Denver real estate developer and homebuilder Patrick Hamill has been giving to political campaigns and causes for years.

In each election cycle over the past decade, Hamill or his company, Oakwood Homes, has been noticeably present among hefty contributors to campaigns that have varied from Aurora’s mayoral race in 2019 to a massive bond issue in 2016 to build and update Denver schools.

But of the more than 170 contributions Hamill has made to federal, state and local campaigns since 2010, no one single race appears to have meant more to him than the board of directors of Ebert Metropolitan District in 2016.

Better known as Green Valley Ranch, the district is one of Oakwood Homes’ signature communities in Colorado, with more than 20,000 homes planned across 5,400 acres and worth multimillions of dollars to its developer.

Hamill personally pumped nearly $40,000 into the successful re-election campaigns of two Ebert resident board members – by far the largest amount ever for a single metro district board election in the state, according to campaign finance records filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and analyzed by The Denver Post.

It was even more than the $30,000 he gave to the Hillary Victory Fund in 2016 to back presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, federal campaign disclosure records show.

The metro district candidates to benefit from Hamill’s donations – Russel Smith Jr. and Mikel Moore – say they didn’t know how much money was spent on their behalf, from whom it came or how it was used. Two campaign committees were formed on their behalf, but they never knew any of its details.

Typically, there is no campaign funding for metro district candidates, The Post’s analysis found. But that changes at the city, county and state level, where candidates receive tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from developers and builders. Timing of the contributions varied from just before a public body was set to vote on whether to approve a new district to years after a district was formed, generally during a new election cycle.

“It’s hardly fair to call it a democracy when money has such a huge influence on elections, even the small ones,” Aurora Councilman Juan Marcano said. His campaign last year took no money from developers, though his incumbent opponent did. “You’re on auction, not election.”

An ongoing Denver Post investigation into the inner workings of the state’s 1,800 metro districts found a governmental system that operates without the usual oversight of voters and restrictions on conflicts of interest that ensure communities remain financially sound. The Post found at least a dozen large metro districts in Colorado are dangerously underwater with hundreds of millions of dollars of debt.

The process begins when developers get the OK from municipal authorities to form a metro district. Once formed, the developers elect themselves to the district’s board of directors and approve bonds that are then sold so the developers can be reimbursed for their startup costs. The board sets the tax rate for future homeowners to ensure the bonds are repaid. But there’s no guarantee the homes promised will ever be built, putting little to no financial risk on the developer and all the pressure on the residents of homes that are built.

Tying votes to contributions is generally an imprecise exercise. For instance, in the months before the Denver City Council approved the Loretto Heights Metro District in September 2019, developers and companies associated with it had contributed nearly $40,000 to the campaigns of eight of the 11 council members who approved the plan, as well as Mayor Michael Hancock. The other three “yes” voters did not get a contribution, nor did the solitary “no” voter.

In several cases, The Post found metro district developers gave to more than one candidate in the same race, such as the $5,000 contributions by Aurora Highlands Metro District developer Carla Ferreira to Aurora mayoral candidates Mike Coffman, Marsha Berzins, Omar Montgomery and Ryan Frazier.

Sometimes a developer goes all-in on a single candidate, such as the $40,000 that Aurora Mayor Coffman received from various people and entities behind the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, a massive metro district reliant on Aurora’s oversight. Or the $19,500 donated to Arvada Mayor Marc Williams by several people connected to Remington Homes and $7,500 from companies tied to developer Chris Elliott, donations that prompted formal complaints of campaign violations.

“It’s on the candidate to decide whether they’re there for the community or to better themselves,” said Pam Feely, who has been a campaign treasurer for more than a decade and is the author of “A Candidate’s Guide to Campaign Finance in Colorado.” “Now, real estate development is huge because we’re growing, and they’d like it to be easier to create that metro district they so desperately want.”

Coffman said the developer money would not affect his decision-making.

“Developers don’t have the latitude that they have in other cities when it comes to forming metro districts because Aurora has adopted uniform standards,” Coffman said in an email to The Post. “As Aurora’s new mayor, I will continually review these policies to make sure that our metro districts are transparent, fair, and accountable to our taxpayers.”

Yet without limits on campaign contributions in some elections – Aurora is one of the few Colorado cities without constraints, and county elections this year will have limits imposed for the first time – the donations have flowed freely, records show.

“When it’s high, donations can seem out of line for the seat,” Feely said. “The (Colorado legislature) is a $400 limit, so why do we need this much money in a municipal race that might not represent nearly as many people?”

