City Council Minutes 1989 11 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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want simply because they can "out compete us." Sackett asked that a consensus strategy be developed to attract the type of commercial growth that Louisville has planned for by connecting to the airport. "The airport, in my opinion, is the biggest economic development plan that the State of Colorado currently has available to it." "Denver is in the perfect location ... for the airport and that's going to bring us a lot of development. The question for us is how Louisville can take advantage of that?" Sackett stated that under the current transportation plan, the MTDC has indicated that they are going to raise funds to provide for faster development of E- 470 than the E-470 Authority had planned for and they are building the beltway system around the eastern part of the Denver Metro area, and are not at this point connecting the Turnpike to the airport via the W-470 freeway. Sackett asked that people talk to current and new Council giving their thoughts on this regard. The idea that the vote early this year rejected a financing mechanism for W-470 has been interpreted by some that Louisville residents are against the freeway. Sackett feels that may not be true -- that a freeway is needed, but the proposal on the ballot did not address other concerns about the beltway, i.e., financing and the equity of financing, the Rocky Flats link, the governance of the W-470 Authority, etc. Sackett stated that this plan answers and deals with many of these questions and concerns. "It would be sad in my estimation if the citizens of Louisville wanted the connection between the Turnpike and the airport and we didn't get it because of mis- perceptions. I would like to begin a process here where we ask as many people as possible to give us input into this process as soon as possible so that we can determine what our position would be. They have funded areas in our service area; for example, they are planning to make a parkway out of Dillon Road and greatly enhance 96th Street. Those are good projects, but the problem is that they do not connect us to the airport at al:l and they do not do a great deal...to significantly enhance Louisville's ability to attract commercial growth and I'm concerned that Dillon Road will become another Wadsworth where its not a freeway system...but a system that leads to nowhere." "I would like to eventually connect 96th (Street) to (Highway) 42...the question is what is our highest priority right now." "If it does not connect us to the major economic impact in this region, the airport, its not accomplishing our goals." 3