A round of applause for a great showing at the Louisville City Council meeting August 4, everyone! Now...onward!
First, well-done everyone who wrote to city council before the August 4 hearing, spoke at the hearing, or helped fund or distribute the No On Redtail Ridge flyers! The flyers really made an impact: while the planning commission received about 200 letters in opposition to the development, city council has received at least 750 so far!
As you probably know by now, Tuesday’s hearing ran long and had to be carried over to the August 18 meeting. If you missed it, you can view the whole thing here.
One of the reasons the meeting ran so long was the presentation by Geoff Baukol of Brue Baukol Capitol Partners, the investment group behind the Redtail Ridge plan. He concluded with some pretty disparaging – and false – accusations about what it means to be “No on Redtail Ridge.” You can find these in the video, if you like, or see the transcript here.
It is important that we continue to show Geoff Baukol, the people of Louisville, and our city council what it really means to be “No On Redtail Ridge.” If you have anything to add to the letter you’ve already written, do write to council again (Council@LouisvilleCO.gov) There will be an additional public comment period at the August 18 meeting as well.
We expect a full-court press from Brue Baukol and their lobbyist, CRL Associates, in the next two weeks as they try to turn the tide of public support in their direction. We have to push back. Everyone should continue talking to their friends and neighbors about Redtail Ridge, and encouraging them to write to city council!
An example of the kind of thing we might expect is here. An updated analysis of the letters received by council before the afternoon of August 4 shows that, while city council received a total of 750 letters opposed to Redtail Ridge and 669 in favor, about 594 of the 669 were form letters generated by a website called LouisvilleForRedtailRidge.com or sent by employees and residents of Erickson Senior Living facilities elsewhere in Colorado. Senders of the letters from the website seemed mainly to come from members of the Denver business community.
If we disregard the form letters and look only at the original, often heartfelt letters from members of our own community, these show that Louisville opposes Redtail Ridge by a ratio of something close to 25:3. (An updated version of the report will be posted in the coming days, once the numbers are all crunched.) Let’s make sure our city council understands the depth and breadth of this opposition.
Local journalist Chris Wheeler has been working on a series of articles about the Redtail Ridge proposal. These are all posted on the No On Redtail Ridge website. His most recent asks what happens to the wildlife at the site if this development is approved. See “Manifest Destiny at Redtail Ridge” here.
Many letters to the editor voicing concerns over Redtail Ridge have also been published in the Daily Camera. Congratulations to Susan Morris, Cindy Bedell and Stephanie Rowe! You can read their letters here.
Let’s continue to fight the good fight – for wildlife, for less traffic and sprawl, for clean air and a smaller carbon footprint, for a healthy local economy, and for the strong sense of community that makes Louisville one of the best small towns in America – between now and August 18th.
Onward!
