraud is so low the banks figure it’s worth the risk.

Shouldn’t you then be able to handle relatively trivial matters the same way — like casting your vote in an election involving thousands or even millions?

Apparently not. The possibility of fraud must be too high. Instead, Colorado is determined to turn back the clock and rely increasingly on — snail mail!

The U.S. Postal Service is quickly going the way of newspapers. It’s used mainly for writing the Christmas thank-you note to the great-grandma who has no computer, or for paying bills by a few old fogies who haven’t turned that chore over to the bank. Other than that, it’s the U.S. Catalog Delivery Service. It’s basically bankrupt — or will be soon unless bailed out by Congress. …read full column

Veteran Colorado political columnist Peter Blake writes weekly on state and local issues for The Complete Colorado.

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Sunana Batra / Colorado Public Advocate

As the city of Longmont gets ready to forge ahead with a municipally-owned broadband program that will compete for customers in the marketplace, critics are pointing to parallels with similar, government-run ventures that ran off the rails in other communities—and used the same consultants now shepherding Longmont’s project.

Broadband consultant Uptown Services LLC, hired last year by Longmont City Hall for $24,995 to write a business plan for building out and marketing the city’s broadband fiber-optic network, also has provided business plans and feasibility studies for several cities of similar size and demographics that, like Longmont, run their own public utilities. The clients have included Palo Alto and Alameda, Calif., and Provo, Utah.

Bond holders are now suing the city of Alameda after it was driven to sell its $35 million network for 50 cents on the dollar.  Provo, which sank $39 million into its public-private broadband network, recently negotiated a deal to sell it off for $1. And Palo Alto pulled the plug after a city-wide survey showed most residents were not OK with the financial outlay needed to make the system economically viable.

Neil Shaw, one of Colorado-based Uptown’s principals, declined comment on the Longmont project and referred questions to City Hall.

Meanwhile, Vince Jordan—who became the $106,152-a-year broadband services manager for city-owned Longmont Power & Communications in July 2012 and is leading the drive behind the broadband project—said he and his wife no longer have any financial stake in RidgeviewTel, a private-sector company that offers city-wide Wi-Fi services to residences and businesses in Longmont. The company, which both competes and does business with the city, was co-founded by Jordan in 2004. He served as CEO up until June 2011 while his wife, Melinda Jordan, served as director of operations until that same time.

Jordan confirmed Ridgeview Tel and the city have had a vendor-customer relationship on both sides but that the city has contracts with a number of companies that lease dark fiber from the city network.

“RidgeviewTel is one customer as is Reliance Globalcom, EAGLE-NET, Unite Private Networks, Longmont United Hospital, Boulder County and others,” Jordan said.

Uptown is scheduled to present its much-awaited business plan to the Longmont City Council at its regular meeting Tuesday. City officials have refused a request by the Colorado Public Advocate to disclose any preliminary drafts of the plan as well as any financial documents or letters or emails concerning the plan. Assistant City Attorney  Jeff Friedland contended all such documents are regarded as “work product” prior to the plan’s public release and as such are exempt from disclosure under the Colorado Open Records Act.

This week, however, the city did post a PowerPoint presentation outlining the consultants’ findings. The document, among other things, states that capital costs for building out the city’s proposed expansion of its current fiber-optic network will run over $37 million in the first five years. Revenue earned from customers of the project, meanwhile, is projected to lag behind expenses for at least the first three years, keeping the project in the red for that time, according to the document.

Longmont voters gave the city the go-ahead in November 2011 to develop its years-old fiber-optic network in hopes of offering lower-cost, high-speed Net access throughout the community alongside industry heavyweights like Comcast and CenturyLink. The specifics of what exactly the reach of the city’s broadband service would look like, how much it would cost, or whether it even is feasible, have been awaiting the consultants’ input.

Several broadband-market experts say to beware promotional hype used to sell such publicly-run projects, especially when the bold promises and rosy scenarios come from those who stand to make money on the ventures.

