05-20-25 *INTERVIEW* Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman Suing Gov Polis Over Government Housing Control

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My friend Mike Kaufman, former Member of Congress, current mayor
of Aurora. Dude who served in the Army and Marine Corps,
which you don't see all that much. And I asked
Mike to join us this morning because I saw a
couple of stories in the news. I'll share a headline
just as an example from the Denver Post. Six Colorado

(00:22):
cities sue Governor Jared Polis and the state to block
housing reforms. So Mike, welcome back, It's good to talk
to you. Tell us what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hey, ros, Thanks, Well, you know the provision, there's a
provision in the Carlo State Constitution that gives local governments
the ability to you know, manage really local affairs that
are like you know, planning, zoning issues and things like that.
And what we've seen is the legislature and the governor

(00:54):
really not respecting that section of the constitution in terms
of saying putting fourth legislation that says, look, you know,
you can't have minimum parking requirements, you can't have occupancy
limits and things like that. That and along you know,

(01:16):
transit corridors, you have to have higher densities in terms
of housing. But these are these are really our position is,
and the five other municipalities that are that are with
us in this lawsuit is that you know, this is
really a violation of local control and if we don't
stand up for it now, I think will allow a
precedent to be set that will allow the legislature and

(01:39):
the governor to trample on these issues going forward.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I think probably all the cities that are with you
in this lawsuit feel that way. Obviously, that's why you're
in the lawsuit. I imagine that some that some cities will
differ in just how much of the housing rules and
regulations that pull us once to force you to comply
with how much they want to comply with right, Like
I can, and I'm just going to give a hypothetical.

(02:04):
I can imagine hypothetically that Aurora might say, we actually
like a lot of this and we would probably go
along with it, but we can't allow this precedent to
be set that the governor can tell us what to do.
I can imagine other cities saying, no, we are going
to keep with our park you know, minimum parking or
whatever it might be.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I think it's I think it's those two things.
I think probably For me personally, it's I mean, some
of these things I think are very objectionable, but but
it's to the defense of the governor. He's doing it
for what he believes is affordable housing. Of course, I
think they could have leaned on trial lawyers more in
the legislature to do better with the construction defect reform

(02:46):
if they want more affordable housing. But that's a separate argument.
But yeah, I think something like higher dentity along transit corridors.
We do that. We do this transit oria development along
or light rail stops in the city of Aurora, and
so we've been doing that so that that's not an
issue for it. But what it is an issue. The

(03:07):
problem is if you don't object to the to the
things that lets let's say you might agree with or
don't find objectionally that that you're not going to fight
on those things, then down the road there's going to
be something that you really believe in that you're going
to fight. At the you've allowed a president to be
set uh that that you know local control doesn't matter,

(03:29):
and that that the state does have they can they
can declare a state wide concern over anything at the
local level, and what this does, is it really this
denies people at the local level the ability to go
forward and contact their elected leaders at this municipal level

(03:50):
in cities all across the state and say, hey, you
know this, really this kind of development really doesn't fit
within the city. And it's that, you know, they haven't
taken into account the transportation issues, the impact on the roads,
you know, in terms of traffic, and so I think
that there is a there's a lot of problems with

(04:11):
this approach.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
All right, I've only got about forty seconds left, Mike.
How much of this lawsuit do you think was spurred
by Governor Poulis's threats of withholding funding from cities that
don't comply versus just the principled argument.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
No, I think we're on that too. I think there's
about one hundred million dollars in grant moneies that the
state has that he wants to basically, you know, deny
that money to those municipalities that are in fact, you know,
litigating or not complying with these orders that violate local control.

(04:51):
So I think that that But but no, the decision
to go forward came, you know, irrespective of that, and
before that, I'm kind of surprised at his decision to
do that.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Mike Kaufman is mayor of Aurora, Colorado. Aurora is one
of six cities that also include Arvada, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Lafayette,
and Westminster that are suing Governor Poulus in the state
of Colorado over the governor's effort and the legislature's effort
to do a top down setting of certain regulations regarding

(05:27):
housing and transportation, housing density, and stuff like that that
the city's claim should be under local control. Mike, thank
you so much for doing this on short notice. I
appreciate it. We'll keep in touch on this issue as
it goes forward.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Thanks Ros absolutely all right,