I'm writing to urge Longmont's City Council to defeat the City staff’s proposal to allow industrial development on open space. Longmont residents voted to tax themselves for open space 25 years ago. And for 25 years there has been no development on land purchased as open space. There's no reason to change that now.
When we passed the Longmont Open Space Tax, we voted to keep land free from development in perpetuity. We didn't vote to keep land in reserve for future development. And the open space in question is in the middle of hundreds of acres of protect rural land. It includes: Farmland. River corridor. Wildlife habitat.
The current proposal sets a horrible precedent that it is okay to dispose of open space. And that precedent, I'm afraid, will be used in the future to further degrade the open space that we taxed ourselves to protect.
Disposing of open space is a violation of the public trust and the City Council should avoid that at all cost.
Please join me in telling the City Council NO to open space development!
Sincerely,
Jana Mendez
Former State Senator – 1983-1992
Former Boulder County Commissioner – 1993-2002
