In Loveland, new developments are on the minds of the city council. New faces have been elected to sit on the council, and one of their first orders of business is whether to continue an audit of the “North Centerra” projects.

The audit we have so far, by firm Ernst & Young, expresses a few concerns. It’s hard to rattle off words like Transparency without boring you. We should first understand that we aren’t worshiping transparency for the abstract sake of it. We aren’t upset because the spiritual law of transparency is damaged.

No; We are upset because the city lawyer carried water for corporate interests when he tried to tell us months ago that secretly negotiated changes to the development plan were outside our control.

No; We are upset that these companies are unaccountable to the rules set forward, and that we have evidence to show it happening so casually.

No; We are upset because no matter what rules we create, secret negotiations and pals can wholly circumvent the rules, whatever they say.

No; We are upset because there is scarce journalism for us to point at when these things take place. The article reference at top is a rare example of coverage of investigative results performed by the community.

LURA has many obligations, and EY is plainly pointing at what is going wrong.

As is always the case in representative democracy, a handful of human beings have the power to use the information in front of them, or decide to ignore it.

Competitive bidding rules bypassed

Bookkeeping issues and missing documentation

Related-party transactions lacked arm’s-length review

Next steps for LURA

The LURA board is expected to discuss the report Tuesday, including whether to waive attorney-client privilege and formally release it to the public.

Attorney-client privilege is the most powerful doorstop in This Country.

Here is a PDF file that was accessible on the public web, which is at the heart of this audit result.

It is clear where the financial incentives are. Capitalists across This Country try to force-feed us financial incentives as a proxy for our own abstract good. This is the great lie of our post-Information Age. Greed is good so long as it has attorney-client privilege and we have none.

After the vote

I attended the LURA board meeting and heard no small amount of complaint that the audit result had ominous news inside. The conversation leader on the board said a lot of nothing, including the tiresome PR-tier complaining that they had tried so so so so hard to have a public meeting before now, that it just somehow hadn’t happened, that the coverage of the audit result appearing on Reporter Herald by Jocelyn Rowley had been part of a so-called “worst case scenario”.

These complaints had all been given in preamble to garner sympathy with us in attendance, but if I know how to read a room, it did not achieve that intended result.

Previously I had reached out to Zeke for an interview during his candidacy, but we had missed the opportunity. Twice. However, I was glad to see him voting against the executive session. I don’t personally begrudge the desire to confer privately first, but I liked his desire to get on with what we all knew was coming.

I am also glad to have received an email reply from Sarah, who is also new on the council. My email to the LURA board was terse and I urged them to use their powers. Several of the public comments at the meeting were well articulated, including one that made clear that this project had been running for a while and the board composition had changed over the years, that accountability was not synonymous with personal blame.

The city council, who is also largely the LURA board, released the final report to the public after an executive session and a vote.

You can reach Autumn Ryan to be heard about this subject at [email protected]. Do not transmit sensitive or private information if it’s unsuitable for others to have.