“Consulting firms often give municipalities the most optimistic picture possible,” said Steven Titch, a telecommunications policy analyst at the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation.

“When it comes to analyzing competitors, do the consultants limit discussion to local phone and cable-TV companies, or do they include satellite and IP-based video-on-demand providers such as Netflix?” Titch added.

Ray Gifford, a veteran Denver attorney specializing in utilities regulation and a former Chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, said that over the last decade a cottage industry has arisen out of municipal-broadband consulting.

“There are a bunch of legal and engineering consultants who hang out in the halls of the American Public Power Association and pitch these broadband dreams,” Gifford said. “Around 2007-2008, they came through Colorado. It’s the same consultants that pop up on almost every one of these projects.”

Municipal leaders in Palo Alto saw the writing on the wall and, after three separate studies, including one by Uptown Services, decided to abandon efforts to expand the city’s existing 41-mile dark-fiber ring.  In the final study, city leaders were particularly mindful of what happened in Alameda, a city similar to Palo Alto with a municipally-owned public utility, Alameda Power & Telecom.

Alameda had gone full-speed head with municipal broadband following projections by Uptown Services. Yet, the city was eventually cornered into selling its network to its primary competitor, Comcast, after its project failed to meet “take rate,” or market-share projections, leaving bond holders holding the bag.

Alameda’s network was never fully built out, and the services it promised failed to meet what incumbent companies provided. Customers simply stopped signing up. Without new subscribers, the utility had to borrow $3 million from the city’s general fund to sustain services. The network, which cost more than $35 million to build, eventually was sold for $15 million in 2008.

Bond holders in Alameda are currently engaged in litigation against the city and sharply criticize Uptown Services in their suit. They allege the report provided by Uptown Services, “was fatally flawed” and “contained inflated and wildly optimistic—and unrealistic—projections that were necessary in order to sell the notes.”

The city of Provo plowed $40 million in revenue bond proceeds into building out its broadband network in 2003; last year, city leaders instituted a tax on residents and businesses of $7.65 per month for the next 15 years to pay the bonds back.

History suggests a bleak future for municipal utilities trying their hand at providing services that are already available in the private sector, says Stan Lockhart, the former Provo Municipal Council member who was the lone “no” vote when Provo green-lighted its ambitious “iProvo” network.

“There’s going to be all these promises, and they aren’t going to be able to perform, and by the time it’s done, it’s going to be a huge headache for the elected officials in the city, and a huge headache for the taxpayers of the city,” cautioned Lockhart.

Google recently saved the day in Provo even though  the network has never been profitable. Under the terms of the deal, Google will take the money-losing network off Provo’s hands for the sum of $1—despite the fact that the city must still make bond payments of $3.3 million per year for the next 12 years to pay off debts related to the original build-out, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Lockhart concluded in a newspaper op-ed about the ordeal, “What is undisputed is that the telecommunication graveyard is littered with bankrupt fiber-optic companies. Today, for the most part, investors are unwilling to put their own money into these ventures.”

Yet, Longmont Power & Communications’ Jordan stands by the city’s pending leap into the broadband marketplace.

“The city’s view, like over 400 municipalities across the country, is that inexpensive high-speed broadband enables and accelerates economic development, education and lifestyle,” he said. “As I have found over and over in Longmont… many businesses and residents cannot get the speeds they need or want at the prices they can afford. Our intention is to remedy that as much as possible.”

Longmont’s 2011 city-wide vote lifted state restrictions on the city’s use of its 17-mile fiber optic loop, which was built in 1997 and paid for by the Platte River Power Authority. The vote allowed the city government to offer services to residents and businesses either directly or through a private company.

If the City Council approves financing to cover the $40 million to $50 million that Uptown has estimated it ultimately will cost to build out the network, it may be able to offer lower monthly rates to customers in the future than do private companies, Jordan told the Boulder Business Journal in February.

“Longmont residents already are electricity customers, and the government department does not need to make a profit as a private company does,” Jordan said at the time.

