The below email to JEFFCO Commissioners is also a “chat” to be entered at the 10/27 hearing.
ELID HEARING TESTIMONY
A County Local Improvement District (ELID) in Evergreen is not necessary Because: the only reason for creating the District is to allow JJEFFCO to acquire and apply local private funds and ultimately additional sales tax revenue from the local Evergreen area, to pay for JEFFCO ADA compliance projects.
The issue at hand is the deception being employed to dupe the Evergreen community into believing that a Local Improvement District and private funding is needed in order to implement “public safety” projects in Evergreen.
- This is not true because there are millions of dollars available for ADA compliance. For example, in 2018 JEFFCO Road&Bridge installed 325 ADA ramps at a cost of $1,700,000. This cost was paid with funds from the Highway Users Tax Fund (HUTF).
- The BOCC is trying to create a County Dustrict. The stake holders are the County voters but the public notice was only sent to subscribers of the Canyon Courier, alimited circulation local newspaper.
- This deceptive behavior is inconsistent with how JEFFCO has met its compliance responsibility in other areas of the County in the past.
An independent examination of the 17 ELID projects revels that:
- 24% of the projects have no ADA components, but are roadway related.
- 76% of the projects are ADA “improvements”; new ADA features like ramps and sidewalks that need to be installed,
- the number of ADA ramp features are never stated in the project descriptions, and must be judged from the “marked up” low resolution Google earth photos,
- the cost estimates are uncalculated dollar values that have no connection to any content in the project descriptions, and generates a total inflated cost of 3.4 million.
All this vagueness is purposeful in support of duping the public in to believing that they need to pay for these “Public safety Improvements.”
However, we now know, from an independent review of the 17 projects, that 33 new ADA ramps and 16,150 linear feet of new ADA sidewalk are required in Evergreen and that this will cost $1,436,509. If the other non ADA features are road related then the entire $ 1,985,500 can be paid from the same HUTF funding source that JEFFCO used to pay for the all ready installed 325 ADA ramps.
The independent review, judgment, and quantification of the 17 projects resulted in a spreadsheet analysis that applied respected cost estimation standards these quantified elements produced a total ADA cost of $1,435,509.
Adding the unverifiable inflated costs of the non ADA projects( $550,000), produces a total cost of $1,985,500 for the 17 projects.
CDOT dispensed about $87,000,000 to JEFFCO in 2019-2020.** The 17 projects would require only 2.3% of that 87 million. A drop in the bucket.
However, if Commissioners are reluctant to use any HUTF funds to make Evergreen safe for the physically challenged among us, they have the option to access the 22.4 million that CDOT has set aside specifically for ADA compliance.
If the JEFFCO 14.9666% share amount, used to dispense HUTF funds, also applies to these ADA funds , then JEFFCO’s share would be $3,352,518 . This would more than cover the ADA installations required in Evergreen.
These CDOT dollars do not belong to the State of Colorado, they do not belong to JEFFCO, these dollars belong to the people. We put these dollars into a piggy bank every time we buy a gallon of gas, and pay our vehicle registration fees, among other things. The dollars come back to us by way of sharing formulas, and they pay for highway and related transportation improvements that improve our vehicle trips and make us safe.
That said, it is unconscionable for JEFFCO Commissioners to withhold our dollars that we have saved, and instead contrive a scheme that not only dupes the people of Evergreen out of their own private economic development and legacy funds, intended to help our business community comply with the ADA, but also harbors a self taxing option when private funds are exhausted.
This scheme fits the legal definition of Fraud* in Black’s Law Dictionary, and a vote to create a county Evergreen Local Improvement District will just be one step closer to perpetuating the fraud.
There is absolutely no reason why the people of Evergreen should pay at the pump and then again pay sales tax at the store for ADA compliance that is the responsibility of JEFFCO to perform and divert our HUTF tax dollars or the dedicated CDOT ADA dollars to to other pockers.
We don’t need an ELID in Evergreen. We simply need Road&Bridge to install the required ADA features in Evergreen, and for JEFFCO to withdraw the money to pay for these projects from the correct funding accounts.
I must say in closing that I have lived in Evergreen for 35 years and have witnessed the growth of a culture of caring, sharing, and volunteer assistance. This kind of local infinitive should be embraced and rewarded by County Government.
