|
|
Sooners
In 1893, my great-grandfather, assorted great uncles, and great aunt Mahalia (who had the fastest horse in the family) ran in the last great "land rush." The object was a Rhode Island-sized stretch of Oklahoma prairie. Before lining up the tens of thousands who would race for claims, the soldiers burnt black the tallgrass prairie and scrub oak ravines so that cheaters could not sneak in early and hide near what little good land there was.
A hundred years later, Boulder is landlocked by open space and regulation, the last developable parcels are easy to identify, and now our own last rush is on.
At a stroke, the University of Colorado's grab for 308 disputed acres pre-empted a residential development, potential open space or park, and may have assured construction of the Women of the West museum -- all without neighborhood or municipal review.
Perhaps Boulder officials would consider burning the prairie hereabouts to make it harder for local sooners to hide out.
In many minds, CU's speed and secrecy is justified by interminable City Council "review" of the Academy and Technology Park projects. However, the rush has removed the chance to debate the wisdom of a Boulder Campus doubled in size. The primacy of the Boulder Campus is important, but may or may not be be worth another couple of lanes on the Turnpike. It will for sure have a few thousand times the impact of 78 luxury homes.
It's not CU's fault that a poky City Council never got around to debating alternatives for low level use, or open space, but it's a shame to stampede over discussion. The glacial pace of development review seems terribly unfair to the Safeways, 9th & Canyon hoteliers, NISTs, and CUs; but long, public deliberation is appropriate as we decide what to do with our last land. In the absence of consensus, representative government is supposed to move slowly.
It will take a couple of generations to measure the wisdom of CU's application of muscle, but it's possible to make quicker judgment about the museum boosters' stealthy ride around substantial opposition.
If the museum had some deep, historical relationship to Boulder, it might be forgiven the congestion it will cause. However, except for the political correctness of the subject, urbane, nouveau Boulder is hardly the ideal site for a museum honoring the women of the West. For most Boulderites, the pioneer experience involved trying to stay awake through Nebraska on I-80, or steering the BMW over broken concrete on I-70.
In Ponca City, Oklahoma, stands a statue called the "Pioneer Woman" -- twenty feet of bronze-bonneted courage, striding across prairie, leading a child by the hand. Granddad raised a lot of the money to build her, not least because of Aunt Mahalia, and her mother, Laura, who died after childbirth in her home: a cave dug into a riverbank not far away.
Like thousands of other hardscrabble pioneer towns, Ponca City would be a nice spot for a big museum dedicated to Western women. They could use the traffic.
Exercise of haste and power adds nothing to our community, whether in the name of education, economy, trendy project, or for that matter, in the name of no growth at all.
|
