Remembering the Founders – Carol Karlin
The Woman of the Living Room Legacy
By Vicky Gits and Bette Seeland
Karlin is credited with launching PLAN Jeffco and the open space movement in 1971 from her Lakewood living room along with a gathering of members of the League of Women Voters and others.
Without the vision and genius of Carol Karlin the Jefferson County Open Space system might never have become reality.
Thanks to Karlin’s idea of scooping up cheap acreage for posterity, the Front Range enjoys a generous portfolio of trails and parks owned and maintained in perpetuity by the residents of and visitors to Jefferson County who pay a half-cent sales tax.
This explains why there is a charming outdoor seating nook framed in pinon and boulders in a distant corner of Elk Meadow Park in Evergreen. Established sometime around 2008, the site is marked with the sign that says, “Carol Karlin Overlook.”
The Carol Karlin Overlook off Founders Trail is in Elk Meadow Park in Evergreen, about one mile north of the Lewis Ridge Trailhead at the intersection of Lewis Ridge Road and Highway 74/Evergreen Parkway in Evergreen – photo courtesy of Vicky Gits.
Karlin was no avid outdoorswoman. She preferred driving the interstates and taking in the views. She earned a master’s degree in anthropology, raised a family and was active in various social causes including the League of Women Voters. She was appointed to the Open Space Advisory Committee and served until 1979. She was a volunteer lobbyist for the League of Women Voters of Colorado for migrant labor, low-income housing, legal services and environmental issues, including a committee monitoring Rocky Flats.
A plaque that previously stood on this site featured the headline, “From Living Room to Legacy,” in recognition of the fact that the first meeting of the future PLAN Jeffco was held in the living room of Karlin’s Lakewood home.
The Living Room to Legacy plaque commemorated the efforts of Carol Karlin, PLAN Jeffco, and dozens of other residents who organized a campaign in 1972, asking voters to approve a half-cent sales tax to purchase raw land for open space parks and trails. Open Space removed the plaque because it became old and weathered. Officials have no plans to replace it, as part of an overall desire to reduce signage clutter in the parks. Instead, information about the founders may be posted at the trailhead in the future. History can be found on the website, Jeffco.us/parks.
In 1971, before there was PLAN Jeffco, Karlin conceived of the idea of buying large swaths of scenic mountain property to protect it from development and build trails for public recreation.
Once she set the goal, she knew how to mobilize the key people, including Mike Moore and Bette Seeland and the Jeffco League of Women Voters. Together they launched a campaign encouraging voters to tax themselves to pay for scenic land.
“There were peaks and streams, valleys and whatever but most of it was private and marked by no trespassing signs,” Karlin told me in an interview in 2013.
She said developers were too stingy about public land and she wanted to save something more befitting the Western heritage.
Karlin observed that Denver owned mountain parks, such as Filius and Genesee, in Evergreen and imagined a similar structure, only county-wide. Boulder established a city open space sales-tax in 1967.
On Nov. 7, 1972, about a year after the living-room meeting, the people of Jefferson County voted overwhelmingly to invest in mountain land for parks and trails.
Karlin died March 28, 2021, having lived long enough to see most of what Open Space was to become in its maturity.
The linchpin of Karlin’s vision was a half-cent sales tax. It raised a meager $1 million or so per year initially, but has grown since to about $70 million a year. The system has grown to encompass 56,000+ acres, 27 parks and more than 265 miles of trails, and has become a treasured public resource.
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The wording of the ballot question presented to voters in the general election on Nov. 7, 1972:
OPEN SPACE LAND BY MEANS OF A COUNTYWIDE ONE-HALF OF ONE PERCENT (1/2 of 1%) SALES TAX
“Shall a county-wide one-half of one percent (1/2 of 1%) sales tax be imposed in Jefferson county, the proceeds of which will be spent only for planning for, developing necessary access to, acquiring, maintaining, administering, and preserving open space real property or interests in open space real property, and developing paths and trails thereon, for the use and benefit of the public, in accordance with the proposal in the Resolution of the Board of County Commissioners dated September 26, 1972.”
Click here to download a full copy of the 1972 Enabling Resolution.
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