Voice
LONE TREE 1.10.12
Lone Tree
January 10, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourlonetreenews.com
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 11, Issue 52
C-470 talks in final stretch Coalition expects to make expansion decision soon By Ryan Boldrey
rboldrey@ourcoloradonews.com
From left, state Rep. Chris Holbert, state Rep.-elect Polly Lawrence and outgoing state House Speaker Frank McNulty address the Douglas County Business Alliance on Jan. 3 during a legislative kickoff session. Photo by Jane Reuter
Stay aware, legislators tell businesses GOP lawmakers speak to local alliance By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com State leaders urged Douglas County business owners to stay aware and get involved in issues that could impact them as lawmakers take their seats at the state Capitol for the new legislative session. Democrats have regained control of the Colorado House, and maintain their majority in the state Senate, and Republican members of the Douglas County legislative delegation said that could impact business owners. Four of them were on hand for a Douglas County Business Alliance-sponsored legislative kickoff session held Jan. 3 at Lone Tree’s Sky Ridge Medical Center. “The bills you need to be cautious about aren’t going to be the ones grabbing the
headlines, so it means you really do have to pay attention,” outgoing House Speaker Frank McNulty said. “They’re the ones that are going to have the highest impact on the economy.” McNulty urged business owners to “show up at the state Capitol,” testify and bring supporters when issues of concern are on the table. Colorado Senate Assistant Minority Leader Mark Scheffel said Republicans will continue to battle against what he termed overregulation, “the proper role of government,” and other issues. “Obviously, our party is not in the majority. That was a little hard to take. Now we head back into the fray (with) resolve with a capital `R’. The good news is, our cause is just. This team, we’re pretty much in lockstep. There are going to be a lot of challenges. We’re up to that. We will stick with the themes that got us here.” Education issues, including state funding and the implementation of common
core standards, also are likely to play a prominent role in coming state-level discussions. Scheffel praised the Douglas County School Board for being “on the forefront of reform,” and said he wants to ensure the decision-making process on education remains under local control to prevent “a bureaucrat in Washington deciding how much math and science you should take.” “As you can see, elections have consequences,” McNulty said. “We’re playing a lot of defense.” Rep. Chris Holbert, however, pointed to encouraging economic development indicators, specifically the coming of Cabela’s to Lone Tree, Hitachi Data Systems opening in the Meridian Business Center and construction of the Polystrand factory near Centennial Airport. “We have so much to be excited about in Douglas County,” he said. “We have a lot of reasons to be proud.”
‘Time to move on’ for police commander Tuliszewski resigns after helping launch Lone Tree agency By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com Lone Tree Police Cmdr. Greg Tuliszewski, a founding member of the 8-year-old force, will work his last day on the department Jan. 11. Tuliszewski, 47, said he plans to take some time off before seeking a position with another police department. “This is strictly a personal choice on my part,” he said. “I was brought down here to help start up the police department and get it flowing well. So it’s time to move on and find new challenges. I go away feeling this department is in great hands.”
Tuliszewski helped double the size of the department from the original 23 officers who first hit the city’s streets on Jan. 1, 2005 to today’s 47 sworn officers. He clearly remembers his first day with Lone Tree in late 2004, when he reported for duty at the Tuliszewski former city administration building on Yosemite Street. “We walked into an empty room,” Tuliszewski said. “We didn’t have phones. We didn’t have computers. We didn’t have forms. We had 90 days to get functioning and be ready to roll out a 23-person department.” That included everything from ordering and receiving police cars to designing uniform badges. “We accomplished what everybody said
couldn’t be done,” Tuliszewski said. In its first 18 months, he helped the department gain accreditation, and since has worked to create partnerships with surrounding law enforcement agencies that Tuliszewski said save taxpayers money and make the department more efficient. He’s also ensured the department kept pace with its rapidly growing community and unique challenges. “Park Meadows mall has anywhere from 15- to 25,000 people that go through it on a daily basis,” he said. “That’s a small city in itself. You take the interchanges of C-470 and (Interstate) 25; between 200- to 250,000 cars pass through the city (each day) with that. All of those people, whether they’re residents or not, expect a level of service.” Residents seem to like the level of service Lone Tree police provide. In the 2012 resident survey, 91 percent of respondents rated the department’s quality “excellent” Commander continues on Page 6
After months of public outreach, town halls and community surveys, the C-470 Corridor Coalition expects to decide by March or April how to pursue expanding the busy freeway corridor from Interstate 25 to Kipling Street. “I think overall people are saying there is something that needs to be fixed when it comes to the congestion,” said Jack Hilbert, a Douglas County commissioner who serves as chair of the coalition’s policy committee. According to the coalition, eastbound travelers from Kipling to I-25 face delays of more than 11 minutes during the morning rush hour, and westbound travelers are delayed as much as 18 minutes in the evening. Growth along the corridor is expected to increase by more than 30 percent over the next 20 years. Beginning with a series of telephone town halls in July, the coalition has been busy presenting three options to citizens and area business leaders: tolling any additional lanes and keeping the existing lanes free; tolling all the lanes, old and new; and raising property or sales taxes to pay for additional new lanes. “The one thing that has come across clear,” Hilbert said, “is that there is just no way in the world you could go back and toll existing roadways. No matter what is decided, existing (lanes) will remain free.” Hilbert said the coalition is leaning toward a decision to toll any new or additional lanes to pay for construction and maintenance. He said this will be discussed heavily at the coalition’s January and February meetings, when they go over results from a recent telephone survey conducted by Hill Research Consultants. “If we go that route, construction could start in early 2014, if not sooner,” he said. “If we pick a financing option that requires a vote (raising taxes), that obviously pushes it out further. But I don’t think those two options are what I am hearing citizens say. I’m hearing citizens say `yeah, fix it, but we want someone else to pay the taxes.’” Raising taxes was a popular option in the early town hall surveys, but according to Hill’s survey only 9 percent of people were in favor of increased property tax and 42 percent favored increasing sales taxes. Despite the higher numbers, 42-41, in favor of sales taxes over tolling one new lane, the report suggested that there was not sufficient support to secure passage in an election as required by TABOR.
Possibility of four lanes now
Hilbert said there is a possibility that C-470 could expand sooner rather than latC-470 continues on Page 23
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