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Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

The current view of City Park Golf Course, at 23rd Avenue between Colorado Boulevard and York Street. A chain link fence has been erected around the entire golf course, which will be closed for at least 18 months. Workers spent much of January chopping down nearly 200 mature trees for the stormwater detention project. Photo by Cara DeGette

Before renowned urban planner John Prosser died in November, he described his pain at witnessing the decimation of Denver’s tree canopies – the “lungs of our city in the semi-desert ecosystem.” He decried the city’s practice of “clear-cut logging” at Hentzell Park, Globeville Landing Park, City Park Golf Course, and next, at Park Hill Golf Course.

An outrageous 2010 City Council decision granted complete control over Denver’s parks to one person – the Mayor (through his political appointee, Manager of Denver Parks & Recreation). The city’s secrecy around the stormwater drainage project across north Denver is exacerbated by its refusal to reveal more than 7,400 document pages about the project to plaintiffs of a lawsuit to protect City Park Golf Course. (See City Officials Fight for Secrecy in Lawsuit Over Stormwater Project, Alan Prendergast, Westword, May 26, 2017.)

For a broader background of these projects, read Olympic Ambitions, Developers’ Wishes Trump Human Health in Most Toxic U.S. Zip Code (Huffington Post, September 2017).

Michele Swenson, Park Hill

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