Referred Measure 2O: ” pitting good people against good people”

As I grew up in Park Hill, my parents, recalling a time when Denver was largely locally fed, often lamented the dwindling number of truck farms on Denver’s outskirts. By the late 1970s, most of those farms were gone to development. That farmland gave Denver three gifts: local

food, a livable local climate, and clean air.

Decades of planless metro growth, pushed by municipal and county governments in collusion with developers, have negatively impacted all three. Denver City Council members ( along with many hopefuls in the current mayoral race) have determined that this is a trend worth continuing.

For pennies on the dollar the City Council has decided that the 155 acres of the former Park Hill Golf Course the people of Denver voted and paid $ 2,000,000 to protect should be ceded to development, colluding with a cynical divide and conquer ploy pitting conservation and livability against a detention pit park and the usually empty promise of affordable housing.

Those 155 acres offer Denver the opportunity to demonstrate that we are a city capable of mature and collective moral wisdom in balancing the needs of all its people.

It is time for a real discussion among all the stakeholders, not just fig- leaf forums covering a predetermination to repeat development mistakes that have long been eroding the quality of life in Denver.

There are better ways to make the land truly serve Denver than pitting good people against good people to further enrich developers.

Vote no on 20. — M. Paul Garrett, Denver