- The current efforts to curtail meth-related crimes (forget fines for pot with the destructive impacts meth has)
- What is the next step for when the current IGAs expire?
- Increase the protection/support for agland production on undeveloped land
- Facilitate a shared-sales tax commercial development somewhere to have a test case to analyze
- What is the latest on the Rocky Mountain Christian Church?
- Is it possible to create IGA-like relationships re: minimum stream flow?
- Comp Plan changes - see my comments below
Monday, March 19, 2007
County Commissioners In Lafayette Tuesday
Tomorrow night the Lafayette City Council will have a joint dinner meeting with the Boulder County Commissioners before their regular Council meeting. What topics should they bring up to our regional leaders? Here's a few thoughts:
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5 comments:
"What is the latest on the Rocky Mountain Christian Church?"?
Last I heard that property was not located in Lafayette. Perhaps you need to take your pet peeve to a more appropriate forum....
Think Big Picture, anonymous - I live in Boulder County, maybe you do too - this principled land use stance the Commissioners have taken will result in a challenge to at least the state Supreme Court. As County taxpayers we should be paying attention, and not focus on just one town. This is a decision by our representatives on how to allocate their legal resources - funded by our taxes.
I want to know why they think such expenditures are important. If I was a Lafayette City Councilor, I would want to be able to explain to my constituents the rationale of the people who are spending our money. More legal bills means less money for other causes Lafayette may wish to champion.
Drawing a line around a town and making decisions with a myopic viewpoint in that fictitious bubble is a sure way to be manipulated.
Well, I agree with Dan that this is an appropriate forum for countywide issues that do impact the East County (and for anything else that Dan wants to bring into its manifest, since, after all, he's the host...).
But, Dan, I'm seeing a little dance going on here. Weren't you on the County's side of the RLUIPA issue when it first came up? Now it's become another "principled stand" with no other justification acknowledged.
From what I can piece together, the church sued the County first. Once litigation started, the County pursued its own course, shopping for a federal forum, I would guess, to preempt any decision in the state courts. That's called litigation strategy, and I think you have to bow to that or else you are really arguing the County should have given up before it ever started down a course where RMCC was not going to accept the result.
From what has been aired in this forum, it seems to me the "principled stand" is the one that says that religion cannot be practiced unless a church is allowed to grow and grow and grow in one place without regard to land use policy.
Do you doubt the County's claim that no other land user would have conceived of proposing such a large structure in a rural fringe? The whole case was set up, in my estimation, as a RLUIPA challenge from the start. That's no way to win in the court of public opinion or as a land use matter, so I once again have to say that the Commissioners are taking a little more critical heat than they should.
Why am I always defending the County Commission on this blog? Don't ask me. I still think the County asking for Congressional intervention was a bad idea, since it seems to acknowledge the authority of Congress to pass a law that might not be Constitutional to begin with, among other problems. If one thing is clear, though, it that this is one fight the County did not pick on its own - it has a very willing foe, who took distinct steps to put things on a path toward litigation.
Should the Lafayette City Council grill the County Commissioners about this case tonight? That would be a waste of Lafayette's time. We do have more immediate concerns with the County in Lafayette.
I'd like to know if the Waneka Parkway property is completely stalled, waiting for resolution of the City's "redevelopment project," or if the County still has a timeline to move forward with their relocation of County offices to Lafayette...
Stay tuned Alex, that one is on the agenda!
Okay Dan, you have been around the block long enough to know that as soon as there is litigation government officials clam up tighter than a sub under 1000 ft. of water! If they want CIRSA (the insurance company that covers governments for liability issues) to cover them for any potential damages that might arise, they will shut up and let CIRSA lawyers handle it. So even if the question was asked they would not answer.
Okay, this is an example of what is lost in written, digital communication vs. realtime face-to-face chatting. I listed a few things to consider for discussion. There's no way for anyone to notice the nuance of voice or my off-hand comment gesture when writing. Of all the things to talk about with the Commissioners, the church can't be a priority. A bullet list implies equal weighting; next time I'll use numbers.
Am I backing off? No, however I'm just throwing out ideas. They have some level of importance to me, and to the extent they elicit thoughtful responses they're worth it for the blog. Brief jabs calling BS on my posts is not the best use of the space. But who knows? maybe anonoymous was screaming as that was written. In that case, I completely misread the passion...
And I AM on the County's side in terms of how I hope the case turns out. But I also demand they back up their case with an articulate argument. That's always my bottom line. In this case, they'll be paying for such an argument to be made in the courtroom, and I believe they're making it clear in their own public statements as well. That doesn't mean others shouldn't keep asking them about it. If all the Lafayette Councilors feel totally informed (and they've run out of everything more pressing) its not worth talking about.
Actually, overall this is just the kind of debate I hope helps the Councilors, although they're in the meeting right now...
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