A Look At The Books
EPURA Reviews Financial Data
By Mike Hedrick
The Estes Park Urban Renewal Authority (EPURA) received a financial snapshot at its June 20 meeting. Estes Park finance officer Steve McFarland presented a financial report citing about two years worth of running data for EPURA’s general fund, their capital fund and their dept. service fund.
McFarland presented EPURA’s current spendable balance showing how much money EPURA had available for projects. The report also showed the expenses of day-to–day operations.
At the meeting questions were raised about whether the school system and the hospital are involved in the funding of EPURA.
According to EPURA Director Wil Smith, EPURA has been funded by property taxes and sales taxes since 1982. “The taxes that would otherwise go to the various half dozen or so taxing districts, the increments above that from 1982 goes to EPURA,” said Smith. According to Smith, at the end of 25 years that increment goes away for EPURA and goes back to the various districts.
“Personally I think it’s a good way to fund something like EPURA because the increment is created by EPURA. Otherwise, it probably wouldn’t exist” said Smith.
EPURA benefits from the increments over the 25-year period. “At the end of it, all the districts get this windfall that EPURA has created for them” said Smith, “So in the long run, they’re better off. And in the meantime we use that to fund additional improvements that make their property even more valuable and their taxes even more.”
According to EPURA, the increments has no impact whatsoever on the school budget or the hospital budget. In the case of schools, anything that passes through gets made up by the state.
The issue as it stands seems to be the result of miscommunications.
After the discussion, a motion was made to determine what the exact impacts were and that EPURA respond appropriately to the media and to the public.
People who have questions about this issue are welcome to come to any of EPURA’s regular meetings at 8:00 a.m. the third Wednesday of every month in the Town Hall Board Room.
Alright already, we have researched and presented huge amounts of educational material to our readers over the past three years on this very topic, Urban Renewal Authorities and the moral dilemmas involved with TIF funding. The purpose has been and still is to educate the Estes Park masses.
Oh please lord give me strength, the article, copied above, was published in the Trail Gazette and the comments attribute to Wil Smith, reminds one of a third grade Weekly Reader. Smith makes claim that EPURA created a windfall in property valuation throughout the entire valley, entitling EPURA to a cut of your property taxes forevere and a day. Whiner Smith you are full of it, show me the economic cause and affect Whiner Wil. SHOW ME THE MONEY “WIL”, SHOW ME THE MONEY.
Prove it Wil - show us the facts. Show us in detail how the actions of EPURA has increased property values. The days of pulling the wool over the eyes of Estes Park just to keep your job are long gone.
Wil Smith is irrelevant and so is EPURA.
EPURA is irrelevant, doesn’t even control its own funds, must operate in secret, it cannot be effective because EPURA has allowed the town trustees to bastardize it politically so they ( the trustees) can assign authorities to EPURA that they ( the Trustees) do not have. Like the authority to condemn property, the authority to blight your personal property. They (the trustees) use the TIF funds to accomplish public works projects, not on economic development, it has been bastardized beyond repair.
There is a line in this article that is close to being relevant and that is all the miscommunication surrounding EPURA, I could not agree with this more.
The authors of that miscommunication and miss information are none other than town hall, Example: This is a quote by your mayor “EPURA is the planning arm of the town”. That is deliberate misinformation.
Correction: EPURA is a project authority, nothing more. Unfortunately your town government has become addicted to TIF funds. What Wil Smith is trying to impart is simply these things, gee I like my ample salary and if EPURA goes away so does my salary and after the flood (1982) we made some improvements and we intend to reap the blue sky for the rest of eternity.
If you read the articles that we generously provided for all of you to read and if you assimilated the information that was available to you in these articles you should have grasped the difference between how real Urban Renewal Authorities operate legally and how EPURA operates. The difference is night and day.
In Loveland the Urban Renewal Authority invested several million dollars installing and extending infrastructure service out to the “Centerra” development. The developer in turn brought millions of dollars of investment money into the community. The return on this investment brings in untold millions in cash flow and property taxes on new buildings that was unproductive dirt two years ago. They developed wealth for Loveland, Larimer County and Northern Colorado where nothing existed prior to the investment. There is a very real and tangible return on the investment for the community; something where nothing existed, economic development. Larimer Counties piece of that new pie is much lager than the TIF funding that was diverted.
