Article Contributed on: 12/13/2006 11:51:59 AM
Rooney Valley developer Carma, a multi-billiondollar Canadian company, has hired a telemarketing firm from Newy Jersey to call neighbors in Lakewood and encourage them to surrendertheir parkland. Neighbors are spreading the word to fellow residents to be forewarned and aware that they are receiving calls from out of state to con them to vote yes.
The developer to date has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a campaign to obtain a piece of land he claims is "equal" in value to the gulch land he is exchanging to the people of Lakewood. When Citizens presented another opinion of an appraiser who testified that the developer's appraisal (paid for by Carma) was conducted under a faulty premise, the City of Lakewood arbitrarily dicounted his testimony, saying that his report was only 1 page long, and the developer's appraisal was 34.
Currently, Carma has sent three mailers to citizens in Lakewood, has paid for hundreds of expensive signs (even two signs many thousands of dollars in expense that are posted on their private land that will be deeded to the City if the swap goes through), and an extremely expensive person-to-person outreach campaign with a New Jersey telemarketing company.
Why all this for land that is equal?
How much money in the end will be spent in a battle for a piece of park that cannot legally be conveyed to them anyway?
A landowner in 1974 dedicated Iron Spring Park to the City of Lakewood for park and public use ONLY and FOREVER. These clauses are all in the conveyance deed for this land. Iron Spring Park was a donor-restricted gift, free and clear to the people of Lakewood, to be held in public trust for the ONLY PROPER USE which Mr. Forsberg not only stated in his deed but to friends that are still alive and in correspondence documents.
Carma, in cahoots with the City of Lakewood, is trying to obtain this parkland to build up to 100 houses on it. The park is prime real estate. Mr. Forsberg, a shrewd man himself while living, would likely laugh at this fiasco if he were alive today.
Please help your neighbors spread the word to vote NO, and to mark AGAINST THE ORDINANCE on their ballot for this election. This issue has nothing to do with a "wildlife corridor," or any other unfounded, unverifiable untruths by city supporters and adjacent owners who stand to gain from this deal. How much is the pack of 35 mule deer worth on Green Mountain? Surely not $2 million a piece.
This deal is unsavory at best.This election will not be the end of this story.
VOTE AGAINST and spread the word.
For a copy of the Forsberg DEED, you can link to www.lakewoodvoter.com