Another example of why Metro Districts are a bad idea. And, can you have expectations and compassion?
I cannot express my contempt for Metro Districts strongly enough.
The article below is a case in point. A handful of likely hand-picked voters will get to decide whether others later get saddled with a gigantic debt.
To wit, the quote below from the article linked at bottom:
"There are five voters connected to the property’s developer — two employees and three members of the same family, none of whom live in Granby Ranch — who will approve the 24 ballot measures in each of the Granby Ranch Metropolitan Districts No. 3 through 7 elections. The lengthy ballots will ask the five voters in each district to authorize up to $2.11 billion in increased taxes and bonding authority — with interest as high as 14% and repayment exceeding $10 billion for each of the five districts — to pay for infrastructure improvements."
I am not 100% sure about this, but knowing what I do about Metro Districts I would not at all be surprised to find out that somehow the developer or his or her friends somehow stand to also benefit from the debt (another sleazy but common practice).
If you're going to buy a home, research its status vis a vis Metro Districts and think very carefully about buying into one. If you're in one, read up on the rules and try to get on the board, so you can do all you can to avoid having the friend of a developer vote you into a huge debt. A debt the voters will likely never be required to pay (see the screenshot).
https://coloradosun.com/2023/04/14/granby-ranch-metro-district-debt-election/
Balancing compassion with expectations.
I have posted more than once about the tension between wanting a safety net and having expectations in multiple contexts. I thought I'd continue that with the conservative-leaning Common Sense Institute report below.
I'll leave it to you to paw through the report itself (the full report is linked second below) and come to your own conclusions on it, but what I thought would be interesting to highlight is the idea of a "Benefits Cliff" or, as I have known it in the past, a system that is set up to incentivize STAYING on government benefits.
The idea works something like this. I'll borrow a couple examples from people I've known personally.
--Let's say you had a permanently debilitating injury that left you unable to work full time. You do indeed want to work. You do indeed want to contribute. The problem is, if you earn more than (and I'll use nice round, friendly numbers) $50 a week, you don't get your $1000 a month from social security disability. You could in theory work enough to earn up to $100 a week, but then you'd trade $400 for $1000.
--Let's say you got married young and had 3 kids. You never got any education beyond high school because you always wanted to be a stay at home mom (you love raising children). You catch your husband sleeping around and divorce. With little in the way of skills you can't earn enough to feed your kids so you go on government assistance to help feed them. As you gain some skills and work history your salary comes up. At $10/ hour you earn enough to not be on food stamps but not enough to feed the kids and pay rent, etc.
There are more examples with numbers specific to Colorado in the screenshot (from the first link below).
This should not be how our systems run. If we want to have expectations of people--expectations that they contribute, that they not stay on government benefits their whole lives--we need to honor that wish with our policy. If we want people to have the self worth and the pride that come from contributing and being a part of society, again, we need to honor that with our policy.
In other words, we need to remove the perverse incentives in the system that make it such that the better deal is to stay completely on the dole. Why not a sliding scale? Why not a disability system that lets you work and provides a backstop? Why not a graduated release from benefits as people earn more?
What I said above is a gross simplification: there are federal rules and limits that come into play (of course). If you want more detailed recommendations along these lines, check out the bottom of the one-pager linked first below for CSI's recommendations.
https://commonsenseinstituteco.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CSI-Infographic-Reimagining-Colorados-Social-Safety-Net.pdf
https://commonsenseinstituteco.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CSI-Report-Reimagining-Colorados-Social-Safety-Net-FINAL.pdf