What a delightful place is Hermit Park. The park is made up of 1,362 acres and is just east of Estes Park on the west side of Highway 36. Hermit Park, once owned by Hewlett-Packard (then Agilent), is now owned by Larimer County Parks and Open Lands Department. There is a conservation easement on it which has been assigned to the Estes Valley Land Trust.
The land has been through a few hands, the Crocker’s and finally HP before the following groups put up the money for its purchase:
Larimer County- $4,000.00
Estes Valley Land Trust – $700,000
Great Outdoors Colorado - $700,000
Town of Estes Park - $400,000
City of Loveland - $420,000
Various businesses and foundations and individuals - $280,000
If you want to see the park you’ll have to attend the Land Trust breakfast. They’ve received special permission to tour the grounds which are now locked off to visitors.
Now, we have lots of open space nearby that didn’t cost us anything. Roosevelt National Forest, Rocky Mountain National Park and the over 5,000 acres of land trust property within the valley. However, like a child with a box of candy, one piece isn’t enough. We need more and more, and yet more. There seems to never be enough. Forget our future and room for any type of positive expansion or economic development. We can’t have that here. No, everything must be preserved and made into no tax property so we not only don’t collect taxes; we have to pay for future maintenance. This is shear lunacy. There isn’t even enough land left for the lumber yard to move and have a King Supers or other competitive store move here. That is something that could benefit all of us.
What permission did the Town seek prior to giving $400,000 to this project which is out of Town limits? Did it come up for a vote? Do you remember voting on this? The Estesparkian has long said that this Town spends far too much money on out of town enterprises. Such things as out of town trails and now open space which currently isn’t open to the public. How many towns have an extra $400,000? Did they even have the right to spend money this way? Remember, they make the rules and don’t follow state law. The only part of state statute that they support is no bid contracts. They love this one. Remember the $1 million visitor center? Cost was over $2 million. Remember the new Wiest river front project? That was to be about $1.2 million and be done in May. Bets are that it will cost over $2.5 million and won’t be done until at least August. Over and over again we’ve seen our assets squandered.
We now see that the Town clearly broke the law with their marketing and “sales” department and we should all look forward to the outcome of that. If we keep digging deeper, we may see many illegalities that they have performed. One glaring problem could be the mingling of funds between their “planning arm” EPURA, and the Town payroll. A good forensic accounting is certainly due and guilty persons should serve the appropriate punishment. They won’t be missed; in fact we would all be better off. A reckoning is due. It will be fun to see it all crumble out from under the perpetrators. How anxious do you think Doylen and Barker will be to run for Mayor now? They were both instrumental in creating the problem. The guess is that they will run, but they can’t hide. Responsibility goes to them and to other current Trustees and former Trustees. This could also extend to personal responsibility and liability. Other parties, such as Habecker, Newsom and Baudek might catch personal responsibility for their poor judgment. Why would anyone vote for the perpetrators of this fiasco? Finally, the law and the citizens will come down on them now, as they should have done years ago.