The Reason Foundation’s Titch, however, said the track record of failure in other cities strongly suggests Longmont should look carefully before it takes the leap.

“Most municipal broadband projects fail because revenues and subscriber numbers fall short of the plan,” he said. “Before embarking on a project, city governments must be satisfied that their business plan offers a complete picture of the industry as it is in 2013 and that its financial goals are realistic and achievable.”

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Rep. Joseph Salazar refuses an interview request.

Staff / Colorado Public Advocate

Now sitting on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk is legislation that critics in the business community and the legislature say will unleash a torrent of groundless discrimination lawsuits against Colorado employers—and create a potential windfall for plaintiffs and their attorneys. Those same critics are also accusing some of the lawmakers behind the measure of a conflict of interest: As personal-injury lawyers, they stand to gain financially if the governor signs House Bill 1136 into law.

The bill, which passed the Colorado General Assembly last week, would make a significant change in the way Colorado addresses employment-discrimination claims. People who believe an employer was motivated by discrimination in denying them a job, a raise or a promotion, or in otherwise mistreating them, would be able for the first time under state law to seek wide-ranging compensatory damages, like pain and suffering, as well as punitive damages. At present, Colorado statute allows those claiming discrimination to seek back pay, projected future pay, interest on back pay, reinstatement, compelled hiring or other equitable relief.

While HB 1136′s remedies already are available under federal law for complaints filed against employers with 15 or more employees, the Colorado bill would make those remedies available under state law for complaints filed against employers of any size, however small. It also would recognize claims of employment discrimination on the basis of age for those 70 or older as well as sexual orientation. The bill would strip employers’ ability to recover attorney fees when they win but would let winning employees recover their attorney fees.

The net effect would be to substantially increase the size of potential damages awards to plaintiffs and to ratchet up the pressure on employers to settle. As a result, the bill’s opponents point out, it would lead to a much bigger payday for the personal-injury lawyers who represent those plaintiffs.

That’s where some business-community voices and dissenting members of the legislature cry foul. They note three of the four prime sponsors on the bill—Rep. Joseph Salazar, D-Thornton, Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, and Senate Majority Leader Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora—are themselves attorneys, and two of them could derive a personal benefit from the legislation. Salazar’s law firm  Smith, Shellenberger and Salazar represents plaintiffs in employment-discrimination cases as does Carroll’s firm Bachus & Schanker.

The critics say these lawyer-lawmakers should have abstained from voting on HB 1136 and shouldn’t even have sponsored it in the first place.

Carroll, who has discussed the legislation in the past with Colorado Public Advocate, was not immediately available for comment. Salazar refused to discuss the bill when approached at the Capitol by a Colorado Public Advocate videographer (SEE VIDEO), ducking into the members-only, main entrance to the Senate chamber when asked for an interview.

For their part, business-community advocates have been reluctant to go on the record with their concerns about a conflict of interest because they say they fear alienating lawmakers they must work with on assorted issues. “None of us wants to face their wrath,” said one, requesting anonymity.

One voice of the state’s business community who did speak up stressed the need for lawmakers to maintain a wall of separation between their own financial interests and the policy-making process in order to maintain public confidence.

“I do not want to accuse anyone of a conflict of interest. However, in our business perception is reality,” said Tony Gagliardi, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business in Colorado. “The key word we hear is transparency. Policy makers are under a microscope. I’ve seen legislators go to the microphone and abstain from a vote.”

Legislative rules require senators and representatives to disclose a personal or financial interest in pending legislation and abstain from voting on it. As a practical matter, however, lawmakers exercise considerable leeway in determining what constitutes a personal or financial interest.

Former Democratic House Speaker Terrance Carroll, a corporate attorney with the Denver office of law firm Greenberg Traurig, said he would abstain from a vote if the legislation in question, “is something that would impact a matter I was working on. It has to be much more than just affecting  my professsion.”

“Just because you’re a lawyer and something impacts your practice area doesn’t necessarily mean you have a conflict,” Carroll said.

