An Adams County judge has appointed a neutral third party to manage the finances of two Commerce City metro districts after their boards failed to make payments towards the millions of dollars of debt they accrued for the construction of the districts’ infrastructure and amenities.

The districts’ resident-controlled boards, which appear to have relied on advice from their recently hired financial and legal advisers – CPA Charles Wolfersberger and lawyer, Paul Rufien – also refused to cover day-to-day expenses as required by a 2016 agreement, according to court documents.

Two candidates are seeking the Ward III City Council seat, pitting the seat’s incumbent — who was appointed earlier this year to fill a vacancy — against a challenger. Let’s look at the Ward III hopefuls in the order in which they appear on the fall ballot.

Our City Council is considering a new policy to register rental properties — like a similar law that’s on the books next door in Denver. It’s intended to hold landlords more accountable, but it also stands to backfire on the housing market in our community if it isn’t at least fine-tuned.

A former City Council member — Rene’ Bullock, who now heads the Commerce City Chamber of Commerce and is running for mayor — brought the issue to the public’s attention in an opinion piece he wrote for Wednesday’s Denver Gazette. Bullock maintains that the proposed ordinance, called Rental Registration Ordinance 2541, “was designed initially to target multi-family housing but in practice will increase rental home prices and create onerous burdens for property owners of single-family rental homes.” He argues the ordinance as drafted will, “lead to costs that will be passed on to tenants who will be forced to pay higher rent.”

Two candidates are seeking the Ward II City Council seat — which is currently held by one of them. As in our candidate profile for mayor, let’s look at the Ward 2 hopefuls in the order in which they appear on the fall ballot.

Following up on our recent peek at City Council and mayoral candidates and their contributors, we’ll offer profiles of each of the candidates this week — starting today with the mayor’s race.

We’ll feature the hopefuls in each race in the order in which they’ll appear on the ballot.

In Commerce City’s 2023 race for mayor, three candidates will vie for an open seat being vacated by current Mayor Benjamin Huseman, who is not seeking re-election.

Here’s your chance to put politicians in the hot seat. The citizens of Commerce City will get to meet, greet — and grill — the candidates for mayor and five other City Council seats on the fall ballot at a Sept. 29 candidate forum open to the public.

If you wish to praise the council for any particular reason — or if you’d rather ask them what they’ve actually accomplished since the last election — show up at Fire Station #8, Friday the 29th, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

MAYOR

FOUR-YEAR TERM

(Vote for One)

Steve Douglas

René Bullock

Joseph Dreiling

We’re now past the Aug. 28 for City Council hopefuls to file their nomination petitions to appear on this fall’s ballot. We’re also just a day shy of the Sept. 8 deadline to register as a write-in candidate, for those who missed the regular ballot deadline. Six seats — including the mayor’s —on our city’s nine-member council will be decided on the ballot.

So, let’s take a look at who’s running — and get a glimpse at the support base for those candidates who have received campaign contributions they had to report in their early filings. We’ve linked to each candidate’s filing affidavit for easy access to the city’s website, where there’s further information on the candidates.

Just the other day, Eye On Commerce City took stock of the city’s struggling school district, Adams 14, and noted how much work lies ahead as it tries to close the achievement gap with other, higher-performing districts. 

Only a few days later, the gap got bigger.

Annual statewide student achievement tests that are used to measure how well Colorado’s schools are preparing our kids — more or less flunked Adams 14. The Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS, test scores revealed our city’s district ranked near the bottom — of the entire state.

A 40-minute-plus debate at last week’s City Council meeting over a planned road crossing — and whether it should reference “golf carts” among its anticipated users — has drawn a rebuke from some Commerce City citizens. After we reported on the time-consuming tangent off the council agenda at its Aug. 21 meeting, readers — including a former council member — pushed back hard. Most weren’t too kind to the council.

A bad case of analysis paralysis? Or, maybe it was just plain dysfunction on display at Monday’s City Council meeting. It got bogged down for 40-plus minutes as some council members got hung up on the description of a planned pedestrian road crossing. Not the crossing itself — the description.

The time might have been better spent addressing citizens’ concerns raised earlier in the meeting about the city’s widespread problems with homelessness along streets, parking lots and other public places. (Council members sat silently through that one.)

The Colorado Department of Transportation is engaging in outreach to the north Denver metro area — including Commerce City — as it paves the way for long-overdue improvements to the I-270 corridor.

To say Adams 14 schools have faced challenges in recent years is an understatement.

Our city’s academically struggling school district lost its accreditation last year by order of the State Board of Education — a rare occurrence for any of the state’s 178 school districts. Even after accreditation was restored later in the year, the district remained under orders to reorganize. And that’s not to mention the years of legal wrangling between the district and the state board over the state’s actions.

Whether 23-year-old William Schuette’s intervention in a burglary in Commerce City a couple of years ago made him a vigilante or a Good Samaritan is a call we’ll have to leave to others. But his conviction last week for second-degree murder in the shooting death of burglary suspect James Martinez, 24, does make at least one thing clear: Colorado’s crime wave has hit home in our community and has left people on edge. 

Commerce City’s new public safety chief — who has been serving as interim police chief — brings an impressive resumé to his latest post. 

Rick Myers, who started Monday as the director of public safety for the Commerce City Police Department, has a career in public safety that spans more than four decades,

The Commerce City Historical Society is hosting a fundraiser Wednesday at 4 p.m. to buy and restore the historic Bakke house. It’s the city’s oldest house, built in 1892, and the Bakke Preservation Project aims to make sure the vintage structure at 6140 Holly St. in Commerce City gets the respect it deserves well into the future. Tickets are now on sale.

Our very own state Sen. Dominick Moreno is stepping away from the state Senate — where he has been serving as Senate Majority Leader — to accept a high-level appointment in the administration of recently elected Denver Mayor Mick Johnston. The Denver Gazette gives details…

The Adams 14 Education Foundation, which offers wide-ranging support to our local school district, has brought in new leadership. The foundation posted an announcement to social media detailing the development…

Talk about a sudden-death ending. When Commerce City’s council decides time is up, it apparently doesn’t matter what’s going on at the moment. It’s lights out.

Some folks recently found that out the hard way when presenting the council with the latest details of a major residential development planned for the city. Just as their presentation was getting underway — and the presenters were about to take questions from the council — Mayor Ben Huseman interrupted…

Chambers of commerce exist all over the world. They do not have a direct role in creating laws or regulations, though they may be effective in influencing regulators and legislators with their organized lobbying efforts.