So, let’s get this straight. The city of Aurora is giving a developer some $89 million in incentives — including a huge break on school district taxes — in order to coax the developer to build 3,800 residential units and 1.3 million square feet of retail space. The break in school taxes means the state will have to backfill that lost revenue, while the city will collect additional sales tax revenue from the new retail. It’s legal, but we think it’s a moral abuse of the state’s school equalization formula. It was designed to help poor school districts provide a decent education, not pad city coffers, even indirectly.
Gamble — it’s for the children. A group of K-12 advocates apparently has an eye on lottery money and are thinking about a constitutional amendment to divert that money from open space to K-12 education during tough times. We’ll admit it. While we love open space as much as the next open space lover, we’ve been eyeing that money too, though for higher education.
What’s good for the goose . . . Boulder City Council members are exploring the idea of adding themselves to the city’s employee health care pool so they can get a break on health insurance premiums. Several do not have access to a group plan, and are facing steep premium increases. Perhaps they ought to open up the group to all Boulderites so they can enjoy the same discount.
Smile, you’re on red-light camera. Not only do red-light cameras catch traffic violations, they may be useful in other ways — catching thieves. Littleton police have photos of two guys accused of stealing a car. After they stole the car, they blew a red light and their pictures were sent to the car’s owner. To see the accused, go to .
