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Lakewood [Change Location]

Vote against Ref No. 1, Park swap to developer

Article Contributed on: 11/29/2006 4:10:41 AM

A good FAQ for residents about who's behind the land swap:


When you vote for Ref No. 1 you will help a few adjacent homeowners keep a drainage corridor near their homes at the expense of giving away Iron Spring Park to a developer at great cost to Lakewood citizens, somewhere in the range of $6 million of land value.

By voting for Ref No. 1 you also will support the representative government that got us into this dangerous mess. Your Lakewood City Council, which includes Mayor Steve Burkholder, unanimously supported the exchange of our parkland to a developer in return for his unbuildable and unusable open ditch.

Q. What is Vote F or Rooney Valley Open Space?

A. Vote for Rooney Valley Open Space is a campaign committee funded by Carma, a multibillion dollarCanadian development corporation, led by Ken Parks, a public relations consultant to Carma, with support from the Kenney Group (another PR company) and property owners adjacent to the drainage who stand to benefit from the land swap.
Steve Burkholder, Mayor of Lakewood, other adjacent owners, and the regular cast of political city characters are members of the committee. Some of Vote For OS major supporters are all big business associations that stand to benefit from helping a multibilliondollar developer increase his profits.

Q. What is the purpose of Vote FOR Rooney Valley Open Space?

A. The purpose of Vote for Rooney Valley Open Space is to confuse the voters and encourage Lakewood citizens to give up 22 acres of Forsberg's Iron Spring Park to a developer in exchange for an irregular drainage corridor on the easterly side of his land. A wildlife corridor between our city's two largest parks will NOT be created, as the developer is constructing Iliff, a main thoroughfare road for his development right across the middle of the drainage, and a new school and new ball field are going in south of his ditch in Coyote Gulch. A t great cost taxpayers!


Q. Why is Lakewood holding a special election?

A. We believe that this special election is costly and unnecessary as your City officials had the chance to repeal this land swap and do what's right when presented with 4,000 citizen signatures. However, they did not, and therefore every vote counts to save Iron Spring Park. If you vote for Ref No. 1, you will regret having lost one of our beautiful city parks and set a precedent for allowing the city to trade more parklands to developers.

The city's true cost for holding this election will be negligible to allow citizens to vote on their parklands. The value of the land we will be losing if we did not have the election is somewhere in the range of $6 million, but no independent appraisal was ever done by the city so it could easily be more.

Mayor Steve Burkholder and the other members of your city council and planning commission voted unanimously to support an unfair and unequal swap of our precious Iron Spring Park for drainage land - at great cost to Lakewood taxpayers.

It's important that you Vote against this measure; otherwise, Iron Spring Park will be lost forever and replaced with homes.

Do you want to give our parklands to a developer to build on?

The answer is NO.

Please help us spread the word. If we don't stop this swap, this will not be the last. Please talk to at least one person a day about this and encourage them to do the same.

Go to LAKEWOODVOTER.COM

ByCitizens, For Citizens, For Lakewood

Guidelines: Be kind. Abusive commentary may be removed. If you believe someone has been abusive, please click "Report Abuse".

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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
Rita Bertolli wrote on 2/17/2007 @ 5:45:30 PM

We prevaied, 57% AGAINST the swap Jan 2, 2007.
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Rich Urbanowski wrote on 12/26/2006 @ 12:25:07 PM

To Michelle. If the land swap is denied, the developer keeps the target land and the City keeps the source land, the park, as is. If the swap is approved, the City will give 22 acres of the 160+ acre park to the developer, in exchange for the developer giving 22 acres of land to the City: the target land. This land is the proposed buffer and recreational corridor, and connects directly to the park. Either way, the developer has the same amount of land, as does the city. The proposal changes the shape of the park, basically, without increasing or decreasing it.
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Michelle Subrizi wrote on 12/19/2006 @ 10:43:37 AM

This issue is really confusing. The way I see it, the heart of the issue is what will happen to the land if the citizens vote down Ref. #1. On the voteforopenspace.org site it states that either way, the developer is getting the land. On the lakewoodvoter.com sie, it says that if Ref ! is voted down the citizens will get to keep all of the land. Something's amiss here.... What is the truth?
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Rita Bertolli wrote on 12/13/2006 @ 2:13:15 PM

Hal is also entitled to his own opinion, even though wrong and motivated by his vicinity to the "to-be-swapped" land. If this is such a vital wildlife corridor, why don't you, as a resident mandate that the City preserve it, instead of selling the rest of us down the river by taking our park? I WORK in Golden. But good attempt at smear.
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Jane Crisman wrote on 12/7/2006 @ 9:57:56 PM

As of about 1 minute ago, Ms. Bertolli's YourHub.com profile shows her to be from "Golden CO". The big winners here are not just those living close to the proposed park---Every day, I see people who drove to use the walking trail that people have worn into that private land. The city worked with area residents to have GOCO and Jeffco Open Space buy the land. When Alameda is widened to 4 lanes w/access to C470, which parkland will be more valuable?
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Allan Berger wrote on 12/1/2006 @ 3:38:30 PM

Hal and Rita, What are the facts? As I see it: The only reason to vote for this measure is to get open space, no matter what the cost. The reason to vote against the measure is that the open space is not worth as much to the City of Lakewood as what they are giving up. The big winners here are those living close to the proposed park, who get to keep their private views. There is value to each argument. IMHO, the value to Lakewood is not worth the cost.
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Hal Sargent wrote on 11/29/2006 @ 8:10:23 PM

Rita is entitled to her own opinion but not her own facts. Why let the facts stand in the way of a good argument seems to be this writer's approach. For the true facts go to voteforopenspace.org
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments