Two things can be true at once, a long but very much worth reading article on judicial performance reviews, and is Vail bullying Vail Resorts with eminent domain?
Two things can be true at once:
1. We can incentivize events to come to this state and there is economic benefit to many when, say, a $30K wedding comes here.
2. The way these incentives are handled can be open to question.
**I'll add a bonus question: should we be doing this at all?
Let's go in order.
The original intent of the incentives mentioned below was to try and draw business to Colorado (and to spend up all that "free" COVID cash). You could reasonably argue that it did that. You could argue reasonably that it didn't drive new business, but kept some here. You could reasonably argue that it did neither. I'm not sure and won't speculate on that.
What I can say is that the events that were here did result in money being spent here. In that sense this isn't just (as is implied by the headline) a government gimme per se. We taxpayers did pay to defray the cost of some events, including private, very expensive weddings.
Whether or not we should have is a values question and one I'll leave to you to suss out.
Less ambiguous perhaps is the question of whether or not this was handled well and the government agency overseeing this circling its wagons only adds to that impression.
To wit, the quote from the article below:
"It’s not clear whether or how well the state is handling the potential conflicts of interest that inevitably arise when taxpayer funds are paid to private businesses and individuals. Questions remain about its contract with MSU as well as other problematic aspects of a program that was legislated to disburse rebates equitably. The state tourism office refused repeated requests by CPR News to be interviewed in person or over the phone for this story and said it would only answer questions in writing. CPR News declined to accept that condition from a state agency."
At issue here is transparency. At issue here is our right as taxpayers, having decided through our representatives to pay this money, to be given full and complete information on the how's, why's and etc.
That, more than whether or not the money goes to high end weddings in fancy areas of the state (likely because those folks are savvy enough to apply) is what is important to me and ought to count as question #1.
One of the sponsors of the bill that created this program promised to hold people's feet to the fire in an oversight hearing. You'll pardon me if I'm a little skeptical about how much that will improve things.
https://www.cpr.org/2023/04/06/colorado-taxpayers-private-weddings/
A long article about problems in the judicial performance system saved specifically for a Saturday.
Enjoy that extra cup of coffee and inform yourself about an often overlooked, and yet vital bit of our state's government.
I will leave it to you to read the article(s) below, but I can kind of set the stage for you a little.
Every year when you get your bluebook, the back section gives judicial performance reviews on the judges you get to vote to retain or no.
**Quick bit of my own context here: I do read these parts save for our state's appellate and Supreme Court justices. Reason being I feel it's important to weigh the decision on the local judges but I am not voting to retain any state level judges given their handling of the scandal in the judiciary and their being a rubberstamp for Progressive Democrats and flat ignoring the will of the people re. TABOR (among others).
Those reports are done by a group of lawyers and etc. and use a variety of rubrics to help make the recommendation for retention or not (almost always for).
One thing they are NOT considering, however, is the judges record when his or her decisions are appealed.
That strikes me as a pretty big gap. I'm not saying it's exactly always the case, but you can look at a verdict on appeal as a remark as to the judge's correct application of law and precedent.
If Bob is overturned 20 times out of 100 and Sally is overturned 2 times out of 100, I think I'd like to know it. I think it's definitely relevant to whether or not I consider Bob to be fit to work in my district any more.
Wouldn't you?
**Quick note: per the article, judges do have to provide two decisions to the performance review board, one that was overturned and one that was sustained (along with the judge's original written ruling). Thing is, the judge gets to pick which two to share.
Considering the bigger fish to fry and the current "conversation" going on between legislature and judiciary re. judicial discipline, I have a feeling this will take a backseat. I can live with that, but I hope it's indeed the backseat and not tossed out the window.
https://denvergazette.com/colorado-watch/colorado-judicial-performance-review/article_f12491e2-c4ee-11ed-a25b-cf39b41daeb1.html
Is Vail, CO using eminent domain to bully Vail Resorts?
A reader submitted the Reason article below and asked what I thought about it. Reading the article sparked a lot of interesting questions for me and so I thought I'd share with you to see if you had some thoughts to chip in.
First, I'd recommend reading the article before getting to anything I write below. Don't worry, I'll be here when you're back.
Here is how I see the issue:
First let me start of by saying that I am always nervous/skittish about the government using its powers of eminent domain for anything. Private property is pretty sacrosanct in my view and I think that places the bar quite high for using it. In general, I'd say that the bar is at the height of emergency.
So now we come to my next thought. Is the habitat for bighorn sheep an emergency? I suppose different people would have a different threshold for that than others. For me, if we're talking about the land in question is the only place the sheep can live,
and development there would prevent them reaching their full bighorn potential, it's probably it's emergency enough. You don't know what you've got til it's gone after all.
I don't get the sense of either of those criteria from this article, however. Here's what sense I do get.
Vail Resorts has a mitigation plan in place. They were on their way to approval of this by the city (albeit by narrow votes and likely some contentious decisions).
Then, according to the article, "[a]fter the Town Council last voted to approve the project in 2019, a local election flipped the Town Council to a majority that opposed the Booth Heights development, reports Vail Daily."
This suggests to me something that I don't care for. It suggests (as happened with the "free lunch" initiative that recently passed) that a group of voters who didn't want the apartments was able to get together and use the government to take from someone else. I don't care for that. I didn't with "free lunch" and I don't now, and this holds whether or not I get bit by either decision (I'm not bit by either of these).
I would much much rather see the machinery of government stay out of private property decisions as much as possible, but I am not sure if that's feasible. It is in the nature of humans to do this with government and not everyone agrees with me.
Given that, I'd settle for the machinery of government being used to find solutions that are mutually beneficial and not a cudgel used to browbeat your opponent into doing what you feel they ought to.
What do you think? Please add to the comments if you feel like chipping in.
**One more reminder to, in the interest of fairness and being fully informed, read the article below. My commentary above skips over a fair bit of back and forth and, if all sides are to be believed, there was indeed some back and forth and a seeming attempt to find a solution. I stand by my impressions about what happened here, but it's important to see their comments and judge the credibility of the people involved/statements made for yourself.
https://reason.com/2022/10/21/colorado-town-seizing-ski-resorts-land-to-stop-it-building-employee-housing/?fbclid=IwAR28sbB8OXgRtaoSVmE4LFfluW_DzUqPMtakjG6un6pB7x0UReJPvckg7ew