The city of Golden is currently in the process of trying to purchase about 150 acres of land on Lookout Mountain from several private owners to forever preserve a historic part of Colorado's mountain backdrop.

About 64 acres of the land the city has offered to purchase is owned by Lake Cedar Group, a major media consortium that includes Channels 4, 7, 9 and 20. The land Golden has offered to purchase is the same land Lake Cedar Group asked the Jefferson County commissioners to rezone in order to build a large broadcast tower there. The purchase does not include land the current towers are on. The commissioners denied that rezoning request on Sept. 27, 2005, but Lake Cedar Group is currently appealing the decision in court.

Meanwhile, the city of Golden had the property valued by an independent appraiser and offered more than fair market value for the land - land that Lake Cedar Group can't build its tower on because it doesn't have proper zoning.

Lake Cedar Group has since launched an expensive campaign against the people of Jefferson County. The consortium conducted a metro-area "push poll" (in which they called people and planted misinformation by asking leading and biased questions), took out multiple full- page ads in local newspapers, created a Web site full of inaccurate and misleading statements, and is now running ads on its stations attacking citizens.

In its campaign of misinformation, Lake Cedar Group refers to the hundreds of citizens who took the time to be involved in the supertower rezoning hearings as a "small group," showing blatant disregard for the people of Golden and Jefferson County, for the county commissioners' ruling against the rezoning and for the democratic process of public input.

The consortium claims that by protecting our citizens and the quality of life in our state, Golden is preventing the metro area from getting digital television signals needed to support high-definition TV, which is a far cry from the truth. In fact, Lake Cedar Group itself is postponing bringing HDTV to the metro area by refusing to build its supertower on an available alternative site.

As a consortium of major news stations, Lake Cedar Group should be ashamed of the misinformation it is spreading in its high-budget ad campaign against caring citizens who are fighting to protect Colorado's mountain backdrop. I am surprised by Lake Cedar Group's tactics.

Charles J. Baroch is the mayor of Golden.