Issue 300, the so-called citizen initiative authored by Colorado Springs resident Douglas Bruce, got on the citywide ballot last November with a lot of help from out-of-state residents, including Michael Rhodes, city clerk’s records show

Although Rhodes was not present during a campaign finance hearing in Denver on May 24-25, spectators and witnesses heard him telling a Denver petition circulaton firm that it had a “cherry opportunity to make a stupid amount of money” by circulating petitions for three statewide measures at a conservative rally.

Rhodes is the head of ProVote America, a petition circulation company based in Los Angeles. He has not responded to emails requesting an interview.

Rhodes was the second-largest collector of signatures for Issue 300, gathering 2,162 signatures, or 14.5 percent, of the valid signatures needed to get on the ballot. Rhodes also gathered thousands of signatures for three statewide measures that will be on the November ballot.

Opponents say the measures, called Amendment 60, Amendment 61 and Proposition 101, would have a devastating impact on the state economy. Amendment 61, for example, would forbid the government from issuing bonds, which would stop big construction projects like the Southern Delivery System.

Issue 300, which ends payments to the city from its revenue-producing entities, will reduce city coffers by $100 million over the next eight years, Vice Mayor Larry Small has said.

Residents of Colorado Springs will be feeling the impact for years to come.

Former reporter Perry Swanson and I went to the City Clerk’s Office a couple of months ago and built a database of the petition circulators on Issue 300. Our research showed that at  least 14 of the 16 top signature gatherers listed below do not live in Colorado Springs. Here’s what we found:

Colorado Springs Utilities, the city-owned monopoly that supplies residents with gas, electricity, water and wastewater services, has told anti-tax advocate Douglas Bruce he’ll have to pay nearly $40,000 if he wants to restart water and wastewater services at seven rental properties.

Contending that the fees were almost tanamount to extortion, Bruce alleged that Utilities was imposing them because he was the proponent of Issue 300, a  measure approved by voters last fall that effectively abolished the city-owned Stormwater Enterprise.

“Just because you don’t like somebody, or he’s your political opponent, or he just beat you on Issue 300, you can’t charge him 400 times the going rate to turn on the valves,” Bruce said at the Utilities’ monthly board meeting last week.

Jerry Forte, the Utilities’ CEO, defended  the fees as reasonable. He said  whenever  owners abandon their property or disconnect from the system for a long period of time, other ratepayers have to pick up the costs.

Bruce said he has not abandoned his property and, in fact, was still paying utility fees on some parcels. “I haven’t left town. My yards are maintained. My property taxes are current.”

The fees, he said, were arbitrary and capricious and would not hold up to a legal challenge. “You’re planning to penalize me $40,000 because I’m your political adversary. There’s no way you can rationalize charging Douglas Bruce 400 times what you charge somebody else for turning on the water.”

Bruce is author of the 1992 Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which was approved by Colorado voters in 1992, and has restrained government growth.

In December, a month after voters approved Issue 300, Bruce sent a letter to Utilities asking to have an immediate turn-on and turn-off of water and wastewater services at seven rental properties in the city. He said he is willing to pay the standard $30 charges for each parcel, but asked Utilities not to actually put water in his lines because they had been blown out and were winterized.

Instead of fulfilling his request, Utilities officials sent him a letter saying his properties would be subject to some hefty reconnection and development charges. They were  as follows:

1)  839 E. Las Animas Street, a multifamily dwelling.  Utilities said the property last had water and wastewater service at that address  in 1998 and was deemed in abandoned in 2003.  The development charge was $26,032, but due to a rate change effective on Jan. 1, 2010, the cost would be $11,896. (Development charges are paid by developers and builders to hook into Utilities).

2) 2107 Preuss Road, a multi-family dwelling, which also had its last date of service in 1998 and was deemed abandoned by Utilities in 2003.  The development fee would also have been  $26,032, but the 2010 rate charge reduced the amount to $11,896.

3) 1326 W. Kiowa Street, a multi-family dwelling, last date of service in 1994 or earlier.  Development charge of $26,032, reduced to $11, 896,

4) 633 ½ Boulder St., cottage. Last date of service 2005, reconnection charge calculated at $752 and scheduled to increase to $783  in January 2010.

