Elections matter!
On May 6th, Coloradans in metro districts, and other special districts, will have the opportunity to vote for their neighbors to represent them on these boards. These elected individuals will have important fiduciary responsibilities for the district while also making pragmatic decisions about the legal, accounting, and auditing professionals the district will hire.
Sadly, a few bad actors are giving the industry a blemish, and I am tired of it. Slick-talking managers, guised as “experts,” are going around neighborhoods across Colorado, selling a bill of goods and telling people that their metro district is inappropriately costing them more than necessary. As someone who fights for residents every day, I’m working to advance measures that enhance transparency and accountability among metro districts at the local and state level.
These bad actors recruit new people to run for their metro district boards based on mistruths about the district’s financing, the board promptly fires the current district manager, lawyer, and accountant, and then hires the bad actor giving them access to the management of the district. They then proceed to willfully take the district down a litigious path that ultimately costs homeowners a lot more money. Take, for example, the BNC2 Metro District in Adams County. The people of that district elected neighbors to the board in good faith, and were led down a path by their district management to not repay their debt service that was paid into the district through property taxes collected by the county. These taxes were obligated to pay for bonds issued to finance and build public infrastructure like streets, sewer, and sidewalks.
The management of that district, while not paying the debt service, diverted those collected tax dollars to pay for things like their management fees, and a jury said, “Nope, you can’t do that.” Sadly, the result of this jury trial is that the homeowners of the community will have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more to make up the difference for the money that management willfully diverted.
District Court Judge Arturo Hernandez said it best, “What this does is it basically lengthens the time period to pay the principal on those notes, and, obviously, what that does is it prolongs the time in which the bondholder is repaid. It increases interest that is being paid…and that is a specific harm not only to the bondholder, but, frankly, to the taxpayers….”
People across Colorado – my constituents and those like them across the state – deal with the high costs of living every single day. No one can afford unnecessary extra costs in their family budgets like those being forced on them in the BNC2 Metro District.
Managers, like those in the BNC2 Metro District, must be exposed and held accountable. Well-meaning residents should not be hoodwinked by so-called “experts” into believing that tax dollars can be diverted for purposes other than paying for the infrastructure they were dedicated to. Our neighbors need defending from these individuals.
We should all be grateful that there are people willing to step up to protect our citizens by sitting on community boards like those in the 2,200+ metro districts across the state – not to mention boards and commissions in each county, regionally and more. I greatly respect those people who give their time freely and take on these important fiduciary responsibilities. Colorado needs more good people to step up, and local special district elections are a way to do so.
I encourage residents to consider running for these local positions and know who they are voting for. In fact, the metro district board should ultimately be comprised primarily of people who live in the community. Residents should think carefully about protecting their neighborhood’s interests by preventing fraud like our neighbors in Adams County experienced. Watch out for bad actors who just want to make a buck off of those who don’t know what to believe. And call them out when you see them – if someone claims something that seems too good to be true, it often is. We should all be aware that there are charlatans in this world and help each other stave them off.
To do that, residents must be informed and engaged in their metro districts. That’s why I introduced and passed important metro district legislation in HB 25-1219, which seeks to improve the ways metro districts communicate with their residents. This way we can ensure those entrusted with public service are acting in our neighborhoods’ best interests.
We should all work to ensure that every metro district is well run. Get involved in running for your board, vote, and don’t be afraid to call out the bad apples that give everyone a black eye.
Carlos Barron represents District 48 in the Colorado State House of Representatives.