WEDNESDAY UPDATE FROM DENVERPOST.COM:
A deal allowing an 83-year-old woman to keep her summer home inside Rocky Mountain National Park cleared another
hurdle Wednesday when a U.S. Senate committee approved it. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee endorsed a bill that essentially extends Betty Dick’s lease on the cabin and eight surrounding acres, allowing her to rent it for $300 a year
for the rest of her life.
An 83-year-old widow fighting to keep her summer home in Rocky Mountain National Park would be allowed to live there the rest of her life under a new agreement.
Betty Dick said she is cautiously optimistic that a bill negotiated by Sens. Ken Salazar and Wayne Allard and Rep. Mark Udall will be approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today.
“Hopefully, it will pass,” Dick said Tuesday. “They have been working on it for two days and through the night (Monday). We never know until the vote comes, but I just hope that it will all work out. I think that this is very fair, and I am glad that the Park Service is willing to let me stay.”
The legislation in the bill says that Dick will hold a life estate on 8 acres instead of 23 and she will continue to pay $300 a year, the same amount she has been paying for her property for the past 25 years.
“Our understanding is that the House is open to accepting this revised bill,” said Sean Conway, Allard’s chief of staff. “Once the Senate approves the bill, the House can act expeditiously on the bill.”
If the legislation passes, Dick will be allowed to keep her summer home and the buildings immediately around her property and still have a degree of privacy around the land. She lives in Arizona for the rest of the year.
The bill also satisfies the desire of the Park Service to obtain public access to acreage near the Colorado River, Conway said.
Dick was living on the land under the terms of a 1980 agreement that her late husband, Fred, negotiated with the Park Service after his first wife sold the property to the park without allowing him the right of first refusal.
That deal let the Dicks use the 23-acre site within the park for 25 years. The deal expired July 16 but was temporarily extended through this month.
A 1978 court document shows the government stipulated that the Dicks were granted a life estate on the land. However, in final documents, the lease was for only 25 years.
Fred Dick did not live the entire 25 years, but his widow did.
Dick declined a deal in July that included several conditions: her acreage be pared down to 5; she pay rent at $1,000 a year; and the land revert to the Park Service when Dick could no longer use it.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-820-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