She added: “It might not influence, but you do get noticed.”

“I had no idea it was that much”

Russel Smith worked for the U.S. Department of the Interior before retiring to a small home in Green Valley Ranch in northeast Denver as the community blossomed about a decade ago.

It wasn’t long before he asked to be on the board of directors for Ebert Metro District to have a say in its growth plan and taxes. He was appointed to the spot in 2012 because no one else wanted it. Resident Mikel Moore was appointed to another open seat.

Until then, all five seats were held by representatives or employees of the developer, Oakwood Homes.

“We wanted to be part of what was happening in our community,” Smith said in a telephone interview from his new home in Texas. “I was retired, so I had the time.”

Then came 2016, when the district was seeking to pass new bonds to refinance $112 million worth of bonds that were issued years earlier. There was dissent in the community, Smith recalled.

“The community was changing and people wanted more information, and I’m not sure (the board) wanted to give it,” Smith said. “The last thing we did was something with the bonds, and to pay off some other stuff.”

With the election looming, the Ebert board approved $118 million in new bonds in March 2016, most of it to refinance earlier bonds as well as to cover additional developer expenses.

“That’s about when they came to us (Smith and Moore), and the builder asked us to stay on and that they would contribute a small amount to do it,” Smith said. “It was kind of – and I’m not sure how to describe it – they wanted to keep the status quo, and brought in people who ran elections.”

Three weeks later, campaign committees that were set up to support Smith and Moore each received a $7,500 donation from Oakwood Homes CEO Pat Hamill, campaign records show.

The Friends of Mikel Moore and the Friends of Russel E. Smith Jr. committees were each formed by Katie Kennedy at Strategic Compliance, a political operative with extensive campaign experience in Colorado who also works closely with the Home Builders Association, records show.

Three weeks after the first donation, Hamill pumped in another $10,000 for each candidate, then another $1,500 for each candidate a week after that, records show. Oakwood Homes employee Jerry Jacobs – a former member of the Ebert board who now lives in and manages the metro district – also dropped $150 into each committee.

“I never heard of her,” Smith said of Kennedy. “Heck, we never even saw any of those dollars.”

Green Valley Ranch was nearly immediately blanketed with glossy flyers and canvassers knocking on doors to pitch the two candidacies.

“It really surprised me,” said Bari Garner-Holman, a retired electrical engineer who ran against the two incumbents. “I didn’t understand what Pat Hamill was so afraid of. I’m wondering, ‘Why is it so valuable to elect these two?’ ”

Hamill did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Records show the other candidates in the race for the two seats – Garner-Holman and James Ruggiero — recorded no contributions to their campaigns.

“At the time it didn’t make any sense, so much money for a metro district election,” Ruggiero said. “I learned they had $10,000 to print their stuff and mass mailings. I couldn’t compete with that. It’s not fair. We thought Oakwood should have stayed out of it, but they didn’t.”

Ruggiero said he later reasoned the influence was because residents were asking too many questions.

“We get that they’re a big name and own all the land out there,” he said of Oakwood, “but it didn’t seem like they were treating the residents fairly. We’d speak our mind, but they’d do whatever anyway.”

Political consultant Sean Walsh said his canvassers were hired by the committees and walked the neighborhood making the case for Moore and Smith’s re-election.

“I don’t recall there was a single, hot-button issue that defined that race,” he told The Post. “We made the case for their re-election by emphasizing their biographies, their commitment to public service and their capable stewardship of the district.”

Smith and Moore each said in separate interviews with The Post that they tried to learn who was behind their campaign money, even making a trip to the bank that held the contributions.

“They turned us away,” Smith said, admitting that he didn’t understand campaign finance law enough to simply ask the Colorado secretary of state for the public disclosures. “I’d never been involved in an election before, so I didn’t know.”

When told by The Post how much Hamill had contributed to each man’s campaign, Smith offered a long uninterrupted pause before reacting.

“I’m shocked,” he said. “That’s kind of outrageous. I had no idea it was that much. For a metro board election? Hell, the mayor probably didn’t even get that much.”

“Sometimes you just have to hedge your bets”

Campaign finance laws limit individual contributions in Denver to $1,000, down from $3,000 a year earlier.

In Aurora, however, there are no limits.

Coffman’s 2019 campaign for Aurora mayor pulled in at least $140,000 from developers and builders associated with metro districts in that community, The Post’s analysis found. In all, Coffman’s campaign raised nearly $747,000, disclosure records show.

