What law prohibits a govt. entity from using LLC, LTD, INC, etc?

[army judge]

As a fellow internet nobody, I can say it isn't easy getting the attention of "officials" even when you wave verifiable proof in their faces.

Au contraire, mon ami.

Have you contacted your ELECTED government officials (state, county, city/town)?

Have you spoken to the two major political party leadership (donkey and elephant) at the county level?

Have you reached out to your local print media, radio, and television stations?

There are also civic clubs that might be able to help: Lions, Rotary, Exchange, etc...

Think outside the box, and get busy.

Nothing will change until you get the community involved.

You must educate the public, inform them, get them involved, too.

 

[CuriousCO]

You can ask the person about his/her citizenship. It is not illegal to have a foreign person as a board member of a corporation or LLC, though, so I'm curious why you need that information.

But it is illegal to have a foreign person and two out-of-state persons sitting on the board of a Title 32 Special District governmental entity, which is what we are... we just weren't treated that way for 17 years. 2016 Colorado Revised Statutes :: Title 32 - :: Special Districts :: Special District Act :: Article 1 - Special District Provisions :: Part 1 - :: General Provisions :: § 32-1-103. Definitions

It seems like we're more akin to the inverse of a "Government-Owned Enterprise" whereby a private corporation was undertaking commercial activities under the guise of a Special District entity. The boards of both entities were mostly the same people.

Au contraire, mon ami.
Have you contacted your ELECTED government officials (state, county, city/town)?
Have you spoken to the two major political party leadership (donkey and elephant) at the county level?

Yes. Have contacted Senators and spoken with their aides. Have spoken with members of the General Assembly. Have sat in executive session with the County Commissioners. Have spoken with Assessor. Have submitted a formal NCOMP (notary complaint) to the SoS. Have notified Office of the State Auditor of false budget/audit filings. Have briefed CDPHE Water Quality. CC'd the Governor on most of it. DA knows we've got a problem. I get a distinct feeling that they're are all waiting for us to make the next moves... it is our sworn duty after all.

Have you reached out to your local print media, radio, and television stations?

Not yet. Nuclear option, IMO.

There are also civic clubs that might be able to help: Lions, Rotary, Exchange, etc...
Think outside the box, and get busy.
Nothing will change until you get the community involved.
You must educate the public, inform them, get them involved, too.

To paraphrase that quote from The Matrix 1, "there is no box". I'm more busy than I've ever been because of what I found in a document box.

4 community members were willing to get and remain involved as board members. We lost our Secretary already. One or two other voters sometimes come to board meetings. The other's simply aren't attending online board meetings and many only check their mail/email once or twice a month. The electorate is tiny, only about 80 people who might qualify as eligible electors. As long as water comes out the faucet, all is well in life. It will stop coming out soon though, and that'll be a wake-up call.

 

[army judge]

I get a distinct feeling that they're are all waiting for us to make the next moves... it is our sworn duty after all.

It is your move, as it appears no one desires to investigate, much less assist you.

Not yet. Nuclear option, IMO.

The newspapers, radio stations, local TV stations, and national news networks.

If what you say can be proven, you'll get the notoriety and assistance you seek.

There are also legal outlets that exist to address your grievances.
Your job, find your legal benefactor.

The electorate is tiny, only about 80 people who might qualify as eligible electors. As long as water comes out the faucet, all is well in life. It will stop coming out soon though, and that'll be a wake-up call.

The outcome and harm to the public is what might get an investigative journalist to strike the match and get the fire started.

 

[CuriousCO]

I'll go to the Media if I have to, but I'd really like to try and keep the victims as off-the-radar as possible, they all came to live here seeking a quiet simple life.

Meanwhile, myself and another voter are currently monitoring the water treatment and distribution plant and testing disinfection residual, under the supervision of a certified professional. For time time being, as long as there are no pumping equipment failures, I think the system is stable. But, we have no idea how many hours are on the current pumps or how long they last in our application, so line breaks and system shutdowns are my primary concerns at this point. Second biggest concern is keeping the system funded. This District only had two sources of revenue and, upon reorganization, suddenly has a $0 cash reserve and only monthly water service revenue that amounts of half of a person's annual income.

