Just two words describe this new attempt by interlopers to scuttle Aurora’s Gaylord hotel project: total crap.
A couple of state lawmakers are rumored to introduce legislation they hope will kill the much ballyhooed 1,500-room Gaylord hotel and conference center in Aurora.
I’ve seen a lot of creepy political stunts, but I’ve never seen a bigger trail of indiscretions than what’s being laid out by Denver hotel magnates and outstate politicians.
It looks certain that lawmakers in the Colorado House and Senate will try and sneak in a late bill that would supposedly straighten up the nefarious world of state business incentives. But, coincidentally, the bill supposedly would retroactively kill the giant $850 million Gaylord conference center. That project has hotel owners from Philip Anschutz’ Pikes Peak area Broadmoor Hotel to Walter Isenberg’s Denver Union Station dripping with hate, hate, hate.
Why? Foremost, they see the Gaylord project, and its ability to draw 450,000 tourists a year to Colorado, as competition. It’s not. The Colorado Regional Tourism Act board, after years of scrutiny, awarded $80 million in future tax incentives to the Gaylord, because it was the biggest, baddest project competing for the stimulus program. It won because the bulk of the tourists that come to a Gaylord wouldn’t come to Colorado otherwise. It won because, often, guests of a Gaylord complex stay on, in the very hotels of the ignorant people who are fighting this project. The complex not only creates 10,000 construction jobs but creates 2,500 permanent jobs as well. That makes the Keystone XL Pipeline look like a Junior Achievement project.
The biggest reason outsiders hate, hate, hate the Gaylord is because it’s in Aurora. It beat out their own big, fat requests for those same tax incentives. So when people like state Sen. Morgan Carroll, who calls these corporate giveaway “incentive” programs “corporate welfare,” says these critic stunts are the height of hypocrisy, this is the stinking stratosphere of speciousness.
Charges that Aurora has been clandestine about Gaylord are lies. I and others were critical of the incentive package early on and throughout the process — because every aspect of the plan has been an open book reviewed in public hearings. We went. Where were they? Critics have now focused on the so-called election Aurora held to create a special district that will collect room-taxes once the hotel is built. Right now that “district” is dirt. Only prairie dogs live there. Since the district can impose taxes only on the landowner, and only on hotel rooms, only the landowner can vote in the election. The landowner is a corporation, so an employee did the formal deed and “voted.” The prairie dogs showed no interest. Critics have made it sound like a sham. In reality, our own newspaper legals section regularly records similar “votes” for annexations and special district creation and has for decades.
What was foolish on Aurora’s part was not foreseeing an opportunity for uninformed or malicious critics to exploit a mundane part of creating the district. Even the Adams County judge who was switched into the case without even hearing arguments had no clue such entities or decisions made by corporate voters are all over the state. Aurora should have instead called a giant press conference and set off fireworks as Voter No. 1 cast his ballot for 10,000 construction jobs. Hindsight is pretty clear. The state’s convoluted way it must create enterprise zones, special districts, incentives and urban renewal districts is anything but. I agree this process is convoluted. But if state lawmakers are going to retroactively “clean up” this project, it better be prepared to undo hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Colorado privatized highways, urban renewal areas and other widespread tax-incentive programs. Otherwise, it’s obscenely obvious they’re just picking on Aurora.
Because this isn’t about cleaning up future business incentives. This is about stealing Aurora’s fairly-scored victory. Like Carroll, I don’t think any government has any business giving money to corporations created only to make a profit. It’s only needed because it’s expected. But what I really hate are liars, sack-of-crap politicians and cheaters. Blush now if you’re guilty.
Guilty as charged is Colorado State Treasurer Walker Stapleton. You might have voted for him. He’s in charge of investing your tax dollars in bond markets and making sure teachers get their retirement checks. You know what he nor any state treasurer has never been in charge of? State tourism grant projects or election law. Ever. So suddenly, Walker starts firing off letters saying he wants answers about Gaylord because “questions” have been raised by the Colorado Springs Gazette, owned by Anschutz, and some local Tea Party poopers, who admitted during depositions they didn’t know who was paying their pricey lawyer bills to sue Aurora. Does this smell like a giant sack of political poo to you? Sure as hell does.
And Isenberg, whose fingerprints are all over this thing, told the Denver Post in 2011, when he was first trying to scuttle the project, “I will not, nor will any entity with which I am involved, participate in activities that would interfere with what has, to date, been approved by the Aurora City Council.”
Et tu, Walt?
You’re being duped, Aurora. Fight back. Business decisions Aurora residents and elected representatives make is none of anyone’s damned concern but their own. If Stapleton or others wants a say, move here or work here and pay taxes like we do. We don’t tell Colorado Springs voters how to keep their streetlights on or keep people like Sheriff Happy Pants Maketa out of office. We don’t tell Denver how to keep from ripping off people with its profitable ha-ha-no-parking-program or how to quit destroying traffic flow on Interstate 25 at Santa Fe Drive. Granted, we’d like to. Colorado Springs put up a good fight three years ago to win those tourism incentive dollars for its own worthy idea. It just wasn’t worthy enough. By choice, the Springs got Focus on the Family and most of the moon-howling, tin-hat-clad political oddities in the state. Not our fault.
But as for Denver, which has handed out boatloads of state and regional tax incentives to Isenberg and hundreds of others and milked state highway dollars for all they’re worth? Denver, which bleeds Aurora and all the suburbs to pay for Coors Field and Mile High Stadium for its own gain? Denver, which has reneged on its DIA obligations with Aurora so it can steal away even more of our tax dollars? Stick it in your Union Station.
We’ll mind our business. You do something fair and honest to make your own.
— Reach Dave Perry on twitter and FaceBook @EditorDavePerry or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
Bravo Dave! So tired of Denver trying to domesticate Aurora’s growth and potential. Thanks for the straight talk!