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Another vote on Burlingame?

Janet Urquhart

As promised, foes of Burlingame Ranch filed a referendum petition today that could give Aspen voters another say on the fate of the controversial housing project.

Local citizens Bert Myrin and Toni Kronberg, both outspoken opponents of the development, delivered the petition to City Clerk Kathryn Koch. Kronberg and City Councilman Terry Paulson are registered as the initiators of the petition.

Koch has five days to review the form of the petition and compose the paragraph that summarizes its intent.



The referendum would ask voters to repeal Ordinance 39, adopted by the Aspen City Council on Monday, with Paulson dissenting. The measure authorizes the annexation of the Bar/X Ranch, which encompasses land slated for the housing project.

Koch has five days to review the petition, but said she hopes to have it back in the hands of its circulators by Thursday. Once Ordinance 39 goes into effect with its publication in Sunday’s Aspen Times Weekly, circulators can begin collecting signatures, she said.




They will have 30 days ” until March 22 ” to collect 491 signatures from registered city voters, which equals 10 percent of Aspen’s electorate.

If the petition’s backers collect enough signatures, council members have the option of repealing the ordinance themselves or putting the matter before voters.

City voters have already endorsed Burlingame once. They approved a preannexation agreement between the city and the Zoline family, owners of the Bar/X Ranch, in August 2000. That agreement established the general parameters of the Burlingame Ranch housing project and a free-market development on the Bar/X, setting the stage for Monday’s annexation of the Bar/X property.

Now that the specifics of the worker housing project have been nailed down ” conceptual plans for the first phase have already been approved ” it’s time to check in again with voters, according to Kronberg.

“Now it’s time to see if that’s what the community would really support, if that’s what we really need,” she said.

For more on the latest developments in the Burlingame saga, see Wednesday’s Aspen Times.