Nonprofits get state dollars. They make donations to the Polis Administration. Housing needs assessments: a lever for city policymakers? Quick Greeley update. Once Upon a Time in America.

Nonprofits get money from the state, the make donations to the Polis Administration

The first link below is to a TOPS report I ran for fiscal year 2025 for the governor’s office.**

I wanted to draw your attention to the 237-odd items listed in this spreadsheet as being paid by “Donations -- Governors Office (115E)”.

The items funded by this category are listed as everything from IT to the Office of Economic Development, to the Energy Office, to the Commission on Community Service, the list continues on.

The things bought with these donations are listed as services rendered the governor’s office, to books and other materials, to mileage reimbursement, to salaries and benefits. By far and away it is this latter that is the biggest total category.

Screenshot 1 shows an example from October 2024.

By sifting through and adding, I found that for only half of that month, the governor was paying out a total of about $44K in salary and benefits out of his donations account. If this is a relatively stable average, that means on a yearly basis this comes out to about $1.07 million in salary and benefits paid for by donations.

Unfortunately, there is not any detail in the TOPS report about who the money went to (which jobs they funded, what those people do), nor was there any detail about where the donations were coming from.

The governor’s office was not much help either. I asked for information about both of the above (who/where the money goes to and who’s paying) more than once and got no answer.

The best guess (and it is a guess) that I can make at things is that this is another example of what has been noted in earlier reporting. The second link below is to a Sun article from 2021 which details how our governor has been funding some jobs in his office using private donors.

This continued a practice that Governor Hickenlooper had been engaged in. The governor, in 2021, did reveal the grants and funders after a Sun and CBS article. I linked to that list (taken from a link in the Sun article) third below for convenience.

The donors are a roster of lefty nonprofits whose names ought to be familiar to Coloradoans, they fund a whole lot here, and clearly have been doing so since 2021.

Emerson Collective
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Next50 Initiative
Rose Community Foundation
Denver Foundation
Telluride Foundation
Temple Buell Foundation
United Nations Foundation, Inc.

All together, these grants funded 5.3 FTE (full time equivalent) employees. The total grants were about $1.3 million for a year. Figuring in the fact that there’s been much inflation since 2021, I think we could put that number next to my estimate and reasonably figure that Polis hasn’t expanded (and has perhaps contracted) his grant-funded positions since then.

None of this is illegal. It wasn’t in 2021, and it isn’t now.

Stop and think about this, however. Think about how much influence giant nonprofits wield in this state. Think about the money they get from the state. Think about how that money then gets paid back to the state to fund grants in the governor’s office (and elsewhere).

Two plants whose roots have tangled to the point you don’t know which is which, and which makes you question if there’s really a difference.

Trying to find and track the money (and thus the influence) gets harder the deeper you dig. This is a serious problem in our state and ought to concern anyone who believes that we, the people, the electorate, should be running things.

**I only did fiscal year 2025 because the spreadsheet would quickly become unmanageable beyond that. Believe me.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r1KBeuQy_nvPvBIScj5VGx4m4O8w99TV/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113451218632854191614&rtpof=true&sd=true

https://coloradosun.com/2021/11/16/jared-polis-office-private-donors/

https://newspack-coloradosun.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/GOV-FY22-RFI-2-Gifts-Grants-Donations.pdf

---

Housing needs assessments: a lever for city policymakers?

The Polis administration is once again using state power to force his and fellow Democrats’ policy preferences on local governments. I say “once again” because our governor has a habit of using state power to override pesky, non-cooperative local governments that don’t do what he wants (to see an example involving powerlines, Xcel, and the PUC check the first link below).

On top of that, you have some local governments eager to play along with the governor (or perhaps afraid of challenging him) over the objections of their constituents.

These are issues I’ll be touching on in the next few days, but I thought something a reader had sent me a while back would be a great introduction/background to the issue.

A reader from Commerce City sent me a couple of presentations given to the City Council in August and September of this year. He also sent me his questions and concerns about these assessments. The city housing assessments are linked second and third below (for Aug and Sept respectively).

I wanted to share with you in case it was handy to you if your local municipality is doing similar; My guess is that the kinds of game playing Commerce City is doing with their assessments would be repeated elsewhere (particularly if they hire the same consultants).