WE don’t need a County government that prays upon our emerging business community, we need a partner that strives to enable us, an incubater to help us grow and one day become self sufficient.
The state legislature has has set the bar high when it declared in Title 32 that “the general assembly declares that “ districts “ will serve a public use and will promote the health, safety, prosperity, security and general wellfare of the inhabitants of such districts.”
JEFFCO is an arm of the state, and that expressed intention must also be JEFFCO’s intention.
The people of Evergreen need a partner, an enabler, not a predictor.
* FRAUD
“An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right; a false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his legal injury.” (Black’s Law Dictionary)
**Colorado Department of Transpiration : Final Budget Allocation Plan for Fiscal Year 2019-20
The below independent review spreadsheet analysis provides a far more accurate total cost estimate of the 17 proposed projects than the uncalculated estimate provided by JEFFCO’s Department of Transportation & Engineering.
NOTES
While the words ADA Ramps appear in the project descriptions an actual count of the number of ADA ramps to be installed is not included in any description.
Some features like sidewalks and guard rails can be judged to be ADA components.
“Other” features are not related to ADA features and have no estimated costs.
FINDINGS
Provision of a count of ADA features in this spreadsheet and use of cost estimation standards provides credibility for the project cost estimates.
A precise description of ADA features in the project descriptions does not exist.
The GOOGLE Earth pictures are of low resolution, making judgment of features difficult.
CONCLUSIONS
The project descriptions are so imprecise and qualitative that they offer little informative value. So, assumptions and judgements have been inserted to build this spreadsheet.
The lack of any quantitative descriptions of critical features undermines any credibility of cost estimates. So, quantitative judgements have been inserted for this spreadsheet.
Some of the projects lack good public safety judgment. For example: EHS students need sidewalks and guard rails to get to Evergreen library, not shoulders and gutters.
The list of projects and the descriptions are worthless for making policy decisions resulting in multi-million dollar expenditures and political subdivision proposals.
COST ESTIMATION STANDARDS
Fairfax County Parkway & Franconia-Springfield Parkway
CORRIDOR STUDY
DEVELOPMENT OF COSTS FOR NON-STANDARD COMPONENTS
This section will detail the process, assumptions, and sources involved in developing a cost for each component that is not part of the VDOT Statewide Planning Level Cost Estimates spreadsheet. These items are listed in order of when they first appeared in the FCP-FSP
Improvements Matrix Guardrail GR-2(SI-10) VDOT Standard GR-2 Guardrail is listed at $16.38 per LF in the
VDOT District Averages for the NOVA District.
LOW: $17 per LF
HIGH: $20.40 per LF
Curbed Sidewalk (SI-23)
Curbed sidewalk is bid as curb-abutted sidewalk with no buffer space. The cost for the curb is the same as listed underSI-05, and the cost for the 5’ sidewalk is the same aslisted underSI-06.
LOW: $63 per LF
HIGH: $75.60 per LF
Construct ADA-Compliant Curb Ramp (SI-02)
Installing a new curb ramp at a corner is assumed to include the following:
constructing a CG-12 with aggregate, a detectable warning surface, a 4’ wide strip of concrete along the back of the ramp (about10 square yards), 8 linear feet of new radial CG-6, saw cutting the existing pavement (about 22 LF),demolishing and then replacing a 1’ strip of asphalt pavement along the new curb and curb ramp (about22 LF), and 5 cubic yards of borrow for any grading that might be necessary behind the new ramp.The Fairfax County Unit Price Schedule lists CG-12 at $651.34 each,
concrete sidewalk as $50.36 per square yard, and borrow at $26 per CY. The VDOT
District Averages for the NOVA District list saw cut at$2.50 per LF, radial CG-6 at
$33.21 per LF. The cost for the detectable warning surface is the same a that shown
underSI-01. The cost for new full-depth asphalt pavement is the same as that shown
underSI-06. The cost for demolition of asphalt pavement is the same as that shown underSI-21.
LOW: $2350 each
HIGH: $2820 each
How The Estimation Standards Are Used
Total ADA $ = # ADA Ramps x (Hi or Lo or Avg ramp cost) + Linear feet of ADA sidewalk x ( Sidewalk Cost/Linear foot)
Total ADA $ =C11(2589)+D11(75.6)