In the previous story, I ran Firestone's Mayor Simone's comments he made in the 3/17/08 Firestone Trustee Board meeting. There were more comments by other trustee's as well. You might recall that this meeting was rescheduled from the previous Thursday as not enough board members showed up. There was some speculation this occurred because there was disagreement amongst board members, some might be purposely boycotting the meeting, or maybe some cold feet. Based on the comments I heard at the meeting, that speculation was false.

Until I get an actual tape or transcript of the meeting, here were some notes I jotted down from comments by some of the trustees: Butch Walb talked about the Longmont hoped-for buffer, that Longmont was basically saying "we don't build, neither should you". Sharon Falcone talked about enclaves and that buffers aren't always good, using the example of some of Weld County's Mixed Used Development (MUD) areas that are not very attractive and were poorly planned, and have and could in the future be in areas cities might like to serve as buffers.

Charlie Thomas was for the extension of the Master Planning Area to the west, and that Longmont should've done more up to this point if they were interested in this area. Dennis Berton was also in favor of the Master Plan and didn't want any more " checkerboarding" of cities and enclaves. Steve Curtis was against Longmont's buffer concept, and called it " obscene" and " immoral". He was also in favor of the updated Master Plan. Julie Crowder was not present.

Mayor Simone was last to speak with the previously posted comments. Although he stuck pretty closely to those comments, he delivered it with the anger and outrage fitting the words. The comment " LifeBridge was forced to "walk away" by the election of an anti-religious faction to the Longmont City Council" had the most visible impact as a couple of people stormed out of the meeting immediately after hearing it. While those people milled around in the lobby for the remainder of the entire meeting, and some of them after the meeting was over, they never returned to the meeting itself.

Something I didn't expect was the " swearing in" of citizens who spoke at this meeting. They had to answer "I do" or something similar to the question by the Mayor " do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God?" or something like that. I'd just never seen that before. The other thing I noticed, which I thought was great, was the public reading into the record of emails and letters sent to the city about the item on the agenda. Granted, a city the size of Longmont may not have the time to do such a thing at their council meetings, but it was refreshing nonetheless.

I link to Tri-Town Online on my website, but rarely comment there, and it seems most of those people have a great deal of dislike for Mayor Simone and this Board of Trustees. I had forgotten that the print edition of YourHub for Longmont also goes to residents of Firestone (which surprisingly it and the other Tri-Town cities don't have their own Hub), and I'd just recently written a story (" Hesitate To Emulate" http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/News-Politics/Commentary/Blog~438770.aspx ) that apparently got the attention of some of the members of the Trustee Board. While I didn't get up to the podium at this event, and kept a low profile in the very back of the room, turns out I had some readers (and fans) in the crowd and on the board. That was different.

Up next, one Longmont city councilmembers angry response to this Firestone meeting.

©2008 Chris Rodriguez/Wrongmont.Com
(Chris Rodriguez is a Longmont resident, and the editor and publisher of Wrongmont.Com, a community website that raises local issues to increase public awareness and interest)