An invitation from WC Commissioner Bill Garcia

Following is the information from Bill Garcia,Weld county commissioner (CO).

The County will hold a public input work session on Sept. 9 from 6pm to 9pm at the old gym in Briggsdale. We will take input regarding prairie dogs, burning, the new management plan, and there will be some information sharing regarding consolidation of Forest Land Parcels.

The question to Weld County Commissioners wrt Super Slab now needs to be:

Are you going to help Weld Cnty residents, being harmed by the existence of the Super Slab with reduced property value and in some cases, inability to sell because of the corridor?

How can they help? The commissioners can, as a group request the state wide commissioners lobbying group, Colorado Counties, Inc (CCI) lobby for legislation to limit the time a speculative toll road company can hold its claim to its corridor. Fish or cut bait, so to speak.

If the commissioners need a little push to get involved, I would suggest as a group, corridor residents should request a reduction in property value on their taxes, minimally 20%, thus reducing your property taxes by 20% Weld Cnty collects each year.

In Weld County, corridor properties have a collective valued of ~ $332,000,000. 20% of this number equals an overall reduction in property values within Weld county of $66,400,000. What evidence do we have to prove this reduction of value? The assessor from El Paso Cnty testified, in front of the State and Veterans affairs committee last session on HB1007, on 2 separate occasions, and in an official letter he submitted to the committee, from his evaluations, property located within the Super Slab corridor have lost 20-25% of their value simply because of the existence of the corridor: his term was economic obsolescence, in effect, until the corridor was removed the property values within the SS corridor would continue to decline.
This information should also be passed along to Adams and Larimer Cnty officials.

I have a copy of the letter and can make it available in digital form for anyone who would like a copy, along with other supporting information to prove a drop of value.

The first step is to ask our commissioners for their support legislation to eliminate the corridor, if they drag their feet, than we can organize an effort to demand a reduction in property values.

Hopefully, just hearing the possible reduction is tax $$ will motivate them to action.

Peace,
Sharon Croghan