Do not dispose of open space; it is beyond your jurisdiction and violates the public trustFrom:mouse
To:OSBT-Web
Subject:Do not dispose of open space; it is beyond your jurisdiction and violates the public trust
Date:Tuesday, February 20, 2024 1:20:31 PM
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Honorable Members of the Open Space Board of Trustees,
I urge you to deny the request for disposal of City open space at CU-South. It is beyond your legal
mandate, violates the public’s trust, and there are other avenues for protecting one neighborhood
from flood risk.
First, your Mission statement requires you to:
…preserve and protect [Boulder’s characteristic] natural environment and land resources …
to sustain the natural values of the land for current and future generations.
This mission guides every action you take, including disposal.
Next, Article XII, Sections 170-177, City Charter constrain your duties and require that disposal
comply with your Mission and the provisions in the Charter, including the Section 176, which lists
only 8 purposes for which open space land may be used. (Your web site’s public statement against
disposing of mineral rights correctly recognizes this exact requirement.)
I will address two of the use requirements in Subsection 176 that would be violated by a vote for
disposal:
1) Paraqgraph (e) states that open space may be used for “… limiting urban sprawl, and
disciplining growth;
Disposing of the land in this case is diametrically opposed to such purposes: it would ENABLE the
construction of a 308-acre campus at CU-South with 8 classroom buildings, a sports complex, and
housing for 2300 individuals and space for their vehicles.
2) Paragraph (g) authorizes use of open space “to prevent encroachment on floodplains.”
Ipso facto, it does NOT authorize this Board to ENABLE encroachment on the floodplain, as this
disposal would clearly do.
3) Sec 176 ties all improvements on open space land to those “necessary to protect or
maintain the land or to provide for passive recreational, open agricultural, or wildlife
habitat use of the land.“
Clearly, disposal must serve the land itself, not other lands. Our public trustees cannot dispose of
the trust corpus to cheat the terms of the trust!
If these restrictive purposes in Sec 176 are ignored, the Open space Board could sell our open space
to the highest bidder for any reason and we would lose the treasured natural spaces we citizens have
paid dearly for.
Lastly, there are other options for Frasier Meadows (just as there are other options for the other
neighborhoods that flooded in 2013, like mine, Martin Acres which sustained tremendous damage in
that flood; or the Asgard subdivision where considerable damage also occurred and two residents
were killed).
One such option is for Frasier Meadows to pursue further appeals with CDOT for a dam closer to US
36 that would not desecrate our Open Space. Another would be for them to build their own flood
protection with the additional resources they will surely have when their new buildings are
occupied.
For these reasons, I urge you to oppose this request for disposal; and I thank you for your
consideration.
Sincerely,
Debra Biasca, JD, PhD, retired faculty
University of Colorado/Boulder
230 S 38th St
Boulder, CO 80305