Letter from the Task Force - Do You See What I See?

The following document is a letter I received concerning the May 9th meeting of the Soda Springs Park Safety Task Force.  Because the letter was sent to 30 people, under the Colorado Sunshine Law of 1972, it is open to the public.  Because the meeting includes what is considered a quorum representing the City of Manitou Springs, the meeting is open to the public.  Read on, and tell me if you see anything wrong here.

This is a reminder that we will be having a meeting in Soda Springs Park starting at 5:00 and going until 6:30p.m.  At the conclusion of the meeting for those who want, we will be having a potluck dinner at the pavilion, the potluck is only for task force members.  The meeting will focus on environmental and design strategies for the park and surrounding area of influence.

Please bring your agenda from that last meeting, it has the areas of concern that we will focusing on.  We will spend the first 30-40 minutes divided up into small working groups, each looking at the list of possible environmental and design strategies. The last half of the meeting will centered on each group reporting back to the others what they see as possible strategies.  We will not be spending any time on root causes, ordinances, only strategies.

As a reminder to all, this is not an open meeting to the public, it is intended to be for task force members only.  There will no discussion about the past meetings, or root causes, we have a limited amount of time to focus on strategies.  Please come prepared to discuss and report on strategies. 

Potluck:  I will bring Plates, Spoons Forks and Knifes for the pot luck.  I suggest that each person bring their own food and drink.  I will need to leave right after the meeting portion for personal reasons.

As you can see we will ONLY be focusing on environmental and design strategies for this meeting.


Laurie and I will compile the list of strategies, send them back out to you for review and then give them to Chief Riberio, City Administrator, and City Council for review and consideration. Once the Chief Ribeiro and City have had  time to review the list of strategies and add their thoughts, we will reconvene the task force for further input.

Please remember the Soda Springs Task Force is only forwarding recommendations and strategies for consideration, keep in mind that some may or may not be implemented after full a vetting process by City Council.

The Task Force is open to the public.  The part that says the meeting is not open to the public should not stand, and we hope that many from the community are present.

We should come to share our ideas and strategies, but we should also come in the simple name of democracy.  It is bad form to discuss other people's future in their presence and not include them in the conversation.