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State Representative <br />DAVE WILLIAMS <br />Colorado State Capitol <br />200 East Colfax Avenue, Room 307 <br />Denver, Colorado 80203 <br />Office- 303-866-5525 <br />E-mail. davc.williams liousc@slate.co state.co us <br />To Whom It May Concern: <br />COLORADO <br />HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES <br />State Capitol <br />Denver <br />80203 <br />Mcmbcr <br />Business Affairs & Labor <br />Committee <br />State, Veterans, and Military <br />Affairs Committee <br />As a state representative from El Paso County, I write in support of Transit Mix's application to <br />open a quarry on the privately owned Hitch Rack Ranch itt southwestern El Paso County. <br />In the short term, Transit Mix has offered to confer on the Pikes Peak region several major <br />benefits if permitted a quarry on Hitch Rack Ranch: (1) Transit Mix will close Pikeview Quarry <br />ahead of schedule, allowing its reclamation to be blended with the revegetation of the Waldo <br />Canyon burn scar; (2) Transit Mix will close Black Canyon quarry ahead of schedule; (3) Transit <br />Mix will repurpose Pikeview and Black Canyon properties for public use; and (4) Transit Mix <br />will close its N. Nevada Ave. and Costilla St. batch plants, which have become inconvenient to <br />the dense neighborhoods that have grown up around them. <br />In the longer term, a quarry on Hitch Rack Ranch is critical to our region's prosperity. Transit <br />Mix currently provides approximately 25% of the aggregate and 40% of the concrete purchased <br />in Colorado Springs. If it were denied permits for Hitch Rack Ranch and forced to haul <br />aggregate from outside the county, aggregate and concrete prices would rise. Those increases, in <br />turn, would generate increases in a wide range of costs, from home prices, which already have <br />spiked in Colorado Springs, to public infrastructure, which already is strained statewide. A <br />Transit Mix quarry at Hitch Rack Ranch would serve the taxpayer and the consumer by keeping <br />aggregate and concrete costs low. <br />Although there will always be opposition to quarry operations, most of the Pikes Peal: region <br />stands behind Transit Mix's proposal. For the community as a whole, its benefits outweigh its <br />costs by enormous orders of magnitude. <br />Sincerely, <br />State Representative Dave Williams <br />