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News Release Release Date: February 7, 2001
City of Broomfield Public
Information Office
One DesCombes Drive
·
Broomfield,
CO 80020 · (303) 438-6308
Contact: Roy Howard, City Attorney
Phone: 303 438-6353
A long time coming: Broomfield wins lawsuit
A Colorado Supreme Court win has been a long time coming for Broomfield officials who learned yesterday that the city won an appeal filed against it by the Boulder County Commissioners. The appeal challenged a 1999 decision made by the Colorado Court of Appeals which held for Broomfield in its 1995 creation of an Urban Renewal area along West 120th Ave. and the use of tax increment financing proposals to fund improvements to the area.
The Supreme Court upheld Broomfield’s position. "We’ve been in court on this for five years and a month," said an elated Roy Howard, Broomfield City Attorney.
The Supreme Court ruled almost immediately after hearing oral arguments on Monday. The Court’s ruling summarily dismissed the County’s appeal by denying the Writ of Certiorari "as having been improvidently granted."
Howard said the Supreme Court was obviously not swayed by the county’s arguments. The Court of Appeals decision was upheld, and Howard termed that decision a "significant" one in terms of clarifying the proper roles of counties and city governments as to the implementation of the Urban Renewal statute. "The Court of Appeals opinion clarifies municipal authority under the Urban Renewal law in eliminating blighted areas in cities. It said the urban renewal tools granted by statute to cities cannot be usurped by other levels of government. Apparently, the Supreme Court agreed," Howard said.
City Attorney Roy Howard represented the City of Broomfield, and special counsel Paul Benedetti represented the Broomfield Urban Renewal Authority (BURA) throughout the litigation.
The suit was originally filed in December, 1995, by the Board of County Commissioners from Boulder and Adams counties against the City of Broomfield and BURA. It alleged that the urban renewal plan did not comply with the state’s urban renewal statutes and violated TABOR (the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights) because it involved a tax policy change that should have been put to a vote of the electorate. Adams County later dropped out of the case.
In the Appeals Court decision, citing case law, the county’s interpretation of statutes was denied and the court reversed Boulder County District Court Judge Dan Hale’s ruling, with directions to dismiss the complaint.
According to the Appeals Court, standing involves whether or not an entity has a legal basis for a claim for relief. The Appeals Court upheld Broomfield’s contention that the county did not have standing to sue because they did not have "an injury" caused by the urban renewal district. The Appeals Court also said the county could not assert claims under TABOR regarding whether or not the tax increment financing plan constituted a tax policy change that had to be approved by voters because the TABOR privilege is limited to individual taxpayers.
To Boulder County’s assertion that TABOR was violated, the Appeals Court disagreed, saying that individual taxpayers can sue, but no such right exists for governmental entities. The Court said that "a county may not bring an action on behalf of its taxpayers in the absence of an express legislative grant of authority."
Boulder County’s argument against the use of tax increment financing in the BURA funding plan was also rejected by the Appeals Court. The county argued that it would be deprived of increased property tax revenues from the urban renewal area that are attributable "in part to an increase in property taxes in general."
The Appeals Court rejected this argument because state law provides for a proportional adjustment to property taxes paid to the county based on a general reassessment. The Appeals Court said if property values are reassessed, the property values are readjusted, so revenues from these "general" increases go to the county. "Only the increases in the value of a property over the assessed base values go to the renewal authority," the court wrote. "Thus, the tax increment allocation plan developed by the renewal authority . . . simply does not deprive counties of their property tax revenue."
The court also concluded that Boulder County’s claimed injury is not a legally protected one. Again, citing case law, the Appeals Court pointed out that just because state statutes require an urban renewal plan be submitted to a county before its approval, no further role is defined for the county. Consequently the county has no authority any different from the general public’s to take any action, participate in the planning process or implement the plan.