In Estes Park (get used to this, because you are going to hear this a lot in the up coming months from Town Hall and Whinny Wil Smith who is just trying to keep his salary in Estes Park). Look at all the good we did in 1982 after the flood. Look at Elkhorn and Confluence Park. That project was completed in 1985 people. Town Hall has been entertaining themselves with our money since 1985. They built a Convention Center that has sucked money like sand down a rat hole, it sits idol 80% of the time, because it is to small to bring in conferences of any consequence, it is an issue of scale, to small to be relevant.
EPURA has a dubious legacy of sprawl roughly doubling the amount of retail square footage in their life time creating projects for a few chosen local boys, all negotiated under the table. EPURA has not created economy they only cut the pie into thinner and thinner pieces, to the point no one can make a living in the downtown business district. The current project on Weist Drive is a typical EPURA project conceived in secrete - totally mismanaged. Heath Construction has done a very good job given they were handed the job and provided only two, let me repeat TWO drawings with the instructions to complete the job in six weeks spending only 1.5 million dollars. Van Horn engineered the job and barely stayed a half step ahead of the contractor. Lord only knows what the final tally will be to us all. The end result of the investment will (this is a guess) be millions of dollars over what was publicized and thirty fewer parking spaces for the down town businesses.
That my beloved reader is EPURA style economic development.
That is why we urge the end of EPURA. If the building owners down town want improvements they should get together on their own dime and borrow the money and make the improvements to their own property or sell to someone who can afford to do so. Free enterprise.
Look at all the retail spaces created by EPURA, they are small square footages (a thousand square feet or less) intended to be leased to mom and pop seasonal under funded tourist trap operations. That is the exact description your trustees made to excuse the failure of business in Estes Park, Stupid, under funded mom and pop operations.
So why did EPURA build spaces that accommodate only failure?
EPURA Reviews Financial Data
By Mike Hedrick
The Estes Park Urban Renewal Authority (EPURA) received a financial snapshot at its June 20 meeting. Estes Park finance officer Steve McFarland presented a financial report citing about two years worth of running data for EPURA’s general fund, their capital fund and their dept. service fund.
McFarland presented EPURA’s current spendable balance showing how much money EPURA had available for projects. The report also showed the expenses of day-to–day operations.
At the meeting questions were raised about whether the school system and the hospital are involved in the funding of EPURA.
According to EPURA Director Wil Smith, EPURA has been funded by property taxes and sales taxes since 1982. “The taxes that would otherwise go to the various half dozen or so taxing districts, the increments above that from 1982 goes to EPURA,” said Smith. According to Smith, at the end of 25 years that increment goes away for EPURA and goes back to the various districts.
“Personally I think it’s a good way to fund something like EPURA because the increment is created by EPURA. Otherwise, it probably wouldn’t exist” said Smith.
EPURA benefits from the increments over the 25-year period. “At the end of it, all the districts get this windfall that EPURA has created for them” said Smith, “So in the long run, they’re better off. And in the meantime we use that to fund additional improvements that make their property even more valuable and their taxes even more.”
According to EPURA, the increments has no impact whatsoever on the school budget or the hospital budget. In the case of schools, anything that passes through gets made up by the state.
The issue as it stands seems to be the result of miscommunications.
After the discussion, a motion was made to determine what the exact impacts were and that EPURA respond appropriately to the media and to the public.
People who have questions about this issue are welcome to come to any of EPURA’s regular meetings at 8:00 a.m. the third Wednesday of every month in the Town Hall Board Room.
Alright already, we have researched and presented huge amounts of educational material to our readers over the past three years on this very topic, Urban Renewal Authorities and the moral dilemmas involved with TIF funding. The purpose has been and still is to educate the Estes Park masses.
