'A miracle' 30 years later: Advocates celebrate Douglas County open space program

Along Interstate 25 between Colorado Springs and Castle Rock, urban sprawl ends and land and sky prevail. Driving this stretch means more to some people. People like Mark Weston.

He looks out to the cattle, out to the mesas and buttes along the way, out to the more distant mountains, and he feels proud.

“That drive is always gonna look how it looks now,” he says.

That’s thanks to Weston and a small team of volunteers who celebrated victory 30 years ago.

In November of 1994, Douglas County voters approved a sales tax-driven program that would build funds to preserve the landscape between Colorado’s two biggest cities. One of the first major deals saw conservation easements cover that I-25 corridor.

“It’s been going great guns ever since,” Weston says.

The trail-running, horseback-riding and cycling paradise of Greenland Open Space was part of that I-25 deal. Not far from there is the similarly popular Spruce Mountain Open Space. Farther north is Dawson Butte Ranch Open Space — lesser-known but no less beautiful in Micki Clark’s view.

“And there’s a bunch of new things that have come to fruition,” says Clark, another key advocate in the creation of Douglas County’s Parks, Trails, Historic Resources and Open Space Fund.

The fund hailed “a crown jewel” in Sandstone Ranch Open Space west of Larkspur — 2,038 acres bought for nearly $19 million and opened for recreation in 2020. Another crown jewel was announced earlier this year: The county contributed $5.5 million to secure Lost Canyon Ranch Open Space, which the town of Castle Rock took on thanks in part to municipal shareback funds from the county’s open space program.

Lost Canyon joins a portfolio of a reported 66,000 acres set aside by the program. The county counts 110 miles of trail across 17,000 acres that are said to attract 650,000 visitors every year.

It’s all thanks to the fund that has been annually accruing more than $18 million from a 0.17% sales tax. All thanks to those volunteers who saw the tax approved by voters 30 years ago.

In 2022, 87% of voters said yes to extending the life of the open space initiative — “an overwhelming endorsement,” says Jennifer Drybread, another one of those early volunteers.

“It was heart-warming,” she says. “And I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. But in 1994, it was about 57% is what we won by.”

At the time, Drybread was among county planners sitting in meetings where the idea for open space acquisition came about. The meetings shifted from government offices to community gathering places, like the library in Parker. That’s where Clark joined the conversation.

She had been raising her kids while watching the landscape around her quickly, dramatically change. Douglas County at the time was regarded as one of the nation’s fastest-growing counties.

“Every day more things were popping up,” Clark recalled. “I’ve always thought Douglas County is one of the most beautiful counties around, and I just didn’t want it to become LA or something. I didn’t want it to just meld into Colorado Springs.”

She latched onto the idea discussed there at the Parker library: portions of sales tax to buy and keep land open. This would be mirroring concepts that had been established in Jefferson and Boulder counties. After Douglas County, the city of Colorado Springs in 1997 would establish its Trails, Open Space and Parks fund. That was through a voter-approved initiative with a political backdrop similar to the initiative to the north.

“Obviously Douglas County is always thought of for its conservative atmosphere,” Weston says. “Nobody likes voting for taxes unless it’s a tax that benefits you. But even then it’s hard to get excited about a new tax.”

That would be the tall task of Weston and the team of volunteers — getting voters excited.

“We had to convince people that (the sales tax) wasn’t much, 17 cents on $100,” Clark says. “Nobody’s even thinking about that. That’s spare change.”

This was the push of a citizen initiative for the 1994 election, following a push by Douglas County commissioners. Previously on the ballot, commissioners asked for a full-cent sales tax to not only benefit open space, but also roads, senior programs and a jail. The question was denied.

The multi-part question “muddied up” and “buried” open space, Clark thought. Ahead of collecting signatures and fundraising for a campaign, she had hope for a question that would focus solely on open space.

She and fellow advocates also harbored doubt.

The campaign “was contrary to all the advice from all the political gurus who said, ‘Never come back the next year,’” Weston says.

But advocates were taking a different temperature.

Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) had been established in 1992 — the statewide initiative collecting lottery proceeds to conserve land through partnerships with other trusts and municipalities. GOCO had a couple of years to show its muscle. And now Douglas County advocates could point to that major fund as a means to leverage major possibilities

“Almost like three-for-one in terms of revenue to buy open space,” Drybread says.

Almost like “a miracle,” Weston says.

“There was this coincidence of excitement and access to money that had never been there before,” he says. “The timing was everything.”

The approval, about 57%, seemed narrow to Drybread. “I thought, ‘wait a minute, who couldn’t love open space? It’s like mom and apple pie!’”

With acquisitions, people would steadily fall in love.

One of the early purchases was land that had been eyed for development close to the entrance of Roxborough State Park. Another early buy was Prairie Canyon Ranch Open Space, south of Castlewood Canyon State Park along the rugged, Cherry Creek-fed mosaic that surprises on the plains.

Then there was Greenland Open Space and the mosaic up and down I-25. GOCO marks the acquisition as one of its “most iconic investments to date,” a 17,000-acre deal involving Douglas County, The Conservation Fund and private landowners.

Weston feels proud driving that stretch of the highway. Lately, he’s been feeling worried as well.

However “overwhelming” the vote of approval to extend the open space program in 2022, Weston marked it as “a sore spot.” The 15-year extension seemed too short to him.

“To have missed the opportunity to extend it for 20 or 30 years or even perpetually was too bad,” he says. “Because who knows? Who knows in another eight years, when it’s time to go back to the citizenry, if they’ll be energized and where the political support for the program will be. Particularly as the demographics of the county continue to change toward more urban and indoor recreation as opposed to outdoor recreation.”

Only one way to get people excited, Weston says: get them outdoors. The suggestion of county commissioners recently: expanding access where it’s currently limited.

That includes Prairie Canyon, a working cattle ranch and place of research that only opens to the public on special occasions. Expanding access is an expensive proposition, says Drybread, who sits on the county’s Open Space Advisory Committee. “But it’s definitely on the commissioners’ wish list, and we’re looking very seriously at that.”

In the meantime, “there’s no shortage of places to explore,” Weston is proud to say.

He’s not exploring much anymore, not since an ALS diagnosis.

“Which limits my physical ability,” Weston says. “But it doesn’t diminish my enthusiasm for the county program, and the fact it actually happened.”