I've been scouring old records for the past few weeks and this is how I think the organizational structure might have been:
Parent: A Limited Partnership corporation filing annual Form 1065 (pass-thru) tax returns.
Subsidiary1: A commercial equipment rental business.
Tradename1: A trade name for Subsidiary1.
Subsidiary2: A mineral-rights holding company.
Subsidiary3: A CO Title 32 Special District, somehow with an "LLC" suffix.
Tradename2: A for-profit LLC with the same entity name as Subsidiary3. If not a "trade name" then maybe it is the other half of a "hybrid" District/LLC entity. I am very curious to see if this business entity will file any more business "periodic reports" with the SoS.

The insurance policy for the District that was in effect when the new Board was appointed lists a Beneficiary IRS EIN# that doesn't belong to the District. I suspect the EIN belongs to the Parent or Tradename2. So there's another avenue I can take as far as reporting information to officials.

 

[army judge]

Texas has many mom and pop water outfits.
Sooner or later Flint, MI will become a nothing story, as water purification issues begin to appear and illnesses mount.

 

[CuriousCO]

In Colorado, there really can't be any mom & pop water shops, AFAIK.
https://www.law.du.edu/images/uploads/wl-hobbs.pdf
Water Rights | Colorado Water Knowledge | Colorado State University

But in this case, I think a mom & pop weren't happy with the Colorado Doctrine, and they found a way to bypass it in a very profitable and tax-free way.

The way I understand it so far, unless the community served is very small, a potable water system is either a Public Water System regulated by the State/EPA, or a corporate entity regulated by the Public Utilities Commission. There is also a "small privately owned water system" classification, PUC regulated. Our system was engineered ~20 years ago, from the get-go, to be a CDPHE/EPA Public Water System.

 

[CuriousCO]

Yep... looks this District was formed on a purely SPECULATIVE basis by a Mom & Pop looking to sell vacant lots and build homes on them.

The purpose of a CO Special District is to create a tax-exempt funding and governance mechanism, in order to provide new public services/infrastructure that are currently unavailable to existing inhabitants who live inside the proposed boundaries of the District. The petitioners must be inhabitants of the proposed District.

But in our case, from the time the County Commissioners approved the District "Service Plan" in 2004 all the way up through the Court decree declaring the District formed and organized (allegedly pursuant to the Special District Act) in 2006, there were ZERO inhabitants in need of any public services of a special district.

The organizing board members alleged in their petition to the Court that they were "Eligible Electors" of the proposed District and had a right to be board members because they "own 100% of the land inside the proposed boundaries". But there are additional eligibility requirements, including being a registered voter in the State, and residency (or at least personal ownership of taxable real property) inside the boundary.
It appears that neither the County nor Court took issue with the fact that the organizing Board was composed of a man, his wife, his son, his sister, and his brother-in-law (the latter two live in another State), who all lived far outside the proposed District boundaries, thus were never in need of public services and were therefore never eligible to petition the Court in the first place.

Their financial plan was a complete joke... there is no "mill levy" built into it that authorizes the District to collect property tax. It lacks the standard provisions that allow the District to receive state/local grant money. It isn't compliant with the CO Taxpayer Bill Of Rights, to the point that there is even language in the Service Plan that literally attempts to amend the CO Constitution with language similar to a House Bill that was already vetoed by a prior Governor, extend term limits beyond the statutory 4 years, and bind the District's electorate to the whims of a private 3rd party entity, with regard to property taxation, consolidation with another District, and election procedures & eligibility criteria.

The whole petition, formation and organization was just plain unconstitutional and illegal.

 

[CuriousCO]

I've finished a thorough analysis of the District's historical records and activities. Here's a few of the many interesting tidbits:

This District was organized in 2006 by a for-profit Limited Partnership company. The owners of the company operated the District for over two years before there were enough ELIGIBLE electors residing in the District to even petition the Court for an organization.

The bylaws, Service Plan, and "rules & regulations" of the District had already been written and approved by the District "board" at a "public meeting" in 2004.

The "owners of the District", as they referred to themselves in official public records, violated State term limits (4 years). The names, titles, and term lengths of the Board members were predetermined in 2004. For example, the President "Smith" enjoyed a first term length of 6 years, and his sister who lived in another state enjoyed a term length of 5 years. Not that it mattered, because all of the board members were relatives who remained in office from 2004 to Sept. 2021... except for the "King", who died in 2020 and got away scot-free with 17+ years of felony money laundering and embezzlement.

