(Denver Post Editorial Published: Monday, January 03, 2005)
A NEW VOICE FOR OLDEST PARKS
Coloradans have worked hard in recent years to preserve new tracts of open land, but we shouldn't forget our first public open spaces.
One century ago, Denver's prescient leaders created a string of parks outside city limits where residents could enjoy mountain splendor without having to travel too far from home. Some of Colorado's first cars bumped out to places like Bergen Park near Evergreen and Genesee Park, where families enjoyed picnics or picturesque walks.
The city paid for and owned the parks, but anyone could enjoy them. Now, they're sometimes forgotten by visitors headed to other spots and shortchanged in terms of city cash for maintenance.
The mountain parks system receives only 1 percent of Denver's parks budget, yet the 24 parks make up nearly 72 percent of the city's park space.
That's why we were delighted to see W. Bart Berger, a philanthropist who lives in the foothills, step forward and create the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation. It's a nonprofit organization intended to raise money to help maintain and improve these resources.
The Denver parks span Jefferson, Clear Creek, Douglas and Grand counties. In some cases, subdivisions now neighbor parks once surrounded by open space.
Berger doesn't have a formal agreement with the city of Denver, but officials have been encouraging, and we wish him good luck in working with Denver and with everyone who benefits from and treasures the mountain parks.
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And on Tuesday, February 22 - KCFR (1340 AM in the Denver area) featured the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation on Dan Drayer's "Colorado Matters."
Click here to hear the interview on
Colorado Matters
(Hey- not the best interview style, admittedly, with a few hundred extra "UM"s, but it's the content, we hope, that counts.)
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