Hi Ron;
Catherine here from Boulder (milkweed and honey lady that visited over the Forth of July last year for your dad's retirement party).
I need (non-financial) help from outside Colorado (as potential tourists) to help us save a butterfly and veggie garden from being paved over to put in a parking lot.
Your having a lot of supporters from all communities and being outside Colorado is very helpful because of course the City wants this historic site to attract out-of-state tourists. That's great, but their planners want to put a parking lot over an historic vegetable and flower garden. (We even used some of your bison wool for compost to insulate strawberry plants for overwintering). We need to flood the planners with many voices telling them to put the parking lot somewhere else.
Details: I was at a City of Boulder planning meeting on Monday for the Ft. Chambers site. We (the public) were meeting with representatives of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. The planners showed us that they're intending to pave over a historic veggie garden that's been productive since the early 1900's to build a parking lot. A parking lot can go in the agricultural hay field or by the historic house, not on highly productive and fertile ground.
The most disturbing aspect of the discussion was the motto for the project is "Heal the land, heal the people". No. "Pave the land, pave the people". We're doing it again while setting up experiences to reflect on the Sand Creek massacre. No regard for what the land is currently used for to support the people already here.
Here's the form the City wants us to fill out.
I am putting in the comments to not pave over the veggie garden, instead do a demonstration of growing Native American plants like corn and other vegetables and medicines. Have culinary experiences like farm to table. There's many more options with the garden instead of a parking lot. If you feel called to help (and to let your supporters know), could you fill out the form and use the comments they provide to tell the City NOT to pave over the veggie garden to put in a parking lot?
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