Two of the four Greeley residents who launched formal protests against a pair of citizen-led petitions targeting the city council’s actions in support of the $1.1 billion Cascadia mixed-use project and its Catalyst entertainment district filed a campaign-finance complaint Wednesday against a nonprofit group that was formed to shield the identities of donors to the petition drives.
The complaint alleges that the nonprofit, We Are Greeley, is an issue committee and as such should be required to submit lists of donors and expenditures to the Greeley city clerk but has not done so, and thus is in violation of the Fair Campaign Practices Act and the state Constitution.
However, in an emailed statement late Thursday, the attorney for the group disputed Wiest’s and Hacker’s claim.
The 10-page complaint, accompanied by 24 pages of exhibits as evidence, was filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office by former Greeley city manager Leonard Wiest, a former employee of Cascadia developer Martin Lind’s Water Valley Co., and former reporter Tom Hacker, who also had worked in public relations for the City of Loveland and its police department.
Wiest and Hacker, along with real estate broker John DeWitt and Zach Bliven, owner and operator of Bliven 19 Ltd., which owns a small fleet of trucks used in the crude-oil industry, had filed a protest in August against a petition drive led by a group called Greeley Deserves Better, which sought to place a measure on Tuesday’s ballot asking voters to overturn the city council’s May vote to authorize a financing plan that used certificates of participation to pay for the Catalyst project. That project would include a hotel, water park and building containing three ice sheets for youth hockey and an arena for the Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team.
After successfully keeping that measure off of Tuesday’s ballot, the four then filed another protest last week, this one targeting the validity of signatures on a referendum petition led by a group called Greeley Demands Better that sought to overturn the council’s September vote to authorize planned unit development zoning for Cascadia.
In Wednesday’s complaint, Wiest and Hacker wrote that “we learned of the violations by reading news coverage about the campaign finance disclosure report filed by Greeley Deserves Better that reported on the contributions that We Are Greeley had made to Greeley Deserves Better in connection with Greeley Deserves Better’s initiative petition campaign. We have periodically checked the Greeley City Clerk’s website to see if We Are Greeley has filed a registration form or a contribution disclosure report. As of the filing of this complaint, we see no such filings by We Are Greeley.”
The complaint notes that on Sept. 5, “the day after a court hearing on Greeley Deserves Better’s initiative petition against financing for the Catalyst Project, We Are Greeley made a direct contribution of $3,000 to Greeley Deserves Better.”
In a news release issued Sept. 9, Wiest and Hacker said, “Greeley Deserves Better stated that We Are Greeley was formed to provide ‘protection from retaliation for funders and supporters of the repeal effort’ by ensuring that supporters of Greeley Deserves Better could be anonymous by funneling their money through the nonprofit corporation rather than making a direct contribution” to Greeley Deserves Better.” That news release stated that “this organization became necessary after numerous established business leaders and long-time community members expressed fears and instances of retaliation from city officials and project proponents for questioning the Cascadia financing arrangement. The organization allows concerned leaders to support the repeal effort without fear of the bullying that has become a hallmark of the project’s supporters.’”
Wiest and Hacker allege that, “under the FCPA, as well as the Colorado Constitution, a ‘group of two or more persons’ that has ‘a major purpose’ of supporting a ballot measure” and that has spent more than $200 to support that measure is an “issue committee” and thus must file donation and expense reports.
The complaint also notes that, at the time it was formed, the nonprofit We Are Greeley listed its West 10th Street address as the same commercial mailbox at a UPS Store as that used by Greeley Deserves Better, and that it listed its registered agent as being on East Belleview Avenue in Englewood, the same address as attorney Suzanne Taheri of the law firm West Group Law and Policy, which represents Greeley Deserves Better.
Citing attached campaign finance reports, Wiest and Hacker note that on July 22 and July 29, just after its formation, We Are Greeley listed two donations of $17,400 each on signature gathering work for Greeley Deserves Better, then gave that group a direct $3,000 contribution in September.
The complaint further states that on Sept. 29 and Oct. 1, We Are Greeley spent a combined $60,000 on a new signature gathering drive for the referendum petition by Greeley Demands Better.
“In total,” Wiest and Hacker wrote, as of the end of the Oct. 22 filing period, “We Are Greeley spent at least $97,800 in contributions to municipal issue committees supporting ballot measures to challenge the city’s Catalyst Project.”
They wrote that, “in light of the activities of both Greeley Deserves Better and Greeley Demands Better, complainants allege that discovery through the power of subpoena in an administrative hearing will reveal communications between agents or representatives of We Are Greeley and agents or representatives of the two municipal issue committee showing that the nonprofit corporation was formed and has operated as a conduit to funnel anonymous donations to support the campaign for ballot measures challenging the city’s Catalyst Project.”
Because it meets the legal definition of an issue committee,” they allege, “We Are Greeley was required to file a committee registration with the Greeley City Clerk within ten calendar days of accepting any contributions or making any expenditures for its issue campaign in excess of $200…. As a result, at the latest, We Are Greeley should have filed a registration as an issue committee no later than August 1, 2025.
“As such, We Are Greeley has violated the FCPA. This violation is subject to a $50 per day penalty under the Colorado Constitution for each day past the deadline when the issue committee fails to submit its registration to the city clerk. … As of the filing of this complaint, more than three months have passed during which We Are Greeley has failed to file its issue committee registration and is therefore in violation of the FCPA. … Despite the documented pattern of direct and in-kind expenditures to support ballot measures challenging the city’s Catalyst Project, We Are Greeley has not filed a single campaign finance disclosure report with the Greeley City Clerk.”
In a statement emailed to BizWest late Thursday, Taheri said that “these complainants are again tossing out ridiculous claims, most likely to harass and scare our donors.
“They are aware that 501(c)(4)s, unlike political action committees (PACs) or super PACs, are not required to reveal their donors to the public,” Taheri wrote. “They must file annual IRS Form 990 returns, which disclose contribution amounts but not donor identities (unless the donor is another nonprofit or certain types of entity). The IRS collects donor information on a confidential schedule, but this is not released to the public.
“Also,” Taheri wrote, “per the donations supporting Greeley Demands Better, there were no donors that earmarked a donation for a specific purpose; so again, no disclosure is needed in this respect for this case.”
This article was first published by BizWest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2025 BizWest Media LLC.
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