After citizens filed a ballot initiative to transfer power from the unelected Louisville Revitalization Commission to the elected City Council, the LRC members and their supporters are cobbling together a remarkable, evolving list of reasons why an unelected body should hold on to power—and $77 million.

No one who gains power and control over money outside the democratic processes wants to relinquish it. But none of the reasons advanced by the LRC members gives us any compelling reason to trust them over an elected body with power and money. Indeed, the reasons they have given for letting them keep the power and money are superficial, illogical, contradictory or just plain undemocratic.

A quick background can be found in the facts laid out in the citizen ballot initiative. With the support of some of the Council members, the LRC last year laid claim to control over “urban renewal” of nearly 230 acres of land in Louisville, including the entire commercial downtown Louisville area, the crown jewel of our city. The LRC projected that it would divert more than $77 million over 25 years ($42.1 million in property taxes diverted from Boulder County, our city, the Louisville Fire District, and the Boulder Valley School District; and $35.4 million in sales taxes that otherwise would go to our city’s operating budget). When citizens complained about this unprecedented control over taxpayer money, the LRC members began denying $77 million was involved—even though that number came from its own documents.

Let’s examine the LRC’s scattergun approach to convincing us they need to hold onto power and control over tens of millions of dollars:

—“There may be unintended consequences” (7/18/07). This is an unconvincing scare tactic. Note that no one supporting the LRC has been able to articulate a single “unintended consequence.”  Ballot Issue 2A transfers power of urban renewal and control over up to $77 million from an unelected body, the LRC, to an elected body, the Council. It requires the Council acting as the urban renewal authority to comply with the existing ethics code and existing open government laws. These are all intended consequences.

—Developers will be “scared away” if the Council is the urban renewal authority (7/18/07). Chuck Sisk is the chair of the LRC and mayor/chair of the Council. If as chair of the LRC he doesn’t scare away developers, what makes the LRC members think he’ll scare away developers as the mayor?

—“A majority of the city council members don’t want the (urban renewal) responsibility or the authority” (7/18/07). The question is not whether a majority of the Council “wants” the responsibility of or authority over urban renewal. The question is whether the People of Louisville, who elected these Council members, want the Council to have that responsibility or authority.

—There is a cooperation agreement in place limiting the LRC’s power to spend the $77 million (7/18/07). There is indeed a cooperation agreement requiring the LRC to submit its budget and expenditures to the Council for approval. However, the LRC has direct control over the up to $77 million over 25 years it will divert from the various taxing authorities, including the City. More importantly, four LRC members at any time can terminate the cooperation agreement. Additionally, as we have demonstrated, the agreement to cooperate is hardly the "control" over the LRC the 2A opponents claim it is.

—If power is transferred to the Council, businesses would see having to go through Council for urban renewal-related approvals as an extra step (7/18/07). The LRC supporters have confused their own arguments. If the Council can limit the LRC powers through the “cooperation agreement,” by definition that is a “two-step” process. Ballot Issue 2A actually streamlines the approval process by converting the LRC into an advisory body and transferring urban-renewal powers and control over the up to $77 million to the Council.

—The City would lose the “expertise” of the LRC if Ballot Issue 2A goes through (7/18/07). Nonsense. Ballot Issue 2A preserves the LRC. It simply converts it into an advisory board, like all the other boards and commissions in the City (e.g., Planning Commission, Library Board, Open Space Advisory Board, and so on).

—It’s not really $77 million; the LRC actually would control only half that amount (7/18/07). The LRC needs to read its own documents, which say it intends to divert $42.1 million and $35.4 million in property and sales taxes, respectively. State law provides that the LRC controls the tax dollars it diverts. Whether the LRC ultimately will divert $77 million or $38.5 million is really beside the point. Never in the history of our City have we citizens put tens of millions of dollars in the hands of an unelected body with no direct accountability to the People.

—The $77 million number is an “old estimate” (8/29/07). The LRC’s $77 million projection of tax dollars diverted was made last summer. There is no new projection. There is no “replacement” projection.

—No one can spend sales tax dollars diverted from the City except the Council (7/18/07 & 8/29/07). LRC member Michael Menaker has repeatedly made this erroneous statement. This is hardly a display of the urban-renewal “expertise” the LRC allegedly has. State law specifically provides that all property and sales taxes diverted by urban renewal authorities like the LRC are “paid into a special fund” controlled by the authority. The Council’s so-called “control” over LRC expenditures lasts as long as four members of the unelected LRC refrain from terminating the “cooperation agreement.” The degree of "control" is limited to the specificity of the budget the LRC submits to the Council for approval; as the Camera noted, the LRC's recently submitted budget is so general as to be meaningless as a "check" on the LRC.

—A developer whose downtown development was approved 70 by the Council is putting his project “on hold” “because” of 2A, and will not go through with it if we approve 2A (10/6/07, Councilwoman Sheri Marsella’s letter to the editor). As an initial matter, Ms. Marsella has lost a significant amount of credibility by joining a special-interest anti-2A group and then using the government to legislate campaign material for that group. The logic is missing. If the developer’s development was approved 7-0 by the Council, he will vote for 2A to transfer urban-renewal poers to the Council. But there’s a bigger issue. If the developer really said this (as noted, Ms. Marsella has credibility problems), he and Ms. Marsella need to understand: citizens of Louisville do not allow their votes to be held hostage to developers or politicians trying to use developers’ threats to influence an election.