Bond proposal now heads to city leaders

Concert hall's slice of $631 million pie intact for time being

Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 22, 2007 at midnight

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Denver voters would be asked to approve a $631 million package of bond projects in November under a recommendation made final Thursday by a task force that examined the city's capital needs.

The recommendation, which now goes to Mayor John Hickenlooper and the City Council for approval, is about $64 million more than the panel's first proposal.

It includes, as originally proposed, $75 million to renovate Boettcher Concert Hall - a contentious subject among city officials and members of the Infrastructure Priorities Task Force.

Renovating the concert hall, which opened in 1978 and is said to have awful acoustics, is the costliest item on the proposal.

"My concerns with the symphony hall are not about the value of the project as a whole, but rather just the size of the particular project," said Hubert Farbes, the task force co-chair.

"We as a committee started out with a recommendation for a total number of new projects that was much smaller than where we ended up today," he said.

But in the end, the panel decided to keep the Boettcher allocation in place and let the city's politicians make the final call.

"Now it's up to the City Council and to the mayor to take a look at what we're turning in and say, 'We like it (or) we don't like it,' " said Denver oil man Bruce Benson. "All we're doing is advising."

The panel also recommended spending $11 million for a new recreation center in central Denver, which lacks one, at the urging of Councilwoman Jeanne Robb.

Other projects added after the panel's initial recommendation include new libraries for the Stapleton and Green Valley neighborhoods, a recreation center for Stapleton and several new road projects.

The proposal is three-pronged.

• First, voters would be asked to approve a property tax increase that would generate about $27 million annually for ongoing capital maintenance.

• Second, the city would issue $340 million in bonds for deferred maintenance and other critical needs. The bonds would allow the city to juggle debt without increasing property taxes.

• The third prong calls for another tax increase. Voters would be asked to approve issuing an additional $291 million in bonds, which would be used to expand services or for new projects, including the Boettcher renovation.

Taxes for the average homeowner would increase by $99 a year under the first and third prongs, said Chris Henderson, the city's chief operating officer.

"The task force did an excellent job managing an enormous basket of the city's needs. It also did some good thinking around how we fund critical maintenance needs and get out of this cycle of underfunding maintenance," he said. "It's a large recommendation that we're going to have to consider carefully and think about how to proceed with."

Big-ticket items in Denver's proposed bond projects

$75 million for Boettcher Concert Hall

$50 million for street reconstruction

$38 million for crime lab replacement

$20 million for housing for the chronically homeless

$22 million for Museum of Nature & Science

$18 million for Municipal Animal Shelter

chacond@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5099

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