A proclamation opposing Amendment 74, an attempt to amend the Colorado Constitution to drastically limit state and local government regulation at a high cost to taxpayers.
Proclamations like this by the city of Denver. So thank you very much. Thank you. All right. We have two other proclamations this evening, Councilman Ortega. Do you want to read Proclamation 957, please? Yes, I'd be happy to. Proclamation number 957, opposing amendment 74 and attempt to amend the Colorado Constitution to drastically limit state and local government regulation at a high cost to taxpayers. Whereas local government services are essential to the citizens of the city and county of Denver. And. Whereas, Amendment 74 has been written by certain corporate interests to change the text of the Colorado Constitution, Article two, Section 15, which dates back to 1876. And. Whereas, Amendment 74 declares that any state or local government law or regulation that reduces the fair market value of a private parcel is subject to just compensation. And. WHEREAS, while Amendment 74 has simple language, it has far reaching and complicated impacts. And. Whereas, under the current Colorado Constitution, a property owner already has the right to seek compensation from state or local governments. And. Whereas, Amendment 74 would expand this well-established concept by requiring the government, i.e. the taxpayers, to compensate private property owners for virtually any decrease whatsoever in fair market value of their property, traceable to any government law or regulation. And. Whereas, Amendment 74 would create uncertainty because it is not clear what the language actually means and how it can be applied. And. WHEREAS, Amendment 74 would severely limit the ability of Colorado, state and local governments to do anything that might indirectly, unintentionally or minimally affect the fair market value of any private property. And. Whereas, Amendment 74 would drastically diminish the ability of our state and local governments to adopt reasonable regulations, limitations and restrictions upon private property. And. WHEREAS, Amendment 74 would directly impact zoning density limitations and planned development. And. Whereas, Amendment 74 would make inherently dangerous or environmentally damaging activities prohibitively costly to attempt to limit or regulate even the interest of the public. And. Whereas, any arguable impact upon fair market value, however reasonable or justified or minimal or incidental or temporary resulting from state or local government action could trigger a claim for the taxpayers to pay. And. Whereas, governments would be vulnerable to lawsuits for almost every decision to regulate or not to regulate, making regular government function prohibitively expensive for the taxpayers. And. Whereas, similar efforts have been attempted and defeated in other states, such as the states of Washington and Oregon. And. Whereas, the fiscal impact for similar language in Washington State was estimated at $2 billion for state agencies and 1.5 billion for local governments over the six years. And. Whereas, there were $4 billion in claims in Oregon before the residents repealed the initiative two years after its passage. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver that the Denver City Council oppose Amendment 74 and strongly urges a no. This November, Section two that the Clerk of the city and county of Denver shall affix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation. Thank you, councilman. Are taking your motion to adopt. I move for the adoption of proclamation number 957. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you. Mr. President, this was initially brought to my attention asking if I knew anything about what initiative went away, as it was referred to before. It was given an initiative number by the Secretary and amendment number by the Secretary of State's office. And at that point in time, I had not really looked at this particular initiative that will be on the November ballot. They did get the signatures. And as I started to look at it and talk with people like the Colorado Municipal League, we actually had them come and speak to our Finance and Government Committee to share their concerns also about the broad reaching and indeed significant implications this could have on really gridlock in the day to day work that local and state government does. And so I thought it was important, number one, to bring it forward so that it's another way to educate the public. We did get very clear direction from our city attorney that on amendments such as this, we do have the authority or the ability to take a position. And I just want to strongly encourage my colleagues to to vote for this proclamation tonight, encouraging the voters to vote no when they see it on the ballot in November. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. This this initiative, this measure is a killer for the communities ability to regulate land use in their own backyards. The. Determination of fair market value is not really a science so much as an art. And so actually sometimes it feels like a dart game throwing darts at the dartboard. I recall when Land was being acquired for Denver International Airport back in the late eighties early nineties, there were wild, wild estimates of what constituted fair market value, the largest parcel box elder farms that the city had offered about $30 million. The owners wanted 90 million and they were eventually awarded 56 million. And I believe that that might have been later reduced in an appeal. So fair market value chain changes from day to day, from hour to hour sometimes. I would look at this a little differently. If the owners of private property who are pursuing this were just as willing to give back to the public the gains and fair market value they receive from government regulations and laws. When we take an action that improves and enhances the fair market value of property, there's no mechanism for us to recapture that. And nor should there be a mechanism for the taxpayers to be on the hook for a perceived decline in a fair market value. We could take an action, and every action that we do take is subject than to litigation, because someone is going to claim that we diminished their fair market value if we imposed a height restriction or a view plane ordinance, suddenly we have taken away from all the property under that ceiling. We've taken away some of the density they could otherwise have built. We are subject to litigation for that. On the other hand, if we don't adopt tight restrictions and we allow people to build up as high as they wanted. Then we'd be liable for litigation from people across the street who've lost their view of the Rocky Mountains and we've diminished their fair market value. This is just a horrible, horrible attempt to solve a perceived problem totally unrelated to most of what we do. And I encourage everybody to take a good, hard look at this and ask yourself, do you really want your checkbook? After all, it's not our checkbook. It's yours. It's the public checkbook. Do you want that opened for blank checks to every property owner who says when you pass that law or regulation, you affected my fair market value ? We need to urge people to vote no on this. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Seeing no other comments. Madam Secretary. Raquel Ortega. Sussman Black Brooks. Espinosa. Flynn. Hi. Gilmore. Herndon. Cashman. Carnage. Lopez. Hi. Mr. President. I am secretary. Please close voting. Announced results. 12. Days 12 hours proclamation 957 has been adopted. Councilwoman Ortega, do you have anybody you'd like to comment?