THE BOULDER DAILY CAMERA - Guest Opinion
Friday, January 26, 1979
Ref: George E. Richart letter, 20 January.
Mr. Richart's assertion that privately owned open space is a viable alternative to open space in the public domain ignores both the nature of individuals and the unfortunate inexorable march of urbanization. Private owners for the most part will hold on to their undeveloped land only so long as it is economically favorable for them to do so. Urbanization almost inevitably offers the inducement that sooner or later causes the owner to relinquish the land to the ugliness of the endless gridiron of asphalt and concrete.
No taxpayer fondly regards the prospect of additional tax burdens, and I concur with Mr. Richart and the Taxpayers Association that it is the responsibility of citizens to examine critically the way in which our legislatures spend our money. We are surely witnessing a tax revolt at the grass roots level, engendered by years of overzealous legislative largesse and poorly conceived spending programs.
Unfortunately, the revolt has some of the unsavory characteristics of a mindless rebellion, seeking relief at any cost. The cost that Mr. Richart and the Boulder County Taxpayers Association would have us bear is the permanent loss of our most cherished assets that still remain along this narrow fringe beneath the mountains as well as the rapidly vanishing farmland between our cities.
It is absolute insanity on the part of men the world over to convert the most productive of their diminishing agricultural resources and natural forests, which produce much of the oxygen we breath, into nutritionally unproductive cities that in turn make further demands upon those few food and fiber producing lands that still remain. Thus, the insidious cycle will continue until the ravaged land, exhausted from pep pills and overwork, fails completely while indiscriminate human breeding continues unabated in ever-sprawling megalopolises.
I believe that while we can do little for the rest of mankind we at least can begin an imaginative and intelligent use of our own land here in the United States to create permanent, dedicated open land between cities for agriculture and recreation. Privately owned land for this purpose may be ideal for some, but our present laws, to my knowledge, have no way of dedicating private land in a state of permanent non-development.
For the time being, until there is some equitable means for retaining privately owned, dedicated open space, I for one advocate the use of public money to acquire, preserve and protect the open space between cities for ourselves and for our progeny.
Our family has returned tax refunds to the county for the purchase of open space and to the state fpr the protection of wild life. Granted, there are many doubtful uses of tax dollars; however, open space, purchased now, is a tax bargain if we have any economic and aesthetic sense of the future.
Howard Garcia