|
I referenced this in a recent issue, but no one was more surprised - and vindicated - when the Aspen Daily News ran a follow-up to my column that broke the story about Mayor Torre's outrageous August 2023 real estate deal. (Read my original piece again HERE)
I initially wrote that it was unlikely that Torre did anything illegal per se, but that APCHA intentionally broke its own rules to facilitate the secretive and off-the-books deal. After reading how APCHA staff reacted to reporter Austin Corona's follow-up inquiries, I am going to revise my earlier assessments of the less-than-kosher deal.
In short, Torre completely fleeced his former landlord, taking full advantage of her incapacitation and the fact that her ill-informed daughter who never looked at the unit's deed restriction was handling the transaction. Legal? Sure. Befitting someone with any morals or virtues? No way. It was filthy dirty and self-serving to the highest degree. And if the young woman thinks Torre "deserved" the unit as she says, she should have been informed that public officials cannot accept favors of this kind because that is what's called a bribe.
And, APCHA is run by executive director Matthew Gillen who is nothing short of a liar whose doubling and tripling down to normalize this obscene transaction finds him contradicting himself in the newspaper again and again, and misrepresenting APCHA's own policies to fit a ridiculous narrative of his own concoction. (Only because APCHA staff works for the city manager and not its own feckless board of directors does this arrogant miscreant still have a job. No wonder our corrupt housing program has the poor reputation it does - it starts at the very top!)
So let's dig in and take a look at Gillen's ridiculous attempts to make "The Torre Story" seem normal and go away. (It won't.)
The March 12 vindication squarely proved how APCHA a lying and story-changing entity whose failed attempt at discrediting a critic (me) blew up in their faces. Their desire to have it both ways (no lottery, multiple simultaneous deed restrictions AND no RETT for Torre) and multiple occasions of outright LYING to the local media is both shameful and demonstrative of corrupt practices. When APCHA picks winners and losers - as they obviously do - this is clearly not in the best interest of APCHA residents and aspirants, nor should it be tolerated by this community.
On January 20, the Aspen Daily News initially reported "Mayor's housing purchase not unique," defending the transaction based on information fed to them by Gillen. (I'd link the story but the ADN has pulled it down because of the now-proven "inaccuracies.") To "prove" how normal Torre's transaction was, Gillen highlighted the sales of two Hunter Creek units with 1982 deed restrictions that he said were "silent" on whether or not they needed to be sold by lottery, seemingly to justify not conducting one on Torre's. This was total obfuscation and misrepresentation. Yet it was printed in the paper even when the units' deed restrictions specifically DO require sales by lotteries. The ADN corrected this on March 12.
Asked by the ADN for other transactions "similar" to Torre's, Gillen produced 18 from 2023. The problem was, each one was an RO (resident occupied) APCHA unit that specifically DOES NOT require a lottery, ever. Nice try, Gillen. ADN corrected that as well.
The January 20 article additionally reported that Torre's unit required that it be sold to an employee at a set maximum price. This was another spoon-fed LIE by Gillen. The deed restriction, a publicly accessible document, clearly states that the unit simply be used as "employee housing." It states no such thing about who it can and is to be sold to, and for what price. HERE is that deed restriction. Read it for yourself.
Tom Thumb Unit A301 was a free market unit, encumbered by an early deed restriction that required the unit to be utilized by an "employee of moderate income" until the deed restriction expired in June 2032. Anyone could own it as long as a qualified employee lived there. Come June 2032, all bets would be off. Gillen's representations to the contrary are simply his desperate attempts to distract the community from the malfeasance that he permitted and could very well have helped concoct. It's too bad the ADN didn't seek out the deed restriction to fact-check Gillen before going to print!
Recall that I had written how Unit A301 could have been sold to any buyer at any time for any price as long as it would be rented to an APCHA-approved "employee" until the deed restriction expires in June 2032, at which point it would revert to the free market. I asked numerous realtors about today's free market value of the 419 sf unit and suffice it to say, even with an 8-year "wait," to a one, they each said the unit would fetch SUBSTANTIALLY more than the $106K Torre paid his landlord!
I also pointed out that the chain of title was a seller-to-APCHA-to-buyer transaction, standard practice when APCHA acquires a unit or transacts units already in the portfolio. (Torre "brought" the sale to APCHA after negotiating with his landlord, placing them in the chain of title.) Gillen corroborated APCHA's momentary possession of the unit and describes this as APCHA's regular opportunity to update transacting units' deed restrictions. Yep. Exactly. But here's where it gets interesting. Deep in the hole of his own digging, Gillen told the ADN that in the case of Torre's unit, "Only the owner can place a new deed restriction on the property." LOL. Right. APCHA does it all the time! See THIS email Gillen wrote to APCHA board chair Carson Schmitz in October 2023 in response to a question I asked. (Gillen had no idea back then what I knew about Torre's deal.)
