Lind’s companies sue Greeley on eve of Cascadia election

GREELEY — One in five registered Greeley voters has already cast a ballot in Tuesday’s special municipal election, but a lawsuit filed just hours before the counting begins is attempting to strike down Ballot Issue 1A as unconstitutional.

Through three related entities, Windsor-based developer Martin Lind’s Water Valley Co., which is spearheading the proposed Cascadia and Catalyst projects on the city’s western edge, on Monday sued the City of Greeley in Weld District Court. The complaint alleges that the office of City Clerk Heidi Leatherwood and the Greeley City Council should not have allowed the petition-driven initiative that would derail city-approved planned-unit development zoning for Cascadia and Catalyst to be placed before voters.

Lind’s attorney, Christopher Beall of Denver law firm Recht-Kornfeld PC, defended the timing of the legal action Monday night but told BizWest that “the lawsuit is not an attempt to stop the election.”

A “yes” vote on Ballot Issue 1A would stop construction on the project and revert the zoning for 833 acres near U.S. Highway 34 and Weld County Road 17 to “holding agriculture” for at least a year — or until the city could attempt to employ a different type of zoning. A “no” vote would allow the project to proceed.

Catalyst would include a hotel, water park and an ice arena that would house the Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team owned by Lind, and would anchor the Cascadia residential and commercial project that would surround it, being developed by Lind’s Water Valley Co.

The lawsuit echoes earlier legal action against a related petition drive, in which four Greeley residents protested another citizens’ group’s ballot issue that aimed to turn back the city’s approval of a financing plan for the Cascadia entertainment district.

The question at hand in both issues: Were the city’s decisions “legislative,” which could be reversed at the polls under Colorado law, or “administrative,” which are not subject to voter override?

“The Colorado Supreme Court has a live case on the issue: Can voters override a PUD decision? If it turns out the court issues a decision that no, they can’t, what we’re doing in this lawsuit is simply keeping options open for everybody,” Beall said. “If the high court says ‘no,’ then Greeley will have the opportunity to say to a court, ‘The Supreme Court has spoken. Voters may not decide to override the PUD.’”

At that point, Beall said, “the landowners will drop the lawsuit because there’s no need for it. If the court says ‘yes,’ we’d move to dismiss it as well. What the landowner (Lind) is trying to do is keep all options open.”

Not surprisingly, Michelle Lyng, speaking for Greeley Demands Better, the group that petitioned Issue 1A onto the ballot, saw Lind’s intent differently.

“Nothing screams confidence in your campaign and project like trying to pre-emptively shut down the vote the day before the polls close,” Lyng said in an email to BizWest late Monday evening. “Why does it seem that Mr. Lind and his related companies are so desperate to deny Greeley residents a vote on such an important project that could leave taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in potential cost overruns or revenue shortfalls?

“Who needs polling when you can just watch the panicked legal filings from your opponents? Guess this vote is consequential after all,” she wrote.

Beall stressed that the lawsuit does not call for the election to be canceled and defended the complaint’s timing.

Even though Lind’s lawsuit could have been filed as early as December, when the Greeley City Council voted to send Issue 1A to voters in a special election that will cost city taxpayers around $350,000, Beall said waiting until the last minute was the right thing to do.

“We had to file the lawsuit just before the election, because the moment it gets filed, then everybody’s talking about the lawsuit instead of the issues,” he said. “We didn’t want to make the lawsuit the focus of the election. So what do you do? You file the lawsuit at the last minute.

“The city clerk and council could have answered, but they all decided that they’d let the voters decide,” Beall said, adding that “the timing of the filing has nothing to do with internal polling or whether ballots have been cast or anything.” The lawsuit was filed Monday, he said, “so the issue wouldn’t be the lawsuit.”

Trollco Inc., doing business as The Water Valley Co., is listed as plaintiff in the lawsuit along with two other entities owned by Lind: Vima Partners LLC and Patriot Energy LLC. The lawsuit claims those entities “will suffer irreparable harm to their vested property and economic interests in both the Cascadia PUD agreement and the Pre-Development Services and Financing Agreement” if Ballot Issue 1A were to be approved.

The lawsuit targets Greeley city government because, it says, in rendering her decision that petition signatures were sufficient to qualify Issue 1A for the ballot, “the City Clerk failed to consider whether the ballot measure’s language violates the constitutional restrictions against a voter referendum on an executive/administrative matter.” Further, when the City Council on Dec. 2 approved the measure for the special election, the complaint says, that panel also failed to consider whether the ballot measure’s language violates those constitutional restrictions.

The lawsuit asks the district court to “enter a declaratory judgment finding and determining that Ballot Measure 1A is unconstitutional as a matter of law” and “enter such injunctive relief as may be necessary to implement and enforce its conclusion.”

Citizens’ group Greeley Forward supports the project and advocates a “no” vote on Issue 1A. At a League of Women Voters public forum Friday, Greeley Forward spokesman Marcus Pachner told the audience that studies show the project would generate 1,385 new jobs as well as $75 million in revenue in its first 10 years. Businesses in the city generate $110 million in (annual) sales taxes, he said. “This will bring in $11 million. That’s a 10% bump.”