The largest was a $25,000 donation from RAL Holdings, whose agent is water king Robert Lembke, who runs several special districts that supply metro district developments, according to incorporation and conflict of interest records filed with the Colorado secretary of state.

Hamill’s contributions to Coffman totaled a more-modest $10,000, while Richmond American homes chief Larry Mizel gave $5,000. Other contributors included developer Mike Sheldon of Aurora Highlands, High Point Metro District and its developer, Andrew Klein, Stonebridge hotelier Nevin Dimond and metro district developer Donald Cook.

“We’re not talking exorbitant national dollars, but the council has lots of influence over planning and zoning, unified development,” Marcano said. “They want that business environment to remain as predictable as possible. It’s a local manifestation to ensure business remains as stable for these folks, whether it’s beneficial to the public or not.”

Campaign finance records in Aurora show that one of Coffman’s opponents, Councilwoman Marsha Berzins, did just as well, nailing about $50,000 in developer-related contributions – many of them from the same folks who gave to Coffman.

Berzins did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

“It’s common that donors – especially higher dollar donors – will support more than one candidate running for the same office,” Walsh explained. “The difference between people running for office is not always a stark ‘good candidate’ versus ‘bad candidate.’ More often the distinction … is those you prefer and those you can live with.”

Developer James Merlino, who frequently contributes to county commissioner candidates in Adams County, said covering one’s bases is important.

“I give to those I believe in, but the biggest guys give to both sides,” Merlino said, noting that he worked as a political consultant before turning to real estate. “Sometimes you just have to hedge your bets.”

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Elections in the Castle Pines North Metro District weren’t supposed to be that complicated in 2018. After all, much of the district was built out and residents made up the five-person board.

But water rights and water supply were a contentious issue that year, enough that some candidates for the first time saw campaign contributions reach into the thousands of dollars – nearly all of it from land developers.

“I got voted out because of all that money,” said David Brennan, whose $530 in campaign spending – all his own cash – for a four-year seat was dwarfed by the dollars spent by opponents David McIntire and Robert Crew, records show.

Each received $2,000 from developer Darwin Horan of Ventana Capital, who lives in the district and has his own metro district, North Pine Vistas, that sits within CPN’s boundaries and would be impacted by whatever water decisions CPN made.

But it was the race for a two-year seat that had the most money, with Horan contributing $5,000 to winner Norman Froman, records show.

“As you know, I build communities, but believe it or not, it’s more than that to me,” Horan said in an email to The Post. “I’ve been involved in Castle Pines North for 20-plus years. I have simply exercised my right to have a voice in the place I’ve been a part of for all these years.”

The candidates, he said, each supported positions about water supply that he found beneficial.

“It was a platform to ensure that the district would evaluate all potential options related to future water supplies, cost-effective services and long-term sustainability in our community,” Horan said. “It’s really that simple.”

Things weren’t that simple in Arvada, where last year’s mayoral election devolved into an investigation of allegedly illegal contributions to Marc Williams’ campaign – most of them from developers of metro districts in that city.

The re-elected mayor was accused of violating campaign laws by accepting $19,500 in contributions – roughly a third of his war chest – connected to two sources: Remington Homes president Regan Hauptman, and developer Chris Elliott, a business associate.

Because the city limits contributions to $750, each man hit the maximum, as did family members, employees and, in Elliott’s case, nearly a dozen companies for which he is the registered agent.

The two-term mayor, who was a councilman for 12 years before that, has said his vote cannot be bought and is unabashedly pro-development. Nineteen people filed a complaint saying the contributions violated state laws that treat dollars from similarly owned companies or entities as by the same source. In that way, they alleged both men were limited to just $750.

The city clerk and attorney disagreed, saying the home-rule city’s laws supersede state laws for local elections, and that each entity and individual contributor was wholly separate from the other and free to each give the maximum.

“Metro district developers are absolutely buying the elections,” said Garner-Holman, who lost in the Ebert Metro District election. “It’s gotten down to the lowest level, where even running to represent your own neighborhood is tainted. I’m frustrated, disappointed and disgusted.”

Learn more To find information about individual metro districts, including budget documents, director and election information, and service plans, go to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs website

Citations Colorado Secretary of State campaign finance disclosure records City of Aurora campaign finance disclosure records City of Denver campaign finance disclosure records Adams County campaign finance disclosure records City of Arvada campaign finance disclosure records