Having heard that as a board you will be deciding how you will vote in the upcoming April DDA Ballot Issue election and knowing that many of your members have businesses and property within the Downtown Development District, I would like to take this opportunity to present a case for voting against the Ballot Issues before the electorate of the NDDA.
First please consider the following,
On the day of the election the following facts are true:
1. There are no members of the Board of the Downtown Development District. All the past and present members have resigned, so effective April 1, the only member left is the BoT liaison member who is up for re-election.
2. We do not know who the next mayor will be. The present Mayor is up for re-election and three candidates are running.
3. We do not know who will be on the BoT. The Mayor and 4 other positions are up for election. This is a majority vote of the BoT, so no matter what has been done in the past, we can not expect that to happen in the future.
With this much uncertainty concerning our elected and appointed officials, calling for a yes vote only on faith that the right thing will happen in the future, is not a positive approach. Instead, it seems more logical to have the Town election and then move forward with appointing a new DDA board, which in turn will present a plan to the electorate of exactly how the $900,000+ will be used.
Further, the necessity of this election is because of the way the finances and tax money was used by prior boards. As you may know, the finances did not comply with the TABOR regulations, and has required this election to bring the Town into compliance. Granting borrowing authority of $900,000 is beyond the $350,000 that was out of compliance.
Further, increasing the property taxes within the District by . 5 mills for another 7 years, puts the mill rate within the District the highest in the County (as per the Tax Assessors office). This creates increases in rents and other charges by landlords to offset the increased expenses.
I have submitted my application for appointment to the DDA Board, but the present Mayor and BoT want a bigger pool than 3 or 4 people to chose from, before they will appoint people to fill the vacant DDA Board seats. One thing to keep in mind is that there is a limited pool of people who are eligible to serve and of those, some have already served many years. The State Statutes require that a majority of the Board be property owners, which would be 4, and 1 BoT liaison, with 2 business owners. In a small town like Nederland, with many absentee property owners, and many properties owned by the same person, this is a very difficult board to seat.
Please consider my recommendation of a NO vote for both Ballot Issues until these problems are solved. It is possible to bring these ballot issues forward in the November election. Many consider a NO vote at this time to be IN the best interest of the Town, allowing time for everything to calm down before moving forward.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Patricia H. Everson, P. E. Investors, LLC
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