Dear Editor,

My greatest disappointment with City Council’s discussion about a golf course proposed at the base of Red Mountain does not have to do with city debt, or ignoring citizen preferences, or even the idea of building another exclusive, water-guzzling golf course in a valley already overrun with them.

My real disappointment is the fact that no one was talking about the place in question.

Amid all the debate about debt mechanisms, voters rights, and interest rates, no one considered the natural wonder of steep slopes of soft shifting soils, accented for centuries by a dense and magical forest of native oak. No one talked about the rich array of wildlife that the place supports.

No one considered the possibility of honoring and preserving this natural wonder that, as a very unique backdrop for our community, is an important treasure just as it is.

A handful of two dimensional drawings, the project’s only physical analysis, inaccurately projects the coveted land as stable and flat, revealing neither the diverse and steep landscape that would be destroyed nor the natural hazards that would be unleashed in disturbing it.

These beautiful slopes are charred right now, and I suppose that makes it is easy to talk glibly about bulldozing them. The oak is already reviving, though, and in another few years will begin to regain its glory, if we do the right thing and respectfully leave it alone.

Golf may be the financial salvation for Glenwood Springs, and building a new course somewhere may be just what many people want. The base of Red Mountain is not the place to do it.

Sincerely,

Steve Smith

Glenwood Springs