Yet, some other past and present state lawmakers say it can come down a matter of degree.

“There are many bills in which members have a general personal or financial interest that would not require them to abstain from voting,” said Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, an attorney who handles contract cases.  “But when the member’s entire business, like a law practice, is related to a particular bill and will benefit the member, then I believe the member should disclose their interest and abstain from voting on the matter.”

Mark Hillman, a Burlington Republican who served as both state Senate majority leader and minority leader, said times—and standards—seem to have changed since he left the legislature in 2005.

“Not that long ago, legislators erred on the side of avoiding even the perception of a conflict,” said Hillman, who now heads the tort-reform group Colorado Civil Justice League.

“They voluntarily set this high standard for the integrity of the legislative process.  For example, former Sen. Stan Matsunaka’s law practice included workers-compensation cases, and he abstained from voting on workers-compensation bills,” he said. “Now, there seems to be a tendency to ‘lawyer up’ and rationalize away conflicts of interest that would probably bother voters if they knew about them.”

Hillman added, “If you told voters that a lawmaker who is also a personal injury lawyer, who gets a percentage of the money his clients receive in court, voted for a bill to allow them to sue for an extra $300,000, I think voters would think that smells like feathering  that lawmaker’s own nest—plus it’s an obvious payback to campaign contributors who are also personal-injury lawyers.”

The clout of the trial lawyers’ lobby in the legislature troubles critics almost as much as concerns about conflicts of interest among lawyer-lawmakers that lobby supports.

The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association and an affiliated employee group gave about $109,000 in campaign contributions to Colorado candidates and causes from 2004 to 2012, according to the nonpartisan FollowTheMoney.org, which tracks political spending. That’s not counting individual contributions and fund-raising efforts by the state’s power lawyers and law firms on behalf of favored candidates.

More to the point, critics say, such interests can loom large in specific legislative races where individual contributions are capped by law and most contributions amount to a few hundred dollars or less. A small-donor arm of the trial lawyers association, for example, gave Morgan Carroll more than $2,000 for her 2012 Senate campaign and as such was among her four biggest contributors. The same entity gave Salazar, a legislative freshman, $2,000 in his 2012 campaign, his fifth-largest.

Carroll also is a member of the state trial lawyers association, which is backing HB 1136, and has served on its board.

If she and Salazar had chosen to abstain from voting on HB 1136, ruling Democrats arguably would have had enough remaining votes to pass the measure anyway. There is only a handful of employment/personal-injury lawyers serving in the General Assembly out of a total of 14 licensed attorneys, so there likely would have been no other abstentions.

Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango—one of few other lawyers in the legislature whose practice includes personal-injury cases—was one of only two Democrats to vote against HB 1136; the other was Wheat Ridge Sen. Cheri Jahn. McLachlan did not return a call seeking comment.

All Republicans in both chambers opposed the measure.

The Governor’s Office has been mum on whether Hickenlooper will sign or veto the bill. In February, he called for compromise on the contentious legislation but has offered no public indication of his leanings since then.

Contacted for comment earlier this week, Hickenlooper spokeswoman Megan Castle said in an email she was “checking” on the governor’s position on the bill, but neither she nor the governor’s communications chief, Eric Brown, have followed up so far on subsequent calls and emails from the Colorado Public Advocate.

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Peter Blake / The Complete Colorado

On its face, Senate Bill 257 looks like a good deal.

Starting in 2016, it would give buyers of new cars a seven-year pass before they have to get their first emission test. Currently the new-car exemption lasts only four years.

So you would save $50 — and some time — by skipping two biennial inspections at Envirotest at $25 apiece, right?

As usual, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There is a catch, as you might expect. After the seventh year, your car will be subjected not to the traditional treadmill-tailpipe test (I/M240, in the parlance of the trade) but to a different, harder-to-pass on-board diagnostics (OBD) test.

You are about 50 percent more likely to flunk an OBD test than a treadmill test, according to research by the state’s air pollution control division. And repairs are likely to cost more than they do after a treadmill failure. …read full column

Veteran Colorado political columnist Peter Blake writes weekly on state and local issues for The Complete Colorado.

