Hello,
This is my contribution for Citizen's Discussion at Tuesday's City Council meeting:
Good Morning,
The land that the city acquired from the Cog Railway in the land swap was appraised at $1.3 million dollars.
The City of Manitou Springs has spent close to $300,000 on repairs to the trail on this land that since 2013.
The trail still needs much more work, including replacing the fence.
That job alone will cost at least another $300,000.
This means that the land needed hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs at the time of the public comment process.
The cost of these repairs amounted to more than half of the appraised value of that land, but we were told nothing of this during the public comment process.
While I am not convinced that the City and the Broadmoor fully understood this at the beginning of the public comment process, I find it hard to believe that they did not know by the time the land swap was approved.
Regardless, the public was deprived of the ability to make a fully informed decision.
The City told us that we were getting land that was worth $3.3 million in exchange for land that was only worth $2.2 million.
The fact that this piece of land may need close to $1,000,000 in repairs would have significantly changed the attractiveness of the offer.
Am I exaggerating the cost of the needed repairs?
I don't know.
This is the question I have been asking the City for the last 5 years.
Why does the City refuse to answer?
The land swap faced great opposition, and the deal never felt right to many people.
People felt that the City had already made up their minds, and that the public comment process was just a formality.
People felt that the deal was being rushed.
Those citizens have a right to learn of any discovered flaws in the public comment process.
Further, I am told that this section of the Barr Trail will never be right because it was built before the Forest Service understood drainage issues.
Other trails around the nation of this type with so many tight switchbacks have already been closed and replaced.
Great improvements can be made to the drainage on the trail, but it will always need continual maintenance to repair ongoing, or recurring erosion damage.
This fact would also lessen the attractiveness of the land swap.
The Manitou Incline has to close because the legal process that opened it was fatally flawed.
Once the Incline is gone the land that we acquired from the Cog Railway will be nothing more than a very expensive lemon.
Rocky Mountain Field Institute has an outstanding reputation. They have done hundreds of thousands of dollars of work on the section of the Barr Trail that we own since 2013. We can be sure that they know every detail of the problems with the Barr trail, as well as the estimated cost to complete the needed repairs.
Britt Haley of our Parks Dept. acknowledged to me that the City has had some communications with RMFI about these issues.
As a citizen I have a right to know how much it will cost to complete the repairs.
The City presented an incomplete picture of the lands value, and the liabilities that come with this land during the public comment process.
This mistake must be disclosed to the public now.
The public was denied the ability to make an informed decision about the land swap, therefore the public comment process is invalid.
We can assume that the land swap would have faced significantly more opposition had this information been presented to the public. The City Council may not have approved the land swap.
The public has a right to reconsider the entire deal.
Not only that, it is clear that the appraisal that the Broadmoor submitted for this land is invalid because the cost of the needed repairs was not considered.
With this the land swap is no longer legal, and all land must be returned to its original owners.
Thank you, Carl Strow