DOUGLAS BRUCE BACK IN THE PUBLIC EYE
Douglas Bruce told a parole board that he wanted to live a quiet life in retirement, but the anti-tax activist and father of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights has returned to the political spotlight, objecting to a request for a school mill levy override and a ballot measure that would reinstate Colorado Springs’ stormwater fees.
COLORADO SPRINGS» While pleading for his early release from prison, anti-tax activist Douglas Bruce said he would sell his properties, pay overdue taxes and “lead a quiet life” in retirement in Colorado Springs.
But since his release from the Delta Correctional Facility in September 2016, Bruce has thrust himself back into the political spotlight, sold only three of his 52 houses and let his property tax liens and fines multiply.
Two houses fell into such disrepair that they were demolished. Local governments reclaimed three others.
Asked recently about those promises during his July 2016 parole hearing, Bruce twice screamed a bovine vulgarity and hung up his phone.
Emailed later on the topic, he responded: “ARE YOU DEAF AS WELL AS STUPID? GO AWAY! DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN.”
Bruce was imprisoned in Delta after violating terms of his economic probation on a previous conviction.
That strict probation — requiring him to report all financial dealings — was part of his sentence for 2012 convictions of felony tax evasion, filing a false tax return and trying to influence a public servant.
He served 104 days in jail for the 2012 convictions, but he was sentenced to two years in the Delta prison for violating his probation. He served less than six months.
Bruce maintains he was wrongly convicted of the felonies, comparing himself with civil rights martyr Martin Luther King Jr.
The high-profile anti-tax activist wrote the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and now is fighting a ballot measure that would re-institute stormwater fees in Colorado Springs.
Mayor John Suthers and most of the City Council support Issue 2A on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Bruce, by contrast, held a September news conference slamming those fees as well as Issue 3E, which would give School District 11 a $42 million mill levy override, its first in 17 years.
Asked after the news conference about promises made during his parole hearing, Bruce said, “I don’t believe I said ‘Quiet life in retirement.’ I said, ‘I regret being here.’”
On the recording of that parole hearing, Bruce says multiple times he wants to live a quiet, simple and peaceful life in retirement.
He also says imprisonment hampered his ability to sell his homes in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“What I am trying to do is raise money to pay property taxes, so I don’t lose properties to tax sale foreclosures for nonpayment of taxes,” he tells the parole board. “I’m trying to pay the taxes.”
In 2015, Bruce owed more than $80,000 in delinquent property taxes, liens and fines. That has risen to at least $120,791.45, treasurer and assessor records show.
As for leading a quiet life, in addition to his recent news conference, Bruce participated in a panel discussion on the ballot issues this month, arguing with audience members when they questioned some of his statements.
He has printed and circulated fliers opposing the ballot issues, and he publishes his opinions on a website, noraintax.net.
Calling 2A a “bait-andswitch,” Bruce says the $17 million to be raised each year would be spent on new police officers and firefighters, not on stormwater.
Suthers has said the 2A revenue would go to stormwater, but that would free money in the general fund to hire police officers and firefighters.
Bruce also opposed the April 4 election issue to let the city keep revenue considered excess under TABOR, filing a court challenge of that issue.
His challenge failed. In perhaps his most dramatic appearance since his prison release, though, Bruce publicly chided the City Council this January, saying it “massacred” residents’ rights by approving a $460 million stormwater agreement with Pueblo County the previous April 20 — a date he noted is Hitler’s birthday and the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.