The city of Aspen’s admits it could have used a better word in an advertisement taken out in local papers defending the Burlingame affordable housing project.
The ad in question, which ran in both newspapers recently, states that the city has built 84 housing units, a road, installed utilities to the site and is “constructing” seven single-family homes, all for $58.5 million, the total spent on Burlingame so far.
The only problem is that six of the seven single-family-home lots have been sold to local residents, who are building the homes at their own expense.
The ad seeks to debunk a local rumor that Burlingame is a “half billion dollar mistake,” although the origins of that rumor are in question. The ad also encourages citizens to attend open house meetings on Burlingame that will be held on July 29 at City Hall.
Aspen community relations director Sally Spaulding, who wrote the ad, said the intent of the statement on the single family lots was to communicate that the community will be getting seven homes and 84 apartments out of $58.5 million taxpayers dollars spent. The city has spent money grading the sites, running utilities to the sites and subsidizing homeowners’ construction costs, Spaulding notes.
“That’s what we’re paying and that’s what we’re getting,” Spaulding said.
Still, “I should have used a better word. I should have known that as a (former )reporter,” said Spaulding, who used to work at the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
The city is taking out ads in the run-up to the July 29 meeting in both papers. The ads in the Daily News are running for a fee of $198 per day. Spaulding said she is changing the wording of the ad for future runs.
The controversy over Burlingame erupted in May when a citizen unearthed a 2005 brochure distributed shortly before a vote to authorize the project. That brochure listed Burlingame’s total cost at $74 million with a per unit subsidy of 62,000, figures which did not include infrastructure, soft costs and other costs known to the city at the time. Now, after council-authorized changes to the project, the expected total cost is $138 million with an $85 million subsidy, a subsidy level between five and six times higher than what was stated in the erroneous brochure.
City Manger Steve Barwick conceded that in light of the nature of the Burlingame controversy, the city needs to be extra careful with the information it puts out there.
Barwick did not check over the language of the ad in question before it was sent to local papers, he said “because I have a million and one things to do right now.”
But any controversy over the ad is frustrating to Barwick, who said Burlingame has led the city to an entirely new level of civic discourse.
“Let’s not focus on the minutia of the ad and lets focus on what’s really at issue here,” Barwick said.
Spaulding said a few other pairs of eyes looked over the ad and didn’t notice anything amiss. She also said the city is developing policies to more thoroughly vet voter information materials, a category in which she does not include the ad.
Spaulding said her biggest fear in her job is to “create another brochure,” referring to the source of the Burlingame controversy. And she knows the public’s awareness is heightened.
“I think everything we do at this point will be received with a new level of scrutiny, perhaps more than the city has ever seen before,” Spaulding said. “If we’re at that level, we’ll do our best to step up to that level.”