Loveland man sues again, targeting Centerra South pacts

LOVELAND — A 19-year Loveland citizen has filed yet another lawsuit targeting the City Council’s actions surrounding the proposed Centerra South mixed-use development.

Rebuffed by a September ruling from Larimer District Court Judge Laurie Dean that dismissed his latest lawsuit, barbershop owner Bill Jensen has tried again, suing the City of Loveland with a five-point complaint.

Representing himself, Jensen had sued the city in July, contending that the council violated Colorado’s open-meetings laws by not giving proper notice before emerging from an executive session in the wee hours of Feb. 21 and reversing its Nov. 21, 2023 vote to rescind the urban-renewal and financing agreements with developer McWhinney Real Estate Services for Centerra South that a previous council had approved in April and May 2023.

Jensen’s complaint alleged that the 2:15 a.m. vote was taken “when ordinary community members are asleep in their beds … thus denying the public of their broad rights to transparent policy making.” He alleged that because the vote was improper, the court should rule that the council’s November vote to rescind the agreements still stands.

In dismissing his July lawsuit last month, Dean cited a 2008 Colorado Supreme Court ruling in Town of Marble v. Darien that reversed a state appeals court ruling that the Western Slope town had violated Sunshine Laws regarding legal noticing of a January 2004 meeting.

“They ruled that if the public notice is labeled as an update, an update makes it proper,” Jensen told BizWest on Tuesday. “I realized the procedural errors I made. When I crafted the current lawsuit, I got a sense of what she was saying and not saying, and used that to craft my current lawsuit. I didn’t bring up the same claim: improper notice.”

Jensen said the first of his five claims in the new lawsuit, which he again represented himself in filing on Oct. 14, is based on “Rule 106,” while the second through fifth claims are based on open-meetings laws. Rule 106 in Colorado allows people to appeal the decision of a lower body; opponents of development projects sometimes bring Rule 106 cases in an attempt to win a court order overturning cities’ actions.

Jensen’s first complaint alleges that minutes of the council’s March 19 meeting, which were approved by the council on Sept. 17, “arbitrarily” omitted the council’s discussion of a telephone call in February between City Council member Troy Krenning and attorney Michael Plachy, the city’s outside counsel handling the McWhinney legal actions. Jensen’s complaint alleges that that call was “meaningfully connected” to the council’s subsequent vote to reverse its rescission of the agreements early on Feb. 21. Jensen alleged that the private conversation was improper because such talks about pending litigation should come through the city attorney’s office in a group setting and that it improperly influenced the council’s final vote. Jensen thus asked the court to find that the vote to rescind has no legal standing and must be invalidated.

Jensen alleged that he had standing to complain because the omission of the discussion from the March 19 minutes deprived him of his “broad right to a transparent government.” 

Jensen’s other four complaints address alleged violations of open-meetings laws, contending that the Feb. 20-21 executive session itself was improper.

“My fifth claim is black-letter law,” Jensen said. “Minutes have to be taken and promptly recorded if a resolution is adopted. It took them six months, and parts were improperly withheld.

“I put together five pieces that illuminate why the repealment was done improperly,” he said. “A lot of the proper components are missing.”

The city has until Nov. 5 to move for dismissal of Jensen’s lawsuit.

Jensen also sued the city last December, alleging that the previous city council’s votes to approve the agreements with McWhinney were invalid based on violations of city and state open-meetings rules and improper notice. District Court Judge C. Michelle Brinegar in March threw out Jensen’s complaint — but not based on its merits. She instead dismissed it based on laws that prohibit relitigation of claims that already had been decided. Jensen had filed a complaint in June 2023 echoing Loveland mayor Jacki Marsh’s contention that the council didn’t provide sufficient notice for the May 2, 2023, hearing and vote on Centerra South, and asked the court to determine whether Colorado’s urban-renewal laws had been violated. Dean dismissed that complaint in September 2023, but also not on its merits; she ruled that Jensen filed it after a statutory deadline.

Jensen appealed in May to the Colorado Court of Appeals in Denver, alleging that Brinegar’s ruling was in error and that his complaint should be remanded back to the Eighth Judicial District Court in Larimer County. Jensen said oral arguments have been scheduled in that case for Nov. 19 before the appeals court.

The allegations stem from letters that council members Dana Foley, Patrick McFall, Steve Olson and Andrea Samson, and former council members Richard Ball, John Fogle and Don Overcash signed on Loveland City Council letterhead and sent to Gov. Jared Polis and state lawmakers. The letter to Polis was sent April 19, 2023, and signed by all but Samson. All seven signed the letter to members of the General Assembly that was sent April 27, 2023.

McWhinney sued the city on Nov. 28, a week after the newly elected council majority’s vote to rescind the agreements, and Jensen’s lawsuit alleged that the developer offered a settlement agreement at 7 p.m. Feb. 20 during the council’s meeting — but that the tendered offer was only valid for five hours, ending at midnight, a half hour before the council quorum went into executive session and more than two hours before it emerged early on Feb. 21 and voted at 2:15 a.m. to restore the Centerra South agreements.

The lawsuits are: Bill Jensen v. Loveland City Council in Larimer District Court, case number 2023-CV-246; Bill Jensen v. Loveland City Council in Larimer District Court, case number 2024-CV-170; and Bill Jensen v. Loveland City Council in Larimer District Court, case number 2024-CV-209.

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