Krenning to seek ouster of Loveland city manager, city attorney

LOVELAND — Attorney Troy Krenning, a newly elected member of the Loveland City Council, plans to introduce motions on Dec. 5 calling for the firing of City Manager Steve Adams and City Attorney Moses Garcia.

According to the Loveland city charter, such terminations would require a two-thirds vote of the nine-member city council.

“I’ll bring the motions at our first meeting in December,” Krenning told BizWest. “It is my intention. It’s not malicious. There’s just been a change in the political tradewinds. People are unhappy with the current trajectory of Loveland. People have said loud and clear they want to see change.”

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Krenning had sent an email to Adams and city council members early on the morning of Nov. 16, informing them that he would file the motions at the next regular meeting, on Nov. 21. However, he was informed that he couldn’t add items to that agenda because he hadn’t been sworn in yet as a member of the city council. Krenning took the oath of office at that meeting and sparred with Garcia over whether the charter required a city council member to submit to a background check.

Krenning also couldn’t file the motions at Tuesday night’s council session because that was deemed a “special meeting” to tackle specific subjects including the appointment of council members and others to a plethora of boards and commissions.

In the email, Krenning cited past legal issues surrounding Adams including a criminal case and a pending lawsuit, and also alleged “past collusion” between Garcia, McWhinney Real Estate Services Inc., developer of the Centerra projects on Loveland’s eastern edge, and former council members John Fogle and Don Overcash.

Fogle and Overcash lost their bids to remain on the council in the Nov. 7 municipal election, the same one in which voters resoundingly passed ballot issues giving voters a say over the council’s urban-renewal approvals — including some sought by McWhinney — and repealing the city’s sales tax on food purchased for home consumption.

Krenning concluded the email by stating that he would be open to allowing Adams and Garcia to resign, “and I would support the severance provision in your employment contracts. However, I believe there exists a basis to terminate you both for cause, which would negate any severance.”

Adams had been charged in June 2022 with criminal harassment of independent journalist Stacy Lynne over an incident that occurred three months earlier inside the Larimer County Justice Center. Lynne alleged that Adams “shoulder checked” her as she recorded city officials leaving a courtroom. Adams remained on the job and agreed to enter an adult-diversion program rather than go to trial. After he attended a conflict-management course and completed community services, the charges against him were dismissed and the case records sealed. However, last March, Lynne sued Adams in 8th Judicial District Court.

Krenning, a Loveland native and Thompson Valley High School graduate, served with the Loveland and Fort Collins police departments before serving as police chief in Johnstown. Earning a law degree at the University of Denver, he has practiced law in Loveland for two decades. He was elected to serve Ward 1 on the Loveland City Council in 2013 but declined to seek a second term. 

During a city council meeting In 2021, Krenning served Fogle and a Loveland citizen with a lawsuit on behalf of Loveland Mayor Jacki Marsh, whom the suit alleged had been defamed by them.

Neither Adams nor Garcia returned calls seeking comment.