Should the city of Arvada be selling a $6 million parcel of land for $30? And while you ponder that, consider whether its City Council should elbow the public out of meetings it held regarding the sale. However you feel about it, some citizens of Arvada aren’t too happy and now are circulating a petition to rein in the municipal agency that is at the center of the pending deal, the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority.

That’s the upshot of a report the other day by investigative reporter Sherrie Peif in Complete Colorado:

Arvada For All the People has started a petition drive to amend the city charter, specifically the sections dealing with the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority (AURA).

According to the group’s website, a deal with a developer by AURA to sell land valued at millions of dollars at an “already traffic-congested Wadsworth Bypass and 56th Avenue” for just $30, sparked outrage.

The ballot proposal would require voter approval for any sale by the city of land to the private sector that is worth over $1 million. The proposal also would require a public vote before the city could offer sales- or property-tax incentives – tax-increment financing – to private parties if the sweeteners total $2.5 million or more.

Reports Peif:

The petition was started after the Arvada City Council agreed to sell 9 acres of land that is currently a parking lot near the soon-to-be up and running RTD G-Line to a developer for high density apartments in the historic district of Arvada.

The mayor of Arvada, Marc Williams, who is also on AURA, has called the deal an “investment” not a sale. According to a FOX 31 report, the land is valued at nearly $6 million.

He called it a “partnership with the taxpayers,” but one of the petition organizers, Dave Chandler, says it’s a subsidy.

“There seems to be radiating from the city council an attitude that once elected, members are finished with their duty to represent us and speak out on behalf of the people,” the group’s website says.

The groups has 90 days to collect about 13,000 signatures from city voters.

The City Council meanwhile has held a couple of closed-door sessions to receive legal advice regarding the citizens’ ballot drive and, presumably, how it might impact the negotiations on the pending land transaction. That’s within the city’s powers under state the state’s open-meeting law, the city points out.

It doesn’t sit well with the citizens group, to be sure.

Says the group’s website: “In office, they appear to adopt the notion that they, themselves, always know what is best for us and that ongoing dialogue and communication with the people is more nuisance than obligation.”