Debora Palizzi’s voice keeps breaking as she sits in the kitchen of her grandparents’ first farmhouse on land her family purchased two generations ago in Brighton, Colorado.
Her Italian immigrant great-grandfather used money he’d earned working on mountain tunnels to buy a plot of orchard in 1929 in Adams County, about 24 miles northeast of the state’s Capitol building.
A farmer back in Italy, he and his three sons, including Debora’s grandfather, cleared the Brighton land and drilled a well that’s still on the property – though an accident during its construction left the patriarch without a limb.
‘He had a peg leg for the rest of his life,’ Debora tells DailyMail.com. ‘There is just literally blood, sweat and tears in this land, and this land has been good to us.’
She’s the fourth generation of her family to work it – but a proposed subdivision is threatening the very existence of Palizzi Farm, which sells its produce at an adjacent stand and at regional farmers markets.
A Colorado court ruled in June that a developer-controlled metropolitan district could run a stormwater pipe directly through her crops for that developer’s residential project; the judge found that the project would have public benefit by preventing local flooding.
The ruling, however, also mandated that there was an ‘expectation’ from the court ‘that the Palizzis will be able to continue to farm on the land at the conclusion of the Project and that there will be continual efforts to mitigate the disruption to farming during construction.’
The plans that have been proffered won’t satisfy that expectation, Palizzi insists. They’ll disrupt historical irrigation and, unless pipe depths are increased, will impede equipment working the soil to the point that the land will be ‘unfarmable.’
Then, Debora fears, the farm she’s been working since childhood and running since 1989 – when she abandoned an out-of-state airline career to take over upon her uncle’s sudden death – will vanish … along with the livelihoods of Palizzi, 63, and her long-term partner, 64-year-old Jose Gutierrez.
A Colorado court ruled in June that a developer-controlled metropolitan district could run a stormwater pipe directly through crops at Palizzi Farm
Debora Palizzi, right, stands with her partner Jose Gutierrez, left, in a greenhouse on their Palizzi Farm; an only child, her voice repeatedly breaks as she discusses the possibility of being the last member of her family to farm the land – if a development plan goes forward to run a pipeline straight through her crops
Jose had worked for three years alongside her uncle on the family land before Carl Palizzi’s untimely death at the age of 47. (A gunshot wound to the head killed him; authorities labelled it a suicide, but the Palizzis have maintained since that it was murder.)
‘It is unbelievable what this [farm] means; this is all I have left of my family,’ says Debora, an only child.
As she speaks, ‘Save Palizzi Farm’ signs stand defiantly in the front yards of nearby houses, and a banner with the same slogan hangs near the market across the fields where she sells their fresh produce.
As news of the farm’s plight spread last year, community members rallied and united around the business in a way that Debora hadn’t anticipated.
She doesn’t have social media – repeatedly confusing Facebook and Facetime in conversation – but a friend’s daughter started publicizing the battle on the former, and a Save Palizzi Farm website was established.
Loyal customers and locals began commenting in support in droves; Debora was overwhelmed by the number of well-wishers visiting the market in person to inquire about the case. About 90 supporters turned up in person for a June city council meeting.
‘The community is super … you never realize how much they are behind you,’ Debora says. ‘If I didn’t have the community support, how would I know that anybody wanted me?’
There’s been no real update since the summer and no construction, nor has there been any sign of the $57,000 payment the court mandated that the developer must make to Palizzi Farm before starting work.
Debora Palizzi (right) stands with Jose Gutierrez (left) on land where they still grow vegetables to sell in regional farmers markets and at a stand across the fields — which are bordered by new housing developments, which can be seen in the distance
Three generations of Palizzis have farmed the land on which Debora still lives, and her farmhouse is full of old family photographs. Her Italian immigrant great-grandfather used money he’d earned working on mountain tunnels to buy a plot of orchard in 1929 in Adams County, about 24 miles northeast of the state’s Capitol building
It’s been a period of agonizing uncertainty for Debora and Jose, who decided to forego their annual vacation during the down season ‘because I didn’t want them on my land if I’m not here.’
For now, Debora says, ‘we are in limbo, but we are prepared.’
