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Staff
The Castle Rock Town Council Thursday night appointed Millie Bennett to represent District 4 on the town council.
Bennett, a longtime resident of Castle Rock, was appointed to fill the vacancy left by the death of Councilman Harry Roemer last month. Under the provisions of the town charter, her appointment will expire in January 1999.
Bennett has been a member of the Castle Rock Planning Commission for more than six years and has been active in the community.
She is vice president and manager of her husband's dental practice, and has served on the board of directors of the Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce for the past six years.
Following her appointment by the council and a swearing-in ceremony conducted by municipal Judge Louis Gresh, Bennett took her seat as the seventh member of the council.
"This is truly an honor," Bennett said later. "It is also a challenge, and I will do the very best job I can."
Bennett was one of seven applicants for the District 4 seat.
After the council meeting Thursday, council members went into executive session to discuss the hiring of a new town manager.
The council has narrowed its search to 15 applicants, town clerk Sally Misare said. Ralph Freedman of Ralph Anderson Associates, an executive search firm, will conduct background checks and interviews before the Dec. 11 council meeting, Misare said.
The council hopes to narrow its search to six to eight applicants at the Dec. 11 meeting, where they will conduct their own interviews. A new town manager is likely to be selected by the end of January, Misare said.
In other council news, citizens will be able to chat with their council representatives via the Internet at 8 p.m., Tuesday. The chat room may be accessed through the town's web site: www.castlerock.org.
This is the first of regularly scheduled council chat room. Sessions will continue to take place at 8 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month, and will feature a different community focus each month. The December session will focus on the Perry Street improvements and its impact on the community.
Highlands Ranch: Mission has designs on park
By Andrew G. Bulkeley
Staff Writer
(published March 27, 1997)
The March 18 study session of the Highlands Ranch Metropolitan Districts
was as close to partisan politics as Highlands Ranch can come.
The two parties?
Mission Viejo Co. and not Mission Viejo Co.
On the agenda: presentation of two plans for the same 53-acre community
park in Westridge.
The park includes three lighted softball fields, eight tennis courts,
a pond, playground, large multi-use fields and skateboard park.
After blasting the Metro Districts' design process and park plan in
a February letter, Mission Viejo hired its own landscape architect to design
the park. Dick Marshall of Denver's DHM Design explained the plan to the
boards.
"This accommodates the entire list of facilities that were in the
districts' ... plan as well," Marshall said. "We're really down
to a few minor differences at this point."
Marshall noted that his plan has all the active recreation uses -- softball
fields and tennis courts -- clustered near the park's center.
"As you move to the east, the activity starts to taper down a little
bit," he said. "There's a lot of natural resource values that
are present in (that) part of the site."
The passive area complements the Marcy Gulch open space just east of
the park, across Foothills Canyon Boulevard, Marshall said.
The biggest difference, he added, is the relocation of the tennis courts
to the park's center. In addition, the Mission Viejo plan adds a 123-car,
lighted parking lot along the park's southern border -- just yards from
a planned residential area.
"I think we may be 50 or so (parking) spaces higher than the original
districts' plan," Marshall said, adding that traffic flowed in a circular
pattern through the park.
He also sketched in a possible, privately operated batting practice
facility.
Tom Hoby, manager of parks and open space for the Metro Districts, then
presented his final plans which evolved from four public meetings over
six months.
"We're very committed to having people involved in this design
process," Hoby said.
The Metro Districts have designed the eight lighted tennis courts in
the northeastern portion of the park. The courts lie about 20-feet below
the rest of the park, he said, giving players additional quiet and minimizing
light spill into adjacent neighborhoods.
An irrigation pond that Mission Viejo moved into a corner of the park,
plays a larger park in his design, Hoby said.
"The pond in our plan is really a center point in the park,"
he said.
After both plans were presented the partisanship began.
Jeff Kappes, a Metro District 4 board member and Mission Viejo employee,
immediately sung the praises of the Marshall plan.
