The school is *the* pressing issue in Stapleton, and while a park would be nice, the overwhelming sentiment is that if there isn't space at a neighborhood school, people are going to start moving someplace else. However, if they're planning on using that space for a school, that's pretty far out of the way to be a "neighborhood" school. We'll see, at some point the plan will come together and ultimately people will vote with their wallets and their feet.

All the players in Stapleton made a colossal mistake with school space planning, so it's hard to single out Forest City. The cold fact of the matter is that they were building *way* ahead of plan - in 2005 I heard that at the rate things were going, they'd be through with the 15 year development plan in something like 7 years. They were building as fast as possible and might have actually gotten away with it if the market hadn't cratered - had they been able to keep building, they might have been able to issue more bonds and at least avert disaster for a few years, though it seems to me now that three schools wouldn't be enough for the whole of Stapleton as originally envisioned.

This isn't just an issue of losing a park - it's postponing cleanup of a contaminated area that could lead to future environmental issues due to runoff. That's concerning.

It's also concerning to me, as someone with a house in Eastbridge, that the new site may not be easily accessible to my chunk of the development. I've heard rumors that the site is near the future light rail station, which would be a colossal disappointment.

Those of us who live near the park would get stuck with a contaminated brownfield and our kids would still get bussed.

I really hope that this works out in a way that's as equitable as possible to all of us who bought homes in Stapleton based on their plan. I also hope that it's not postponing costs now and creating huge costs later down the road.

Have you seen the most recent Front Porch? On page 8 is an excellent article about the intended park, site contamination, etc. and on page 9 is a response from Tom Gleason of Forest City. Good info there.

Sorry here is the link to the article:

http://frontporchstapleton.com/FrontPorch/Home_files/2009_11Nov.pdf