I took some screenshots from the reader’s email where they list out their concerns about the two reports. Screenshot 1 is a summary of their concerns.

Screenshots 2a - 2c flesh them out in more detail.

Earlier this week I posted about a faulty US Forest Service report about the Comanche Grasslands, and I was struck in re-reading (I had read this email a while back and pocketed it for later) the reader’s concerns with how much overlap there is. I was struck in how, here as before, we see faulty methods and data used to drive policy.

The reader went to great lengths to point out in their email that the concerns over the assessment are independent of whether or not one likes the policy adopted by Commerce City. I am much inclined to agree. It is.

Whatever decision is made, we cannot have effective discussion and debate on topics if we do not have a complete picture from which to draw conclusions.

There’s one more point to make before ending. Commerce City hired a private consultant (see “Related” below) to prepare this report. The reader who sent me these things is a careful, considered, and logical thinker, but (and I don’t think this would insult them to say) they don’t possess any special qualifications in urban planning.

Do not be intimidated by qualifications, by consultants, or by your elected officials. Your brain works just as well as theirs. They might couch their thoughts in jargon, but that doesn’t mean their reasoning or conclusions are grander than any you could reach.

If you look through what this reader sent, you’ll note that much is plain comparison. Comparing the data to the wording used, comparing two monthly reports to note what was missing. Things like that are accessible to us all, and they need to be noted in public in the presence of our elected officials. If that feels kind of a stretch, I can offer you a strategy to help you overcome that feeling. Phrase your concerns as questions; it’s easier on everyone that way and offers either party a chance to save face as needed.

The only thing this requires is time. Invest that time, even if it comes at the expense of following other issues (for example, following a national issue about who’s singing at the Super Bowl). Those other things won’t’ have the immediate effect on your pocketbook than local housing policy (read: taxes and zoning) will.
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/the-progressive-tax-scheme-and-colorado?r=15ij6n

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rvtE6S3nuixp0ZBqHELcgaw-uWM2rPZj/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15jqSaP_e-6dL6FAPd3VCm_w2iHbXgxFn/view?usp=sharing

Related:

If you were curious to know more about the Matrix group that helped the City of Commerce City prepare their assessment, you’ll find their webpage linked below.

Seems to be a consultant group, one of many governments hire to help them make the reports they use to prop up their policy decisions.

https://matrixdesigngroup.com/

---

ONE MORE LAST MINUTE THING: See the below for a Greeley petition update.

https://www.facebook.com/brandon.wark.7/posts/pfbid02jhYvSxw6ddpDfq8rRTiGM9irT94co7VFZ4ebhWQkumXQKkmTLW8rePiTnawdvCKAl

---

Once Upon a Time in America

That time of the week again. The last post til Sunday and thus time for something fun, something not related to politics.

I stumbled across the epic movie “Once Upon a Time in America” via a backdoor. I like music written by Ennio Morricone. He was the man who wrote the score for a whole bunch of spaghetti westerns, and the movie “The Mission”.**

Much of his music is typical of movie music (outside of the Westerns that is): sappy and romantic. Sometimes, though, drippy and vibrato-heavy is what’s needed. When I’m in the mood for it, I like it.

YouTube’s algorithm takes me from the ones I ask for to new ones, and the song “Deborah’s Theme” from “Once Upon a Time in America” was just such a song. It popped up amid a host of others and caught my ear.

I ended up getting the movie at the library and it was pretty decent. Weird thing about it was that it was an unfinished director’s cut so the version I saw looked like some cheap bootleg where the sound and film quality randomly changed. Occasionally the film would get all grainy and dark with the audio turning tinny.

I’m not sure the added material improved the story much, but on the whole, the movie was worth a watch. Whatever version you can lay your hands on, you’ll probably enjoy it. It’s an epic about the lives of some friends and what becomes of them. I won’t spoil it, but keep your eyes out for a twist ending, rife with betrayal.

I linked to the Wikipedia page for the movie below if you want to read up on that, and the second link is to the movie “Deborah’s Theme”. Romantic movie music is only a click away!

Enjoy the rest of your Friday and back at it Sunday.

**Great movie by the way. Check it out if you’ve not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_America