A basketball court nearer the neighborhood, Kappes said, was a good
thing because it was more convenient for neighborhood hoopsters.
However, at earlier park meetings, residents specifically requested
the basketball courts be moved further from their houses to reduce noise.
Clustering the baseball fields and tennis courts made sense to contain
nighttime lighting, Kappes added. And a parking lot along the park's southern
border made access to multi-use fields more convenient.
But members of other boards -- and not in the developer's employ --
said the Metro Districts' plan made more sense. Negotiating the large parking
lots in the Marshall plan could be difficult with young players in tow
and placing the pond in a remote location could be dangerous, board members
said.
Putting tennis off in its own area also made sense, the board members
said -- something an overwhelming majority of residents agreed with in
a recent survey about the park plan, Hoby said.
But everyone agreed the Marshall plan's turn around areas near athletic
fields were a good idea for dropping off and picking up. Hoby said he would
try to incorporate at least one next to the softball diamonds.
"We're not so hung up on whose idea it is," Hoby said, "let's
use it if it's good."
The boards voted on the plans last night. At press time, the outcome
of the vote was unknown.
The meeting began with terse words between Tom Hoby and Mission Viejo
Senior Vice President Jerry Poston, author of Mission Viejo's critical
letter. The two earlier had agreed to share plans prior to any public meetings.
But both felt several new ideas were unveiled without prior disclosure.
By Virginia Grantier
Staff Writer
Now people can point to a statistical reason for the growing frenzy and the traffic problems that are Parker today.
In recently released U.S. Census Bureau information, Parker is at the top of the heap. In the category of incorporated cities with populations greater than 10,000, Parker is the fastest-growing town in Colorado and the seventh fastest in the country.
The little town apparently is being transformed into an urban hub by those who moved here for just the opposite lifestyle.
"An awful lot of people say they wanted to get away from the city. They wanted to get into the country," said Jeannene Bybee, town spokeswoman, referring to conversations she has had with newcomers about why they moved to Parker.
"Some of (these same) people are upset when they see this growth," she said.
The town's population has grown from 5,450 residents to 11,802 between 1990-1996 -- more than doubling. But Parker is now way past that number. Current population is about 14,000, Bybee said.
The growth is taxing the planning commission and town council that make land-use decisions regarding development, and also the building department, which issues building permits.
Barb Faut, building department office manager, said the town issued 705 single-family building permits last year. The town, as of Nov. 19, had issued 625 permits.
Faut's prediction is that this year's total will tie last year's.
Pete Tyree, building department director, said the department has added three additional staff positions in the last three years.
Faut said the department is keeping up with the demand. With 24 hours notice, inspectors can still schedule and keep appointments for the following day.
"We don't have any carry over," Faut said.
However, the department's five inspectors put in some overtime hours, she said. Sometimes they're inspecting in the dark with flashlights.
Aden Hogan, town administrator, said the real bottleneck in the town's process is the hearing process.
"It has stressed the system. There's no doubt about it," Hogan said.
Extra council meetings are scheduled to catch up and "deal with the backload," he said.
But it's still hard to fit everything in.
"Those folks only have so much time," he said. "We can't run meetings until 1 a.m. and 2 a.m."
Hogan said in the town's newly adopted 1988 budget, the town has been able to keep up with demands in public safety, police and emergency repairs in roadways.
"Where we are falling behind is in maintenance of the roadway system," he said. "There simply isn't enough money to do that."
Hogan said road deterioration problems that are public safety issues are repaired right away. Those that aren't a safety issue or nuisance are left for the end of the year.
"If there is money left over, we address those," he said.
With the growth, Hogan estimates that each year the town takes on the responsibility of an additional 10 miles of road to maintain.
Hogan said the number one concern he hears is about traffic, the second about quality of life.
The challenge: "How do we continue to make it feel like a small town?"
©1997 Douglas County Publishing
Designed and maintained by Andrew Bulkeley.
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