NEWS ANALYSIS: Tom Fox finishes up his two part series on the nation's economy with a look at what to expect from the Reagan administration.
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NEWS: Colorado has finally begun to get some snow, but the mild winter has left its mark on the ski industry.
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COLUMN: Loose Connections, a new weekly column by Ed Kraus, begins this week. .
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METROSTYLE: New releases by The · Boomtown Rats and Phil Seymour get the Schwartzkopf stamp of approval - which is no mean feat.
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Volume 3, Issue 22 ©MetroPress, March 11, 1981
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The special districts:
/ Interests conflict in governance by Frank Mullen ! services - have the power to levy Many of Colorado's special pr?perty taxes within their b01.~ndistricts are in apparent violation dnes. A METROPOLITAN 1nof the state's conflict-of-interest vestigation 'o f the files of several disclosure laws and other statutes state agencies uncovered many ~equiring · districts to file current undisclosed conflict-of-interest information with state agencies a situations and other abuses of the METROPOLITAN s urv~y special district system including: showed. • A district near Colorado The special districts - "quasi- Springs formed from three parcels municipal,, local governments of land that are not even near each which provide water, sanitation other, governed by a board of systems, fire protection, and other · directors some of whom reside in [
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JUST So Tllr.lll IS ltlO CONFLICT OF //ITEllEST' Voclo B£TT£1l CALL /lllC BACK OtJ AMOTHtll LINC•••
other states. · ~ Property taxes allegedly bemg collected for a defunct special district. • Developers who form special districts to provide services usually staff the board of directors with their relatives or employees and in some cases such boards have awarded co~t~acts to the~r own firms or subsidiary comp~es. • The state ~gency which oversees the special districts is at least ~y~be~dinm~~~~
formation, and one official said it will be "summer before we get a handle on them (districts) and a year or two before we can say we ~e living up to all our statutory obligations." Advocates of the districts, ineluding the districts themselves and m~ny of their taxpayers, argue the system provides local control of much needed services at an economical cost, and abuses of the system are "isolated cases." Critics of the special district system said the districts operate with little or no supervision. Since the directors of many districts wear the hats of landowner, government official, and sometimes contractor, critics
argue, there is potential for political corruption and unscrupulous practices. "(The special districts) are the w~y the legislature has chosen to develop new areas," said Steve Kaplan, first assistant attorney general. ''I am not saying there are abuses, but the potential is there." K~pla? s~d ~he problem with special d1stncts 1s that there are so many of them. "There is a real proliferation of
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he said, ''and a lack of any real accountability." In fact, no one in the state government really knows exactly how many special districts there are in Colorado. Beth Bernard, of the State Department of Local Governments, the state agency which oversees the budgets and activities of the special districts, said the department's files are not up to date in many cases. She is now in the process of upgrading the department's manual filing system, which contains records of 1,427 local government entities, ineluding 900-1,000 special taxing districts. continued on page 3