Graphic credit: George Niemann
I attended what I hope was the last meeting of the Cone Ranch Advisory Panel (not so affectionately known as C.R.A.P. by some activists) Monday morning. Recall the panel was set up by our County Commission ( BOCC ) at the request of Chairman Ken Hagan to recommend how best to preserve Cone Ranch and save it from development ( by entertaining the notion of letting brokers sell it to private investors so they could subdivide it and develop it into six smaller parcels) uh-huh. In case you are just tuning in, Cone Ranch was already owned by the public (under the water utility) and it is already listed on our Comprehensive Plan as PRESERVATION (details, details). Those pitching the idea to Hagan and the rest of the BOCC were big time Republican donors (uh-huh).
After five meetings of the panel, the citizens and even some of the panelists were calling bullshit on this idea. The brokers (FCEG) abrubtly exited stage right citing what appears to be a water grab by Commissioner Jim Norman but let's save that potential scandal for another day.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2009.