Hello,

This is my contribution to Citizen's Discussion at Tuesday's City Council meeting:

Good morning,

The public comment process that was conducted by the Manitou Incline Task Force was severely flawed.

There was no public discussion of what caused the Incline to be in such bad condition and what could be done to prevent it from happening again.

That could not be an accident.

The Task Force was charged with exploring every imaginable issue with the Incline and finding possible solutions.

Had the Task Force been honest about the compromised stability of the Incline it would not have been possible to get a grant to do repairs.

The Manitou Incline was engineered to have railroad ties set in the ground and those held together by rails.

The Cog Railway did not have to reset any ties.

The ties could not move as long as the rails were on.

When the rails were removed the stability of the Incline ended.

We were led to believe during the public comment process that an alternate route down from the top of the Incline would be constructed to alleviate the overuse of the Barr Trail.

However, no mention of an alternate route down is to be found in the Site Development and Management Plan that the Task Force produced.

This also cannot be an accident.

The Task Force must have known that an alternate route down from the top of the Incline was not feasible.

Clearly, the public officials who were on the Task Force and those who had oversight of the process quietly felt that legally opening the Manitou Incline was in the public's best interests and that this justified the public deception.

Is the city ready to acknowledge that there is no possible alignment for an alternate route down from the top of the Incline that can pass the required NEPA process?

The city may not conspire to deceive or mislead the public.

People who were illegally hiking the Incline had created a social trail from the top of the Incline down to the Barr Trail before the Incline legally opened.

The Site Development and Management Plan discussed the possibility of an “expedited NEPA process” to legitimatize that trail so hikers could shorten the trip down.

This is an admission that the Task Force understood that the trail could not be legal without a NEPA process being conducted.

No such process was ever done.

The trail was modified to improve its drainage but the trail is not legal today.

These and other problems render the Manitou Incline illegal and thereby uninsurable.

Have insurance claims been filed and paid?

The special use permit issued by the USFS is necessarily invalid as well.

Please review these issues and formulate a plan to permanently close the Manitou Incline.

Thank you, Carl Strow