For the second time this week, residents upset with a development issue have forced their city council to put it before voters.
This time, the battle is in Thornton, where neighbors of an empty patch of land at East 128th Avenue and Quebec Street are fuming that the City Council changed its zoning to allow for a big-box retail center.
The residents began to gather signatures on a petition to overturn the decision, but the council jumped ahead of them and decided at a special meeting Tuesday night to put the issue on the November ballot.
Mayor Noel Busck said he was sure the residents would have collected the requisite number of signatures to force the issue on the ballot. But they couldn’t meet the deadline this week to get questions on the November ballot, he said, so the city would have had to hold a special election.
“I believe that this is a question that needs to be addressed by the people throughout the entire city,” Busck said. “And we don’t need to spend $40,000 to $80,000 on a special election. That would take money away from our current budget.”
On Monday, the Westminster City Council decided to put a controversial Wal-Mart development before voters, using the same reasoning.
But in Thornton, as in Westminster, the council’s action left opponents of the development a little miffed.
In both cases, opponents feel that the pre-emptive moves wrested control of the matters from the citizens – something opponents had hoped to gain through their petition drives.
“I think that they put it on there to try to spin it into the fact that they are really concerned about the citizens,” said Thornton resident John Namovicz.
Namovicz said the the council’s move allowed the city to choose the wording for the question, and he is worried that the question will get lost amid other November ballot issues.
Namovicz’s wife, Christine, said residents are in for a tough fight against the developer.
“They have deep pockets, and we have no pockets,” she said. “That’s unfortunately the way it goes.”
The Thornton City Council approved the zoning change last month. The developer hasn’t announced what stores may go into the center.
Many upset residents say the city didn’t properly notify them of the impending change.
The debates in Thornton and Westminster are just the latest in a wave of citizen activism centering on development, particularly big-box stores.
Busck said that big-box stores provide valuable services in his community and that many Thornton residents like to shop at them.
“But there is hardly any citizen who wants it in their backyard,” he said. “And that is the issue.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