She and Jose are ‘geared up for a regular season,’ when they open in late April selling bedding plants ‘and then we just go slowly into vegetables.’
They’re simultaneously readying for eminent domain court in May.
‘Court’s not my goal,’ she says. ‘I want them to just take off, leave me alone.’
Even now, her 57-acre property is only a portion of her great-grandfather’s original 120 acres.
Some was sold off over the years by extended family members; Debora, too, made a joint decision with her mother to sell a parcel to a developer in the wake of her beloved grandmother’s death.
‘She died January of 98 and, no lie, we got home from the hospital at six o’clock in the morning, and developers were calling us by eight o’clock wanting the property,’ she says.
Her grandmother, Margaret – along with Debora – had been resistant to selling any of the land.
But Lloyd King, founder of Colorado supermarket chain King Soopers, ‘for many years … would stop by the stand, and the stand’s really rustic, and the chairs are dirty, and it’s just not a place for a man in a suit to come.
‘But he would come in his three-piece suit, sit there and talk to her,’ Debora says, trying to persuade Margaret to sell a parcel on the Palizzis’ northwest corner. ‘She just could never do it.’
One month before her death, though, Margaret heard rumors – which would turn out to be incorrect – that another nearby site had taken King’s fancy.
‘She was devastated, because she knew [the Palizzi land] would be the best corner in Brighton,’ Debora says.
Debora and her mother remembered that disappointment after her death and agreed to sell 17 acres for $2.6million for a retail development that now includes a King Soopers.
A younger Debora, left, is pictured with her Uncle Carl, right, who farmed the land until his 1989 death, prompting her to return to Colorado and take over the family business
A portrait of Debora’s grandmother hangs in the King Soopers supermarket built on land the Palizzis sold off following the matriarch’s 1998 death; the retail complex is named Palizzi Marketplace, and the family physically moved two of their houses down the field to accommodate the development
The shopping center is named Palizzi Marketplace, and a memorial portrait of Margaret still hangs in the supermarket.
The land that’s now Palizzi Marketplace, however, was also the site of both Debora and her mother’s homes – which held generations of family memories. So they uprooted the houses entirely and, during an arduous four months, moved them down the field to their current locations.
‘We moved every single day,’ she says. ‘We moved everything because we were so attached, and we were still grieving for my grandmother.
‘My mom did not let anything go except the silo, and that was almost impossible, or she probably would have brought that, too.’
After a few years living in the same houses – albeit a half-mile down the field – a knock at Debora’s back door would launch the family’s first eminent domain battle.
In 2005, the City of Brighton sought to widen Bromley Lane, which borders the farm, demanding 70 feet of Palizzi property.
‘One Friday night, the city attorney brought me a check to my back door … for $34,000,’ Debora says.
She called an eminent domain attorney who determined that $83,000 would have been a fair price.
After a five-year case that went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, the Palizzis lost the 70 feet but ended up with $204,000 plus all attorney fees.
This time, it’s not the City behind the eminent domain action, also known as condemnation. Instead, in a practice common in Colorado, Brighton in 2023 granted the formation of a metropolitan district, a special quasi-governmental taxing authority.
Metro districts are ‘the financing tool that allows public infrastructure and amenities like roads, sewers, trails, and parks to be built in new communities,’ the Metro District Education Coalition site explains.
They are formed by submitting a detailed service plan to the local city or town council, and those authorities have oversight and controls over limits on taxation, fees and services.
The districts are operated by a Board of Directors, often led by developers, their partners and relatives; ‘over time, residents can run for a board seat, allowing them to participate in important decisions.’
In Colorado, which experienced a drastic housing boom beginning in 2008, metro districts have been increasing and are often replacing HOAs.
Mortgage loan officer Lonnie Glessner, who teaches a class for realtors about metro districts, first became fascinated by the phenomenon about six years ago while reading an expose about the districts’ role in burgeoning state developments in the Denver Post – which ‘found a governmental system that operates without the usual oversight of voters, without the usual restrictions on conflicts of interest, and without the usual checks and balances to ensure communities won’t spiral into insolvency.’