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Victor Skinner / EAGnews.org

Colorado recently approved an interesting new alternative education program that launched its first classes this month.

It’s called Clover Leaf University, and it’s a marijuana cultivation program that’s accredited by the Colorado Department of Education.

The online university launched its first class April 18 on marijuana cultivation basics, and will host two classes per month using facilities at the Auraria Campus, an educational complex in downtown Denver that serves several educational institutions, the Denver Post reports.

Colorado voters last year approved Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana cultivation and recreational use in the state, as well as regulations for the industry. Clover Leaf Founder Chloe Villano told the Post classes at the university are taught by industry leaders in the botanical horticulture business, like Ed Rosenthal, who led the first class covering the basics of growing marijuana.

“I think it’s really good and it’s going to allow people to get certified in areas of training and … develop a professional group,” Rosenthal told the Post. …read full story by EAGnews.org

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Photo: MarylandReporter.com

Lark Turner / EdNews Colorado

Hundreds of students, advocates, legislators and educators crowded a room at Metropolitan State University’s Auraria campus on Monday to watch Gov. John Hickenlooper sign a bill making undocumented students who graduated from Colorado high schools eligible for in-state tuition.

The bill, a decade in the making, was signed to a chorus of cheers and “sí se puede!” — a slogan roughly translated as “yes we can.” The bill passed the Colorado House, its final hurdle before signing, on March 8.

“This is the first step,” Hickenlooper said, arguing that the new law points the way to national immigration reform. “We’re opening the door — you guys are going to have to do all the work.” …read full story by EdNews Colorado

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The Colorado House gave initial approval Monday to a special sales tax on recreational marijuana that was too high for Republicans, but just high enough for Democrats.

The chamber ended two days of heated debate by approving House Bill 1318, which calls for a 10 percent sales tax on marijuana, but gives the state legislature leeway to raise the rate to 15 percent.

The bill originally called for a 15 percent sales tax.

Both the sales tax and a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana must be approved by the voters in November. That’s the problem, say Republicans, who worry that the proposed taxes will prove too steep for Coloradans. …read full story by the Colorado Observer

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Colorado was the first state to legalize recreational marijuana, and it could become the first state to repeal it.

A proposal being floated in the state legislature would send two ballot measures to the voters in November. The first would ask for both excise and sales taxes on recreational marijuana, and the second would repeal Amendment 64 if the first measure fails.

Mason Tvert, who led the successful 2012 campaign for Amendment 64, accused foes of legalized marijuana, specifically the group Smart Colorado, of trying to thwart the will of the voters by pushing for a repeal.

“What this comes down to is that this is a proposal being pushed by Smart Colorado, and we hope that the legislators are smart enough to ignore it,” said Tvert at a Friday press conference. “They’re trying to entirely repeal the initiative that was approved by Colorado voters.” …read full story by The Colorado Observer

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Peter Blake / The Complete Colorado

Mile High Cab has spent four and a half years and over $200,000 just to get to the beginning.

It has had to fight a battle no one should have to fight in this country: Getting governmental permission to try and start a business.

At least that fight was successful — presuming the Public Utilities Commission eventually does what the Colorado Supreme Court told it to do Monday: Grant Mile High a “certificate of public convenience and necessity.”

The high court ruled unanimously that the PUC erred when it denied the would-be cab company the certificate, a decision that was subsequently affirmed in Denver district court.

The PUC took its sweet time just saying no. Mile High filed its application to operate taxi service in metropolitan Denver in September 2008. A leisurely year later, after a 13-day hearing, an administrative law judge (ALJ) recommended that the PUC deny the application — even though he conceded that the company met the standards for operational and financial fitness.

The problem, said the ALJ, was that the 150 cabs Mile High wanted to put on the street would cause an “oversupply.” …read full column

Veteran Colorado political columnist Peter Blake writes weekly on state and local issues for The Complete Colorado.

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