If the “yes” side were to prevail Tuesday and repeal the zoning, project supporters say, it would continue Greeley’s downward spiral in sales-tax revenue and send a message to potential developers that the city is hostile to business.

As of Friday, according to Kim Kappel, the city’s public information officer and communications manager, 13,070 ballots had been received by the city clerk’s office, which is 19.9% of all registered Greeley voters. One in three voted in November’s general election, she said, which left supporters of Cascadia and Catalyst with the same 5-2 majority on the City Council that they had before that election.

Lind’s lawsuit argues that the ordinance approved Sept. 16 for a planned-unit development encompassing the Cascadia project and city-owned Catalyst entertainment district “was administrative and executive in character, not legislative, because it was a contract between the City and the property owners within the Cascadia PUD concerning the specific details and manner of development, layout, design, construction, operation, and even building materials of the Cascadia planned unit development.

“The degree of specificity in the Cascadia PUD agreement, and the necessary expertise to assess all of the choices reflected in the particular details of the Cascadia PUD agreement, demonstrate that the City Council’s action in approving the Cascadia PUD agreement was executive in nature, not legislative.”

That PUD document, full of planning and engineering details, “was 37 pages long on 41-inch-wide paper, full of architectural drawings” and other minute details, Beall said. “It is intense. That’s not a legislative decision.”

That’s why Ballot Measure 1A is prohibited under Article 5, section 1 of the Colorado Constitution “as an unconstitutional effort to engage in administrative control of executive functions through the legislative power of a voter-initiated referendum,” the lawsuit continues. “The powers of initiative and referendum do not encompass the right to petition for an election on administrative matters. In short, a voter initiative must be a valid exercise of legislative power, rather than executive or judicial power.”

Beall used the same administrative-vs.-legislative argument last fall in support of a protest against a previous ballot issue backed by another citizens’ group, Greeley Deserves Better, which would have repealed the City Council’s approval last May of an ordinance outlining the financing plan for the entertainment district. That plan authorized the use of $115 million worth of certificates of participation to lease several high-profile city facilities as collateral to pay for the plan.

Calling the financing plan too risky, Greeley Deserves Better was formed and collected more than enough signatures of registered Greeley voters to place its repeal initiative on the November ballot. However, four Greeley residents protested the validity of the petitions, triggering an Aug. 26 hearing before city-appointed arbiter Karen Goldman. She ruled five days later that ordinances such as the one passed by the City Council were administrative in nature, not legislative, and thus cannot be repealed by voters under state law. 

Greeley Deserves Better then asked Weld District Court to overturn Goldman’s ruling, but Judge Allison Esser blocked the issue on the day before the Sept. 5 deadline for adding it to the Nov. 4 ballot, contending that the dispute needed further review.

In a subsequent eight-page ruling issued Dec. 19, Esser rejected Greeley Deserves Better’s appeal of the hearing officer’s decision — not on the merits of its case but because even if voters approved its measure, it would no longer matter because the certificates of participation had already been issued.

In both that case and the lawsuit filed Monday, Beall cited a pending case in the Colorado Supreme Court. In “Kavanaugh v. Telluride Locals Coalition Petitioners Committee,” the justices are reviewing whether a citizen-led initiative in Durango can rezone a specific planned-unit development, following a 2024 state Court of Appeals ruling that deemed rezoning a legislative act subject to referendum. The case centers on whether such initiatives act as an improper “end run” around established, contract-based land-use codes.

Opponents of the appeals court’s ruling, including Telluride Town Clerk Tiffany Kavanaugh, argue that it undermines specific, long-term development contracts such as PUDs, while proponents argue that it is a valid, voter-driven process.

Supporters of the ruling are represented by Suzanne Taheri, the same attorney who has represented both Greeley Deserves Better and Greeley Demands Better.

Three justices on the seven-member state Supreme Court agreed in June to take on the case, and the panel on Jan. 16 heard oral arguments on both sides. Justices reportedly expressed skepticism about allowing ballot initiatives to disrupt specific PUD agreements. The case is being watched for its potential to redefine the boundaries between local, legislative land-use decisions and contracted property rights.

The state Supreme Court had been short one member after Justice Melissa Hart resigned Jan. 5 after a two-month leave of absence related to health concerns. Beall said it is unclear whether the court will wait for the new justice to get up to speed or issue a decision with just six members. Gov. Jared Polis on Feb. 17 filled the vacancy by appointing Judge Susan J. Blanco, the chief judge of the 8th Judicial District, which serves Larimer and Jackson counties.

Beall said Monday’s lawsuit had to be filed before the election to be eligible for relief.

Neither Lind nor the chairpersons of groups on either side of the issue could be reached for comment late Monday.

The case in Weld District Court is Trollco Inc., dba The Water Valley Co., Vima Partners LLC and Patriot Energy LLC v. City of Greeley, case No. 2026CV30225.

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