‘My jaw would hit the floor because … in accounting, especially in auditing classes, it was beaten into our heads that anything done in the dark without accountability or oversight from outside people was a recipe for fraud, and that’s how these have been done for decades in Colorado,’ he says.
‘Government’s not our friend,’ Deborah says. ‘I pray to God Trump can change it. I wish I could call him somehow
The farm has been a local favorite for years, and a community campaign cropped up last year to save it as news spread of development plans
‘To me, Colorado’s a banana republic when it comes to Metro districts.’
He says: ‘The problem is, the towns, the cities, the counties that approve them, they don’t have anyone on staff that understands them and understands the service plans … I can guarantee you, unless that person is seated an accountant or financial person and an attorney, they’re not going to understand what the heck they’re reading.’
Metro district boards, he says, are ‘supposed to represent the homeowners, but they have huge financial interests themselves … where the developer and maybe the other people on the board are getting repaid for all the money they put into the project initially.’
In this case, Brighton allowed the formation of Parkland Metropolitan Districts 1-3; longtime developer Jack Hoagland is the president.
It was Hoagland who first approached Debora three years ago with an offer of $75,000 for a 70-foot easement.
‘I stood up and said, ‘Do you think I’m f****** stupid?’ I did,’ Debora says. “I don’t mince words.
‘I said, “I’m not young, and I’m not dumb … that wouldn’t even buy me a good shopping spree.”‘
She was insulted, but the situation spiraled from there. Not only did Hoagland’s offers go down, she says, but she was entirely kept out of the loop.
‘In September of 2023, a customer comes in and she said, “Deb, I am so sorry,”’ Debora says. ‘And I said, “About what?”
The Palizzi logo is a familiar site around Brighton, and 90 supporters turned up in person last June to a city council meeting regarding the farm’s fate; here, Debora, right, and Jose, left, stand before a Palizzi Farm truck
Standing in the farmhouse her grandparents first moved into on the Brighton land, Debora points to a portrait of the Palizzi Farm stand as it looked years ago; she still sells produce at the same market, about a half-mile across the fields from the residence
‘She said, “They condemned your property last night at city council.”’
Debora had been given no notice of the meeting, during which the city approved the formation of PMD and the service plan affecting her farm.
Councilor Matt Johnston later said members felt misled about the plan’s impact on Palizzi.
‘I said I wanted a clear answer: Once this is done, can they farm that land? Yes or no?” Johnston said in June. ‘Can they continue to farm like that pipe doesn’t exist? The answer was yes, they can farm over that pipe.’
He said that ‘the only reason I was a yes vote that night is because I thought Deb Palizzi was okay with it’ – unaware she had neither been invited nor kept up to date with construction plans.
Hoagland and PMD, meanwhile, have argued that the plans will solve a long-term drainage problem in Brighton and that ‘we explored all options to avoid Ms Palizzi’s property.’
Neither the city of Brighton nor the attorney for PMD responded to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.
Hoagland sent a letter to Brighton City Council in June rebutting assertions they’d been misled; outlining plans the metro district insists will not impact farming; claiming Debora had turned down an offer of $300,000; and asserting that ‘it was always price that stopped negotiations.’
Debora’s lawyer argues that’s far from the case.
‘Usually, condemnation cases are about money, but in this case, money doesn’t begin to address the real issue – which is the loss of a family business that has been around for over 90 years,’ Donald Ostrander tells DailyMail.com.
‘There are some things that money can’t replace, like having a nearby source of farm-grown fresh vegetables.’
Debora’s at a loss; she’s been contacted by others who’ve dealt with eminent domain battles and realized the powers that can be exercised by municipalities and metro districts on small businesses and private landowners.
‘Government’s not our friend,’ she says. ‘I pray to God Trump can change it. I wish I could call him somehow.
‘I’m not saying I’m for him or against him, but I think he’s a rational man,’ she says. ‘He’s a businessman … if I could just talk to him!’
She’s dreading the upcoming eminent domain trial in May, because that effectively focuses just on valuation – not on saving her farm.
‘I don’t want the money,’ she says, choking back tears. ‘The money is not going to make me happy. I am going to be miserable.
‘I just hope to God it don’t kill me.’
