THORNTON, Colo. — It sounds like the lyrics to a Joni Mitchell song, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Parents at the Westgate Community Charter School in Thornton worry the city wants to turn a future playground into a city parking lot for maintenance vehicles.
“We had no plans to sell the land, in fact we had plans to develop the land,” said Jana Pora, the president of the school’s board of directors.
She says school administrators were blindsided when Thornton’s city manager personally delivered an advance planning report that identified a vacant field behind the school as an ideal place for the city to expand its maintenance facility.
“It’s essential to the future, the vision of our school,” said Porta. She says school leaders envision the field as a future outdoor play area with paths, rope swings and community gardens for science projects.
“It’s an asset not a parking lot,” said Kirsten Stephan, who’s the fundraising chairperson for Westgate Community School. Stephan has been applying for grants to transform the land in question. “Taking that land from our children would be devastating,” said Stephan.
Worried parents went to a recent city council meeting to voice their concerns, hoping to kill the plan before it takes root. City Manager Jack Ethredge tried to soothe parents at the meeting, telling them, “There`s no imminent threat of we`re coming in to take anybody`s dreams or playgrounds away.”
But parents and school leaders weren’t pacified for long. Soon after that meeting, school leaders learned Thornton’s City Council had taken a retreat in Colorado Springs just two weeks earlier, where expansion of the city’s maintenance facility was one of the items on the agenda.
“This specific thing was not even discussed at the retreat,” said Thornton’s Communications Director Todd Barnes, who says the city only wants to deal with a willing seller. “Eminent domain had not been used in this discussion about this project at all, zero.”
But Westgate parents remain distrustful. “I don`t feel like the city is being honest with us,” said Stephan, “It`s in their documents. The acquisition of our land is their primary move.” Stephan is referring to city documents that show $1.5 million has already been budgeted to purchase land for maintenance facilities expansion in 2015. The city’s advance planning report even has a diagram that identifies the school land for the city’s future expansion.
“I think our school is prepared to fight, as an invested parent I`m prepared to fight,” said Stephan.
City leaders insist they have no intention of starting a school yard brawl. The city manager has asked for a meeting with school leaders and parents. School leaders say they’re willing to have a sit-down but have contacted an attorney who specializes in fighting eminent domain just to be safe.