Demanding an Urban Renewal Authority that delivers for all
Citizens can only exercise liberty after confronting ignorance about government. This defines Pueblo’s transparency advocate, Ted Freeman.
Mr. Freeman advocated for a democratic conversation around whether the half-cent sales tax was delivering. He aggregated and presented information to drive civic engagement and conversation around the topic. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their government.” (Thomas Jefferson). In this way, Ted Freeman made Pueblo’s government more trustworthy. It is time for Pueblo to have a Ted Freeman-esque conversation about the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority (PURA).
Public dissatisfaction and mistrust are implanted when a community lacks information about its government’s actions. Good governance requires the transparent presentation of information to citizens. The conclusion is less important than the process used to conclude. I was terminated as City Attorney for attempting to present information about PURA and its projects publicly. Advocating for PURA to provide greater transparency and submit to City oversight must be outside the City Attorney’s scope. Maybe for the current administration, the underlying goal isn’t to deliver community benefits that elevate the quality of people’s lives. Otherwise, preventing the City from obligating some $13,606,000 of taxpayer funds without understanding how the funds would be used or the potential community benefits they will generate would be celebrated.
To this point, the two new urban renewal areas and plans (Bluffs Phase1and North Elizabeth) proposed by PURA fall short of meeting community needs. Throughout the state, urban renewal authorities borrow against future tax revenue in blighted areas to make public improvements that meet local objectives (improved traffic, public transportation, public utilities, and recreational facilities). Unfortunately, because the City lacks a comprehensive development/revitalization strategy, PURA is filling this void with its staff and unelected board’s priorities, depriving the City of the community benefits delivered by other urban renewal authorities.
Legally, PURA is prohibited from undertaking any urban renewal project until the City designates an area appropriate for the urban renewal project. PURA’s website provides an eight-step outline of the process it uses. However, PURA no longer follows this process or uses financing to accelerate investment in urban renewal areas. PURA transfers millions in excess tax revenue from active urban renewal areas into projects it deems appropriate. Pueblo’s taxing entities lost $1,763,530.37 in FY 23 and are projected to lose $2,133,096.35 in FY 24 to these practices. Yet, blight and crumbling infrastructure persist in Pueblo.
The two proposed urban renewal plans represent more of the same practices. PURA created the conditions surveys and plans without authorization from the City Council. PURA signed development agreements for these areas before seeking approval from the City Council. PURA proposes reimbursing private developers for private development costs, not public improvements. PURA has identified neither these costs nor the benefits they provide. Although it publicly discusses a 98-unit apartment complex (Bluffs Phase 1) and a 122-room hotel (North Elizabeth), neither plan articulates how reimbursing developers’ costs will facilitate additional private investment in public infrastructure or other community benefits.
The developers already own the land. PURA will not relocate any existing inhabitants from the properties. PURA will not perform property management, demolition, clearance, site preparation, environmental remediation, or other activities on either property. All PURA will be doing is confirming construction and sending the developers a taxpayer-funded check. If PURA only reimburses developers for development costs, why does it ask for authority to finance? Since the reimbursable costs have already been negotiated and respective projects have started, what will PURA finance? Why should City Council allow Pueblo’s limited resources to flow into unnecessary activities or financings? Without answering these questions, PURA requests taxpayers contribute $13,606,000 to the existing projects.
Taxpayers have a right to request PURA provide details (estimated total costs, timeline of the project, description of costs, and perceived public benefits) before City Council approves the plans. Compound this with the fact that PURA will charge taxpayers a 12% fee ($842,646.96 [North Elizabeth] + $790,080.00 [Bluffs] = $1,632,726.96) to process reimbursements. These proposed plans are an opaque way of removing citizens’ right to oversee the expenditure of taxpayer funds. In approving these plans, City Council will surrender its ability to oversee the expenditure of $13,606,000 in taxpayer funds.
PURA is not independent; it’s a component entity of the City. Only City Council designates urban renewal areas, approves urban renewal plans, and authorizes urban renewal projects. To the extent PURA wants the City Council to abdicate these responsibilities, it should make such a request transparently with an informed public debate. This is the fundamental issue, and I was terminated on this hill. To be clear, I believe Pueblo desperately needs additional housing and hotel capacity. Unfortunately, private development dollars are not created equally. Without explicit project activities, informed public debate, and identified community benefits, these plans will only sow the seeds of public dissatisfaction and mistrust. It is too high a public cost just to increase private profit margins. City Council should never allow PURA to charge taxpayers 12% opaquely to decide which projects receive taxpayer investment or what community benefits warrant taxpayer investment.
As Fredrick Douglas once said, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.” The current forms of these plans will lead to more of the same injustice and wrongs. PURA will continue charging taxpayers 12% to fund present development, increasing private profit, not living conditions. Pueblo’s Mayor and City Council must create a long-term strategic plan with taxpayer funds incentivizing development that meets the community’s social, economic, and ecological needs. Taxpayers’ investment in revitalization must be a force multiplier to citizens’ living conditions and opportunities. Pueblo must not quietly submit to PURA’s status quo and should demand the citizens, not private developers, set the terms, conditions, and goals for taxpayer investment in private development. Demand better, Pueblo.