Scot Hume
Austin Bluffs Conservation Association
4523 Bella Dr.
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
(719) 598-6106
hume@compuserve.com
Paul Butcher
Group Support Manager
Parks and Recreation
City of Colorado Springs
1401 Recreation Way
Colorado Springs, CO 80905
Dave Zelenok
Group Support Manager
Public Works Department
City of Colorado Springs
30 S. Nevada
Colorado Springs, CO 80901
Dear Mr. Butcher and Mr. Zelenok,
I represent a group of citizens that have been working to preserve a 50 acre open space park along the southeast side of Union Boulevard just north of Austin Bluffs Boulevard. The City of Colorado Springs owns 12.8 acres of wetlands that is the heart of our project. The land is controlled through the Public Works Department and we had a very pleasant meeting with Ron Romero and Randy Zettlemoyer on August 17th. In this meeting, we discovered that Public Works did not know that the land belonged to them, did not have any current or future plans for it, would not protect the land under Public Works (i.e conservation easement), but would not mind discussions to transfer the land to Parks and Recreation.
The city land currently has a very significant "informal trail" through the property and several hundred people using it each week. It is being used as a park by folks from all over the city as a pleasant alternative to the congestion and noise along Union Boulevard. The Corps of Engineers has reviewed the land and stated that most of the 13 acres are wetlands. In addition to its park and wildlife habitat value, it provides a very important view shed for the approximately 100,000 cars a day that travel through the Austin Bluffs and Union area. At our meeting with Mr. Romero it was stated that the two departments have had correspondence and discussions about the land but no mutual agrrement could be reached. Mr. Romero wrote us a nice letter after our meeting stating that Public Works would notify us if the status of the property was ever to change. Since the land is already owned by the city and is being used like a hiking park, we are requesting that the land be transferred from Public Works to Parks and Recreation. This will allow the land to be protected for future generations to enjoy, permit everyone to legally be on the land and allow us to help take care of it.
The Austin Bluffs Conservation Association was created to provide the necessary support for the park. We have raised enough money to create an endowment for the maintenance of the land. In addition, our group has lots of volunteers to perform the maintenance under the Adopt A Park Program. Recently, a bridge was built by concerned users over a major washout on the city utility corridor. This was a huge liability to the city, but can not officially be done unless there is public access to the land. We are currently using the non-profit Trails and Opens Spaces Coalition organization as our fiduciary agent while our group is obtaining our non-profit 501C(3) status that will qualify us for numerous wetlands restoration programs. We have several grant specialists on our committee.
We fully understand that each of you has a responsibility to protect the resources assigned to your department. In this case, the land is a sliver left over from the construction of Union through the Houck Estate in the early 1980's and is not part of the Union traffic corridor. Even though it has no value to the Public Works Department, it has an extreme value to the residents of the area who use it and travel the corridor. It is a significant quality of life issue for all of us that use it and live in a very densely populated area of town. We would be very happy to work with both departments to help settle any issues such as access and repair.
Thanks for your help and consideration of this project. Together, I feel that we can create a nice park while providing both recreation and view shed qualities for all of the citizens of Colorado Springs. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments that you may have regarding any aspect of this project.
Sincerely,
Scot Hume