Broomfield City Council - Abusing Power for an Expensive Agenda.
We at Broomfield Taxpayer Matters wish to acknowledge the outstanding performance of our police department, firefighters, hospital staff, doctors, nurses, urgent care staff and our essential city employees. Additionally, we thank our grocery stores’ management and employees who are on the front lines tirelessly managing our community grocery needs. We wish to thank the many restaurants and businesses that have adapted to continue making food and other services available to our community. The dynamic response by first responders and local businesses to the COVID-19 scare demonstrate the resiliency of our community, above and beyond the directives of elected officials and state or local government departments.
Broomfield Health Department’s Stay at Home Order
We all have been bombarded by radically different perspectives on the specifics of this virus, debating with our family and friends on how to manage the spread of as well as how to mitigate further impact and damage to our Broomfield neighbors and community. In response to this crisis, Jason Vahling, Broomfield Health Director, invoked a Stay at Home Order on March 25, 2020. This was quickly followed by Governor Polis’ Stay at Home Order at the end of the day.
While we understand city officials making these decisions regarding our health and safety, we acknowledge the ever changing and dynamic body of knowledge that may have led to this somewhat drastic order. While the contagion may be mitigated through these steps, our community is now under wide spread suffering that is currently being experienced by all Broomfield restaurants, non-essential medical practices, orthodontics and dental offices, pet supplies, small businesses, new and fragile businesses and any and all businesses that rely on foot traffic for it’s livelihood.
We also acknowledge the seriousness of the current and future impact that this Stay at Home Order is creating. Colorado Constitutional professor and expert Dr Thomas Krannawitter points out in his March 20 call to action that government employees may continue to be paid their regular salaries while the entrepreneur who generously invested in Broomfield (and communities around the state) while pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams are being forced to absorb the economic fall-out of the Governor’s questionable Stay at Home Order. These Stay at Home Orders and Social Distancing mandates have wreaked havoc on the lives of these business owners. They have had to reinvent themselves or have closed and suffered with no income at all. Some businesses will not survive this shut down.
It is disconcerting that our elected City Council Members have allowed an unelected, hired public health official to institute freedom restricting orders that exceed our neighboring counties. This afternoon five different counties’ health departments rescinded their own Stay at Home Orders which were more restrictive than the governor’s order which ends on April 11th, while Mr. Vahling’s order doesn’t end until April 17th.
By abdicating their responsibility to represent the City of Broomfield, our City Council has deferred to Mr. Vahling, allowing him to declare on the city’s behalf that a Stay at Home Order was the most effective way to mitigate damage. Mr Vahling’s “order” cited common and recurring themes that this would help flatten the infection curve and slow the spread of infection while potentially saving lives.
And then, it gets more curious (and worse)
On the same day that Mr. Vahling issued the stay at home order, Broomfield City Council members and the Mayor convened as the Broomfield Board of Health at a special teleconference meeting to respond to and address the COVID-19 crisis AND Oil and Gas operations in our city. As reflected by many of their campaigns, a majority of current city council members have an agenda to eliminate Extraction oil and gas production in our communities, by whatever means necessary.
To that end, City Council took the opportunity in the special meeting to exploit the COVID-19 crisis by supporting unsubstantiated claims of direct concern regarding oil and gas activities and vulnerability to acquiring the COVID-19 virus. In a bizarre “plot twist” as Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Castriotta chuckled on the call, the City Council appeared to hide behind Mr. Vahling 's latest assessment despite getting a green light from CoGCC Director Jeff Robbins who stated that Extraction’s Emergency COVID-19 Plan was sound. Mr. Vahling made a quantum leap to connect unscientific and uncorrelated assumptions around “stress and anxiety” at the mere presence of the oil and gas operations in our city, and how those are complicating factors for the contraction of COVID-19.
Many Council members were pleasantly surprised by this new information, as Mr. Vahling had previously assessed that there was no direct, negative impact with regard to the COVID- 19 virus and oil and gas activity. His new position was to recommend a shutdown (in accordance with the Stay at Home order) of Extraction oil and gas production because “some citizens” (a total of 197 per his claim but with no supporting documentation) have merely expressed (not diagnosed with nor treated for) symptoms of “anxiety, stress and lack of sleep”. By Mr Vahling’s logic, bumper to bumper traffic, parenting, snow, social media and the internet should also be shut down as these things are known to cause ‘stress, anxiety and lack of sleep…’
At the coaching and urging of several council members his new claim is that these co-morbid factors make one more vulnerable to contracting COVID- 19 virus and therefore he declared that a major operation with huge financial and economic implications should be forced to come to a screeching halt. During this meeting, legal counsel for Extraction sent an email stating that this shut down order would “cause irreversible damage” to their company. Council member Law-Evans made a motion to postpone a vote on this order and an executive session was scheduled to discuss the legal issues. Next meeting when City Council will convene as Broomfield Board Of Health will be March 31st to vote on the Oil and Gas Order with no public comment!.
Inviting Financial Ruin at the same time of a true public health crisis
Assuming that the City Council does in fact succeed at shutting down the Extraction development project, Broomfield will find itself fully exposed to a financial crisis on top of the current challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Estimates from industry experts indicate that Extraction’s capital investments for installed infrastructure alone are $500 million. Energy production from the project would be $150 million in the near term. These financial figures don’t even account for damages, lost leases, equipment day rates, and even debt the company owes if our Council was successful in their quest to put them out of business.
Should Extraction stand up and defend their property and contractual rights, the financial damages to Broomfield through a lawsuit that some members of the City Council are inviting will approach a billion dollars. That sum would literally wipe out our city’s operating budget and financial reserves for several years. Rec centers will close, critical county services would cease, the city’s hard working employees and staff would be let go as Broomfield goes bankrupt.
Hindsight will clarify the extent of the damage of this virus and will shed light on the balance between the potentially immeasurable damage this effective shut down will cause versus the value it brings in protecting the health of our citizens. Compounding an already challenging situation with clear political agendas that put our city at huge financial and legal risk is irresponsible and dangerous.
Call to Action
We at BTM strongly encourage YOU as citizens to contact your city council and mayor and Mr Vahling, and ask where and why the Stay at Home Order was placed, and why they are recklessly connecting the COVID-19 crisis with an agenda to stop energy production in Broomfield. Our representatives can only represent us if they know what we want and value. Experts, politicians and un-elected bureaucrats are just people. They don’t know how to live lives better than the citizens who elect them and pay all of their salaries. As citizens it is our right and our duty to remain ever vigilant. Our vigilance takes the form of knowing the reasoning, body of knowledge, research, data, expert consultation and opinion that informs a drastic action such as the Stay at Home Order and an unnecessary attack on an industry that is inviting further financial and legal ruin on our city.
We wish for you and your family to be well, stay informed, and stay engaged. Please ‘like’ our Facebook page. We welcome your comments and thoughts at broomfieldtaxpayermatters@gmail.com!
The BTM Team