Oh please lord give me strength, the article, copied above, was published in the Trail Gazette and the comments attribute to Wil Smith, reminds one of a third grade Weekly Reader. Smith makes claim that EPURA created a windfall in property valuation throughout the entire valley, entitling EPURA to a cut of your property taxes forevere and a day. Whiner Smith you are full of it, show me the economic cause and affect Whiner Wil. SHOW ME THE MONEY “WIL”, SHOW ME THE MONEY.
Prove it Wil - show us the facts. Show us in detail how the actions of EPURA has increased property values. The days of pulling the wool over the eyes of Estes Park just to keep your job are long gone.
Wil Smith is irrelevant and so is EPURA.
EPURA is irrelevant, doesn’t even control its own funds, must operate in secret, it cannot be effective because EPURA has allowed the town trustees to bastardize it politically so they ( the trustees) can assign authorities to EPURA that they ( the Trustees) do not have. Like the authority to condemn property, the authority to blight your personal property. They (the trustees) use the TIF funds to accomplish public works projects, not on economic development, it has been bastardized beyond repair.
There is a line in this article that is close to being relevant and that is all the miscommunication surrounding EPURA, I could not agree with this more.
The authors of that miscommunication and miss information are none other than town hall, Example: This is a quote by your mayor “EPURA is the planning arm of the town”. That is deliberate misinformation.
Correction: EPURA is a project authority, nothing more. Unfortunately your town government has become addicted to TIF funds. What Wil Smith is trying to impart is simply these things, gee I like my ample salary and if EPURA goes away so does my salary and after the flood (1982) we made some improvements and we intend to reap the blue sky for the rest of eternity.
If you read the articles that we generously provided for all of you to read and if you assimilated the information that was available to you in these articles you should have grasped the difference between how real Urban Renewal Authorities operate legally and how EPURA operates. The difference is night and day.
In Loveland the Urban Renewal Authority invested several million dollars installing and extending infrastructure service out to the “Centerra” development. The developer in turn brought millions of dollars of investment money into the community. The return on this investment brings in untold millions in cash flow and property taxes on new buildings that was unproductive dirt two years ago. They developed wealth for Loveland, Larimer County and Northern Colorado where nothing existed prior to the investment. There is a very real and tangible return on the investment for the community; something where nothing existed, economic development. Larimer Counties piece of that new pie is much lager than the TIF funding that was diverted.
In Estes Park (get used to this, because you are going to hear this a lot in the up coming months from Town Hall and Whinny Wil Smith who is just trying to keep his salary in Estes Park). Look at all the good we did in 1982 after the flood. Look at Elkhorn and Confluence Park. That project was completed in 1985 people. Town Hall has been entertaining themselves with our money since 1985. They built a Convention Center that has sucked money like sand down a rat hole, it sits idol 80% of the time, because it is to small to bring in conferences of any consequence, it is an issue of scale, to small to be relevant.
EPURA has a dubious legacy of sprawl roughly doubling the amount of retail square footage in their life time creating projects for a few chosen local boys, all negotiated under the table. EPURA has not created economy they only cut the pie into thinner and thinner pieces, to the point no one can make a living in the downtown business district. The current project on Weist Drive is a typical EPURA project conceived in secrete - totally mismanaged. Heath Construction has done a very good job given they were handed the job and provided only two, let me repeat TWO drawings with the instructions to complete the job in six weeks spending only 1.5 million dollars. Van Horn engineered the job and barely stayed a half step ahead of the contractor. Lord only knows what the final tally will be to us all. The end result of the investment will (this is a guess) be millions of dollars over what was publicized and thirty fewer parking spaces for the down town businesses.
That my beloved reader is EPURA style economic development.
That is why we urge the end of EPURA. If the building owners down town want improvements they should get together on their own dime and borrow the money and make the improvements to their own property or sell to someone who can afford to do so. Free enterprise.
Look at all the retail spaces created by EPURA, they are small square footages (a thousand square feet or less) intended to be leased to mom and pop seasonal under funded tourist trap operations. That is the exact description your trustees made to excuse the failure of business in Estes Park, Stupid, under funded mom and pop operations.
So why did EPURA build spaces that accommodate only failure?
