School is back in session and that marks the traditional end of summer in Douglas County - the Autumnal Equinox is September 22nd. We at The Lantern have been remiss in our monthly recaps so I’m combining them all into a summer-long update!
Favorite Stories from Summer
CO Politics: Douglas County measure to expand county commission advances to November ballot
CBS/Olivia Young: Leaders in Colorado county grant $19 million tax break to controversial data center; “The math doesn’t make sense.”
Colorado Times Recorder: 20 Days Before Opening, Douglas County’s Newest Charter School Has No Occupancy Permit and 135 Empty Seats
Douglas County and a Series of Unfortunate Ethical Dilemmas
The Douglas County Director of Communications, Caroline Frizell, began commenting on Lantern articles when we published information about the $19,000,000 tax incentive Commissioners delivered to a data center in Parker. Shortly after that, Frizell reached out via email to establish two-way communications between the Douglas County Government and The Lantern, and a day or two later we published our article about how Commissioners gave a no-bid contract for Zebulon to a financial advisor with close ties to the Sterling Ranch Community Authority Board (CAB).
The Lantern established a policy with the County, based on the SPJ Code of Ethics, that we do not want quotes and comments from the County Commissioners until they take steps in good faith to allow free, open public comment at their meetings. In short: The Lantern should not have access to the Commissioners that the general public does not enjoy.
Frizell indicated the story about the no-bid contract had inaccuracies, I am waiting to hear what those are, but we did publish her replies to the questions we posed in the article.
In the meantime, Frizell offered to field any questions we have so I sent four questions on critical topics The Lantern has covered. I think it’s worth calling out the Commissioners and Frizell have been subscribed to The Lantern for a year and are only just now reaching out. The no-bid contract article clearly struck a nerve.
And I want to explain why I posed a question on the Chatfield Basin Wastewater Treatment plant. Sterling Ranch is basically at its limit for wastewater processing and without new capacity, building additional homes is not feasible. Sterling Ranch/Dominion Water have agreements with Roxborough Water and are working on other partnerships for wastewater treatment. The County Commissioners are planning to use Federal ARPA money to build the wastewater plant Sterling Ranch developers need to move forward. The Chatfield Basin wastewater project is a really interesting entry in the story of Sterling Ranch, the County Commissioners, water, and money.
It is worth noting the County communications staff reached out to The Lantern for a better dialogue and it’s The Lantern placing a restriction on that communication, not the County. So they deserve credit for making that outreach and The Lantern deserves at least some scrutiny over whether our policy is fair. The Lantern allows comments on our articles, the County* disables comments on its social media posts. The Commissioners have three microphones, news cameras, and control of agenda and public comment to broadcast their message; should The Lantern receive a privilege of access that ordinary citizens don’t have? That doesn’t seem equitable.
It’s not our job to alert the County about what we’re working on.
(*The County government controlled by the Commissioners disables comments; the Sheriff’s Office and County Clerk have separate, official accounts that do allow comment)
Sterling Ranch, The CAB, Dominion Water, and “The Tangle”
It came to my attention that Harold Smethills, in a Sterling Ranch CAB meeting, said The Lantern was putting out inaccuracies about the relationship Sterling Ranch has with the advisory firm Stifel.
“Sterling Ranch” is a tough term to unpack but I am sympathetic to the point he’s trying to make and I want to clarify and talk about how we, The Lantern, can do better and how we cannot do better.
Harold Smethills is the principal owner of Sterling Ranch Development Company. He sits on the Sterling Ranch Community Authority Board (CAB), which is where he made the comment. He and his son Brock Smethills also sit on the Board of Directors of Dominion Water, which supplies Sterling Ranch.
Harold made the point that Stifel doesn’t advise his private company, Sterling Ranch Development, but does advise the Sterling Ranch CAB - which is a separate, government entity. We relied on emails from Douglas County staff showing that Stifel was giving the County a better deal than they give the Sterling Ranch CAB to establish the relationship between the three parties.
The CAB is formed by intergovernmental agreement between several metro districts, which are elected, government boards. Dominion Water is a government entity, its board is elected, and is de facto controlled by the principal owners of Sterling Ranch Development Company.
The Lantern does use “Sterling Ranch” as shorthand for the homes and community, the private development company, the government CAB and metro districts, and even Dominion Water. Perhaps that is too broad, perhaps it’s a distinction without a difference. We try to make sure it’s clear in articles what entity we’re describing, if it’s ever unclear or we get it wrong - we’ll correct it.
I went through the article and added the abbreviation “CAB” where appropriate and made a correction comment in the article’s header. I take getting it right seriously and I don’t want readers misinformed or confused.
At the CAB meeting, Smethills said The Lantern is trying to “weave some type of conspiracy” together by conflating all these entities. I don’t think there’s a conspiracy, in that I don’t think they’re hiding the plans. But if you want to weave them all together… I would just say it doesn’t take much yarn.