As we've reported here earlier, the city attorney maintains that the Hentzell Park Natural Area is "simply not a park" because it was never officially designated as a park by ordinance. Denver Parks and Recreation manager Lauri Dannemiller removed its "natural area" designation earlier this year at Hancock's urging, overruling the recommendation of her own advisory board. But Friends of Denver Parks, the grass-roots group fighting the land swap, insists that the area has been treated as a park by the city since its acquisition in 1936 and that Hampden Heights neighbors who purchased homes in the area relied on officials' representations that it would remain undeveloped.
"Hampden Heist: The Abduction of a Denver Park," a new short film, lays out that position through interviews with residents, historian Tom Noel, attorney John Case -- and Susan Baird, a former senior planner at DPR who's been a staunch champion of the area's importance as a refuge for wildlife and one of the last vestiges of a prairie ecosystem within the city. Local filmmaker KC Keefer's self-financed effort, rich in autumn imagery, also makes a pretty striking visual case that the area, though it includes a two-acre parking lot, isn't quite as "blighted" as city officials say it is.
And Baird is hardly the only former city official to oppose the land swap. Friends of Denver Parks attorney Case reports that the group recently received "a very generous donation" from Wellington and Wilma Webb, along with this statement from the former mayor: "I believe in the protection of Denver parks within the city and in the mountains. I do not support the use of park space for development. I believe we should maintain what we have and acquire additional park space for future generations."
Check out the video below.
