What was published in a preceding blog on June 8 2019 is still true today:
Cathy Kentner. A teacher. On her own. Started the movement forward. To give you this vote. This choice.
She has been attacked and ridiculed by many, including Mayor Paul. She was sued to stop the campaign. A lawsuit encouraged by Mayor Paul. It was expensive. It took a year in the Courts. But now, through her work and that of others, you have a choice that you didn’t have before.
That is their gift to you. A choice. They don’t want anything in return. No profit. Nothing in it for them. They aren’t paid like the many lawyers and lobbyists they have battled. This is their gift. To you. And they just want you to use it. To think about it. To make a decision – whatever it is.
What do you want for your community. What do you want for your family. What do you want for your children. What do you want for your aging relatives. What do you stand for.”
Those words above came after the following information published in the same blog:
“Here is an excerpt from a PhD Dissertation published in May, 2017 (335 pages) entitled “INVISIBLE SUBURBS: PRIVATIZED GROWTH IN SUBURBAN METROPOLITAN DENVER, 1950-2000”:
“The pace and type of suburban growth and development in metropolitan Denver emerged neither from intentional strategies nor a dominant development ethos.
Instead, decades of indecisiveness and inaction at the state and county levels subjected the Denver metropolitan area to exogenous forces that filled the void.
Outside corporate real estate developers privatized much of the process of the state’s suburban growth by acquiring large plots of ranchland in unincorporated areas, creating and controlling an unprecedented number of governmental entities called “special districts” to provide infrastructure and public services to their developments, and designing and building enormous communities that were cities in all but name.
These “invisible suburbs” overwhelmed county, regional, and state efforts to integrate these new communities seamlessly into the metropolitan area.
Privatized development carried socioeconomic, civic, financial, and environmental implications for the region and its residents.”
Here is the entire dissertation
https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1156&context=dissertation
In other words, for a variety of reasons, the leadership void in making policy decisions about growth was filled by the developers.
City council members don’t get paid much, they have outside jobs, the council job is more than full time, they don’t have the time to fully research and understand all that comes before them.
The development community has a lot of money. They pay attorneys, lobbyists and others to influence and persuade council members. At the state and local level many times they actually write the laws that are passed.
And as I have heard so many times, even from attorneys, “it is the name of the game. Just go along to get along”.
It doesn’t take years of study, collecting data and analyzing the information in a 335 page dissertation to reach this conclusion. We see it every day. We see it in many communities. Over the past 40 years I saw it in Connecticut and Northern Virginia where I fought similar battles. Industrial runoff polluting wetland filters for water supplies. Shopping malls on revered civil war battlefields.
Most recently here, special district abuse like the election night Big Sky IGA, is yet another example of developers aggressively breaking the rules to control decisions about growth in our community.
The developer DNA is to control growth. Control those who control growth. Or control it directly – ie special districts. And to be sure, they are no more blameless than the mountain lion who kills the elk for food. It is just part of their nature. Who they are. What they do.
And when citizens try to take back control over the future of their community, developers fight back. Hard. With lots of money. Publicly unaccountable dark money.
Here is how one of the lobbying organizations fighting the citizens in Lakewood put it to their members:
“Associated General Contractors’ Message on 200:
Lakewood Initiative 200 – A 1% residential growth cap (think No Growth) is headed for a Special Election on July 2 in Lakewood. AGC recommends a no vote on 200. Lakewood has about 50,000 residential units so Initiative 200, if approved, would limit future development to 500 units a year (a 300-unit apartment complex counts as 300 units). AGC is on the Executive Committee of the No on 200 campaign. We are helping raise $500,000+ for the campaign and need your help! Polling suggests that Initiative 200 could pass if a No campaign is not funded. Ballots will mail to registered voters in Lakewood in early June.
Click here to donate to the No on 200 Campaign”
Raising over half a million dollars. To fight the citizens’ right to control the future of their own community. Money from organizations whose driving motivation is to simply make as much money as they can.
Checks and balances don’t exist in the competitive world of making money. But they do when it comes to making public policy. What is in the public interest. What is important to the quality of life of a community of people.
So far, the development community has had its way in determining the future of our community. High density development is occurring in Lakewood neighborhoods at breakneck speed in part because in 2013 the density limits were removed.
This vision, led by Mayor Paul, is high density development subsidized by the citizens. Ever seen the sea of high rise apartments in New York and New Jersey. Impressive monument to unbridled growth.
And maybe that is our choice. Maybe that is what the community wants. That is certainly Mayor Paul’s vision. He contributed money to the “no on 200” campaign. That is the development community that he has supported and enabled – that is their profit driven vision. And maybe that is your vision too.
But here is the most important point – it is your – our choice. Not the development community’s decision. Our decision. It is time to take charge of our future and stop defaulting to the development community to make that decision for us.”
Here is the full blog: http://solterracommunity.org/index.php/2019/06/08/this-is-lakewoods-defining-moment-citizens-not-developers-in-charge-of-our-communitys-future/
Things haven’t changed much in the past 4 and half years.
Have you?