According to BizWest, Greeley’s $1.1 billion “Catalyst” entertainment district project is once again tangled in political mud. The latest fight isn’t over ice rinks or water parks, but paperwork: campaign finance reports. One side, “Greeley Deserves Better,” missed the Sept. 5 deadline to file contributions and expenditures, claiming the deadline doesn’t apply since their repeal measure was blocked from the November ballot. The opposing side, “Greeley Forward,” not only filed its report but then filed a fresh complaint with the Secretary of State, accusing their opponents of violating state law.
The result? A proxy war of emails, accusations of reckless spending, and the kind of legal hairsplitting that would make a tax lawyer blush. With $1 billion on the line, Greeley politics are looking less like a city council issue and more like a courtroom drama with a financial subplot.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Deadline drama. Greeley Deserves Better skipped the Sept. 5 report, arguing they now fall under “infrequent filing” since their ballot measure was blocked.
- Complaint incoming. Greeley Forward pounced, filing a new complaint with Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office.
- Accusations fly. Greeley Deserves Better says Greeley Forward spent nearly $8,000 with zero donations – “reckless spending” in miniature.
- Lawyer letters ignored. Petitioners say city officials ignored their attorney’s reminders but quickly responded to media inquiries. Priorities, right?
- Catalyst chaos. All of this ties back to the financing scheme for a billion-dollar ice arena/hotel/water park complex, still stuck in legal limbo.
My Bottom Line
If you’ve got nothing to hide, then why not just file the damn report? Campaign finance is not quantum physics – it’s addition, subtraction, and a couple of receipts. Yet in Greeley, missing a deadline now doubles as a political strategy. One side claims, “We don’t have to file.” The other side gleefully runs to Jena Griswold, the state’s partisan-in-chief, to play tattletale. Meanwhile, taxpayers are stuck watching a billion-dollar ice rink morph into a billion-dollar soap opera.
The Catalyst project is already skating on thin ice with voters. Add in accusations of reckless spending, ignored legal emails, and procedural gamesmanship, and the public trust evaporates faster than a snow cone in July. Ordinary Greeley families live within their means and balance their checkbooks. Why is it so hard for these committees to do the same?
Here’s the ugly truth: the folks opposing this billion-dollar playground are showing us who they are with every move. If they can’t handle filing a basic campaign finance report, how can anyone trust what they say about anything?
Sunshine is the best disinfectant. File the reports. Show the numbers. Prove you are worthy of trust. Until then, why should anyone pay heed to what you say?