The owners of the District failed to open a governmental bank account, and failed to deposit any of the District's revenue (primarily water taps priced at up to $40,000 each) into a separate account. They opened an account with a $0 balance, quote "specifically for the District to satisfy the State" (referring to the Office of the State Auditor).

The organizing board forged their Oaths of Office 18 months after they accidentally vacated their own seats by failing to take and record Oaths within 30 days of the org. election (which did not actually occur at all). They even knew a corrupt Notary Public who back-dated all five Oaths in Jan. 2008 to make the June 2006 dates appear authentic. They were dumb enough to keep all of the written correspondence between their attorney and the corrupt notary in official district records, which are now sitting on my desk. They were never eligible to organize or operate the District in the first place, but even if they had been eligible they still botched their own organization, thus calling into question the validity of every single thing they did as directors. I filed a formal Notary Complaint and provided all the prrof, and the SoS soon informed me that an investigation is underway. Forgery is one of the few Colorado felonies that has no statute of limitations.

A new King, who was a loyal employee of the old King, ascended the throne. The new King is not a US Citizen. The new King attempted to literally purchase the District from the owners for $2MM so that they could "cash out" and retire. Fortunately, I knew this was being planned and I stopped it just in the nick of time. Undeterred, the King brazenly attempted to sell $160,000 worth of the District's remaining water taps without our knowledge. He was thwarted each time, but he may try again.

In total, from 2006-2021, the owners of the District collected approximately $1,520,500 in water tap revenue, but only reported about $147,000 of that to the Office of the State Auditor. After being kicked out by the County, the prior board closed the District's bank account. According to statements made to the State in official document filings, the District should have a "cash reserve" of up to $500,000.

The prior board illegally obtained or forged the signatures of several voters and used their signatures to forge "Applications for Exemption from Audit" that were submitted to and accepted by the Office of the State Auditor. Much of the $1.5MM was laundered and embezzled during these three fiscal years, including $80k worth of water tap fee revenue that was contributed by two of the current board members. The year after that, seven more $40k tap fees were laundered and embezzled, including mine and the current board Chairman's. We're a little peeved at the moment.

The District's special commercial/governmental insurance policy is valued at 98% less than the replacement cost of our public water system, and the beneficiary IRS EIN is one not belonging to the District. There are several other mystery EINs found in our archives.

Here are most of the crimes that I believe have been committed by prior board members, with proof or evidence of almost all of them sitting on my desk:

Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 1 (Election):
1-2-101 . Qualifications of Electors. See 1-2-205.
1-2-205 . Self-affirmation made by elector. Class 1 Misdemeanor.
1-6-101 . Qualifications for Election Judges. See 1-2-205.
1-13-114. Failure to comply with requirements of Secretary of State. Misdemeanor, varies.
1-13-201. Interfering with or impeding voter registration. Misdemeanor, varies.

Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 18 (Criminal Code):
18-5-102. Forgery, first degree. Class 5 Felony.
18-5-105. Criminal possession of a forged instrument. Class 6 Felony.
18-5-112. Obtaining signature by deception. Class 2 Misdemeanor.
18-5-113. Criminal impersonation. Class 6 Felony.
18-5-211. Insurance fraud. Class 5 Felony.
18-8-106. Refusal to permit inspections. Class 1 petty offense.
18-8-113. Impersonating a public servant. Class 3 Misdemeanor.
18-8-114. Abuse of public records, alteration and falsification of public records. Class 1 Misdemeanor.
18-8-303. Compensation for past official behavior. Class 6 Felony.
18-8-305. Trading in public office. Class 1 Misdemeanor.
18-8-306. Attempt to influence public servant. Class 4 Felony.
18-8-308. Failure to disclose conflict of interest. Class 2 Misdemeanor.
18-8-404. Official misconduct. Class 2 Misdemeanor.
18-8-406. Issuing a false certificate. Class 6 Felony.
18-8-407. Embezzlement of public property. Class 5 Felony.

 

[adjusterjack]

Nobody's ever going to get prosecuted for any of that. If your district wants to sue somebody, get a lawyer and do it.

This thread has run its course.

Closed.