Short-Term Rentals: A Bad Idea For Woodland Park
Dear Editor:
Many thanks to Mayor Hilary LaBarre for her recent article in the Pikes Peak Courier and her response to the recent citizen action to halt her version of city ordinance number 1431.
Very good to read the Mayor coming out of her ivory tower lair and addressing the citizens at large. It’s always a good sign when politicians descend and bless us with their royal observations. And as expected the Mayor’s lack of understanding and what she doesn’t say about citizen opposition to city ordinance number 1431 gives us commoners a glimpse into her defacto and real intentions. Which is to pass an ordinance that financially supports she and her local cabal of bankers, slumlords and real estate agents.
Or, the gang that has poorly controlled this town for decades. Just in case you have been living under a rock or have deliberately ignored this latest city caused controversy, here a brief history. City Councilman Frank Connors ran for office on a platform of opposing short-term rental properties here in Woodland Park. After getting elected to City Council, Connors submitted a proposed ordinance that would ban or seriously curtail the number of residential short-term rental properties within the city limits of Woodland Park, Colorado. The Mayor and her gang of large property owners and the City Attorney got a hold of Councilman Connors’ ordinance and perverted the language of the ordinance so radically that as city ordinance 1431 reads today it would nearly allow open season on residential short-term rentals here in Woodland Park.
Cause that’s what lawyers do and that is precisely what the organized slum ring that runs this city wants. And make no mistake, what the Mayor and her slumlord gang wants is a local city landscape of apartment complex human warehouses, trailer parks and short-term rental duplexes that they own and operate. At your expense.
Thankfully a body of Woodland Park citizens and homeowners have stepped up to oppose the Mayor and her Gang. A homeowner’s petition to oppose city ordinance 1431 has been validated and the ordinance is vetoed. For the moment.
The Gang’s few remaining choices now are to take the ordinance to the voters at large and ask the citizens to make the decision on city ordinance 1431. If that happens you can bet The Gang will make a well-publicized propaganda push to try and convince voters that opposing their open season ordinance is some kind of violation of free property ownership. And it is.
The Mayor’s ordinance is a violation of your right to a peaceful and sustainable neighborhood of homes where you can raise a family and have good schools for your children. The Mayor’s ordinance is a violation of the very concept of a sustainable middle class America where a working family can own their own home and not have to worry about strangers coming into town every summer and making no more contribution to our community than noise, more traffic and petty crimes. Thanks, but no thanks Mayor. Short-term rental properties are a bad idea for Woodland Park. Tell that story walking.
Steven Shepard
Woodland Park