In other words, according to Gillen, Torre struck a fabulously cheap deal with his landlord, bought the unit using APCHA as a transactional broker because despite having the listing contract with the seller they wouldn't tell the seller about the potential impending windfall (it becoming worth over $1 million in 8 short years), and then he voluntarily after-the-fact slapped a deed restriction on the unit that holds it to 3% appreciation and mandates ownership and use by an employee into perpetuity!?! Right.
No one reading here doubts the abject stupidity of our one-named mayor, but even this is beyond the pale. If he had done such a thing, surely he'd have shouted it from the rooftops to brag about his magnanimity as "the housing mayor!" But recall, Torre, city officials and APCHA staff kept the whole thing hush-hush and off the sales reports, where it was bound to remain, but then a reader tipped me off. It was HIGHLY UNUSUAL. There was not even a whisper.
There is exactly ZERO chance Torre voluntarily deed restricted his unit. I know this because the APCHA board regularly kicks around ideas to financially incentivize such behavior and the county just created a $2 million fund to significantly reward people who do just this. APCHA has also identified 244 local rental units with similar expiring deed restrictions and has reached out to the current owners in hopes of acquiring these units before the deed restrictions expire. APCHA knows full well what the future values will be and wants to pick off these units before the current owners reap a large windfall, not to mention remove the units from the employee housing inventory! They're also hoping some of these owners are as ignorant as Torre's landlord's kid who now admits that she had no idea about the soon-to-expire deed restriction. (Of course APCHA didn't tell her!) Without bragging rights or money, Torre would never have done this. This is a guy who financed $95,400 of the $106K purchase, after all.
APCHA absolutely updated the deed restriction when they update the deed restrictions of all other transacting units - during the brief moment of possession in the transaction's chain of title!!
But Gillen had to LIE, and this made the whole story a lot worse.
This LIE in particular illustrated how irregular and against policy this transaction was. On one hand APCHA says Torre changed the deed restriction after buying it. Ok then, why was APCHA even involved and why didn't he pay the RETT? Earlier, Gillen had said the transaction was not subject to the RETT because it was a usual APCHA transaction that is exempt. The two (old and new) deed restrictions cannot be in effect at the same time - it's impossible. So which is it, because you can't have it both ways, Gillen. Illegally exempting a transaction from the RETT is breaking the law!
The bigger question is why all the lies? It was obviously a clandestine deal: the assistant city manager was made vaguely aware but kept in the dark, APCHA staff knew, and of course the mayor himself was at the helm. (It was also intentionally kept from the APCHA board, but then again, what isn't.) Once revealed, why wouldn't the city and APCHA have simply owned it, acknowledged that it wasn't perfect, apologized and made Torre pay the (paltry) RETT before closing any and all loopholes to prevent such a grievous error from ever happening again??
They simply cannot ever admit being wrong. And with the city's backing (financial and otherwise), they'd rather fight.
As a result, today Torre's transaction lacks any and all legitimacy. How can ANYONE respect APCHA? It's a rogue organization whose lack of transparency and accountability are a community embarrassment and liability.
(And for those who are wondering, no, The Aspen Times did not react to the vindication article.)
This inability to admit when it is wrong is precisely why APCHA also regularly finds itself on the losing end of notable legal challenges that I will explore in a future issue. Suffice it to say, a recent district court ruling found in favor of the plaintiffs who own a RO unit in the North 40. The case is steeped in intrigue and features none other than APCHA's very own vindictive pitbull hearing officer Mick Ireland, who was excoriated by the court for exceeding his discretion and authority, and both misapplied and misinterpreted the law.
It's a doozy of a case that opens up a can of worms for APCHA far beyond what they ever contemplated when they came after the plaintiffs in the first place. One would hope that in retrospect they are regretting not taking a more objective stance, examining their current rules and the matter at hand, and realizing how an overly zealous Ireland took the initial matter too far. Instead, with a pending decision whether or not to appeal the court's decision, APCHA is potentially placing the entire future of subsidized housing ownership as we know it in jeopardy. Ahhh the laws of unintended consequences.
Stay tuned, stay in touch and stay involved. EM
|
April 23 