5) 2707 Monument St. Last date of service 2005.  Reconnection charge of $752, increasing to $783 in January 2010.

6) 2707 E. Monument St., rear.  Last date of service was 2006.  Reconnection charge calculated at $626 and would increase to $657 in January 2010.

7) 839 ½ E. Las Animas Street, rear.  Last date of service in 2002.  Reconnection charge is $752 and would increase to $783 in January 2010.

Bruce said the development fees amounted to placing  liens on his properties.  “I’m not going to spend $12,000 to rent an apartment for $500 a month. That’s crazy. You can’t let that practice stand and if you think you can, you’re going to find out you’re wrong.”

Out-of-state petition circulators collected almost 65 percent of the verified signatures required to put Issue 300 on the Colorado Springs ballot last fall, an analysis of the petitions on file in the City Clerk’s Office shows.

“They leave and then we stumble down the road of unintended consequences,” said Richard Skorman, a downtown businessman and former city council member.

Issue 300, which was authored by anti-tax advocate Douglas Bruce, effectively ended the Stormwater Enterprise.

Vice Mayor Larry Small said Thursday the measure will also reduce the money available in the city’s general fund by roughly $100 million or the next eight years or so. “It’s going to have a huge impact.”

Bruce has asked me not to email him or call him ever again so I couldn’t get his input for this piece.

The out-of-state circulators, who came to Colorado Springs to gather signatures for the Bruce-backed measure, as well as three anti-tax measures that will be on the statewide ballot in November, won’t talk about the organization of the petition drives or how they wound up in Colorado Springs.

“Here’s the deal. We’re in politics. We do petitions. And one of the things this fraternity does is we don’t talk about what we do. Don’t call me back again,” said Steve Rickabaugh, contacted on his mobile telephone this week.

Former Gazette staffer Perry Swanson did a computer analysis of the petitions. That analysis shows that Rickabaugh collected 2,259 verified signatures, or 15.1 percent, of the signatures verified for Issue 300.

Six of the out-of-state circulators – including Rickabaugh — lived in an apartment house Bruce owns on Boulder Street, according to affidavits on file with the City Clerk’s Office.

To most people, the signature-gathering process seems like the very bedrock of grassroots democracy. Reflecting that sentiment, U.S. Supreme Court noted a few years back noted that the right to petition is at “the zenith of our system of ordered liberties.”

But these days, petition drives, particularly when they deal with money issues, are cloaked in secrecy and often resemble stealth campaigns where both the financial backers and nomadic circulators prefer to remain anonymous.

“We’re putting issues on the ballot. We don’t want reporters getting involved,” said one veteran petition collector who asked that his name not be used because it could hurt his ability to make a living.

Opponents of the statewide measures – known as Amendment 60, Amendment 61, and Proposition 101 — have filed campaign finance complaints with the Secretary of State’s Office, demanding to know who the backers are. The complaints are scheduled to be heard in late March or early April.

Larry Bradshaw, another veteran petition circulator who came to Colorado Springs last summer to gather signatures for Issue 300 and the three statewide measures, lived for a while at the Chateau Motel on south Nevada Avenue.

Bradshaw and another man named Richard Riscol, who is still living at the motel, collected 1,702 verified signatures for Issue 300, or 11.4 percent of the total.

Bradshaw and Riscol were unwilling to discuss their activities. “I don’t talk about my work. I like to keep my business private,” Bradshaw said when contacted on his mobile telephone. Riscol also declined to comment through the front-desk clerk.

Jane Harwell, another former Boulder Street resident, would not say anything at all about her petition-gathering efforts.

“How’d you get my number?” she asked before hanging up.

Even the notaries public who notarized the affidavits that the circulators turned in with their petition packets were tight-lipped.

Jennifer Gleason, contacted in person at her residence on South Willamette, said, “I did it as a part-time job.”

She then opened the front door to her apartment house. “You can go now.”

(Perry Swanson contributed to this report.)