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You’re Building What Where?
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There was a front page article in the Daily Times-Call on Sunday June 29, 2008 entitled " Landowners in Limbo" which tells the story about land and business owners around the area where the FasTracks station is supposed to be built.
I watched with interest the June 3, 2008 Longmont City Council when they talked about this subject. When I saw the map on the screen, it sure looked like the station's parking lot was located where Budget Home Center currently sits. If you were like me, as you watched this, you probably assumed that some deal had already been discussed and that the land owners were aware of this plan.
Apparently, according to this article, they weren't.
At about the 55 minute mark of the June 3rd meeting video, you can see the concepts for this area. This information was in a council packet at the time of this meeting, but is no longer part of the PDF on the city's site. The agenda itself can be found at http://www.ci.longmont.co.us/city_council/agendas/2008/060308.htm
Councilman Brian Hansen did ask about the smaller property owners, to which the answer was that they could pool together and be part of the larger development, but " they haven't explored in any detail" this idea - and it sounds like they may not have shared this idea with the land owners either.
I've frequented Budget Home Center quite a bit over the years, and figured that the competition from Home Depot, Lowes, and Ace Hardware was just too much for them, and they might fade away for the purposes of this light rail station. According to Budget's owner Butch Vernon, that is not the case. Besides not hearing anything from RTD, he's hoping they will relocate his business or compensate him so he can relocate it himself.
Unfortunately, a spokesperson for RTD said they do use eminent domain and will resort to condemnation if no agreement can be made with the land owner. In other words, they'll just take it if they want it.
Is that what the voters in Longmont really voted for? Light rail at any cost, regardless of the human and business debris it leaves behind? All you anti-big box store (like Home Depot) types who defend smaller local businesses (like Budget Home Center), where are you on this one? (I hear crickets, and hypocrites)
What is with this trend of trampling all over property owners rights in Longmont? Some examples: the attempt to take Emery Street to the detriment of surrounding property owners. The fiasco with Lifebridge and other property owners near Union Reservoir, stalling into oblivion plans to work their own property. George Marxmiller and the city's virtual taking of some of his property and denial of release of his liability, making him risk everything. The property owners of the Twin Peaks Mall area, and the hoops they're being required to jump through. And now this.
And who's making all this noise and doing all this meddling? Little tyrants running around with probably little to not much property of their own, since they probably can't afford to live in their own little nirvana to the southwest? So if they're going to be miserable settling for Longmont, the rest of us have to share in their misery? The same types who want to mold Longmont into something other than what it is, and not something better. Some were even elected!
This is what you get when you just let bureaucrats, and their fawning citizen apologists, run roughshod unchecked and not held accountable. Not to worry, what are the odds of this happening to, or affecting, you? Probably higher than you think.
(Chris Rodriguez is a Longmont resident, and the publisher and broadcaster of Longmont Advocate, a community website and podcast that raises local issues to increase public awareness and interest)
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