The Montezuma County commissioners want the State Legislature to block a private landowner from selling his property to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.
The commissioners’ opposition to expanding the monument should come as no surprise. Local conservatives did not want the monument in the first place, and they have not wanted the additions that have been made to it since. That is a valid philosophical position, although one without a practical short-term application. The county commissioners cannot make the monument go away. All the arguments that federal land ownership is unconstitutional have not brought those lands under state or local control. Right now, the argument is over half a square mile – the 320 acres that are on the block now – although the sale of another 620 is under negotiation and presumably would be covered by any decision.
The concern that a smaller property tax base will shrink the county’s budget also is valid, although it is overstated in this case. It has not been that many years since the county government supported a huge federal water project that took a lot of land off the tax rolls. Undeveloped rural acreages are not big revenue sources for the county and local taxing districts, and the tax bill for property owner Bud Poe’s 940 acres is negligible, especially compared to the costs of lobbying the legislature against the sale.
The real issue is personal property rights and whether the county can or should prevent a willing seller from doing business with a willing buyer. That is a rocky road to start down.
This is not a situation in which a federal agency is condemning someone’s land without providing either adequate compensation or recourse. Monument manager Marietta Eaton has said her agency will only work with willing sellers. Poe wants to sell, Canyons of the Ancients wants to buy. The uses to which the monument puts its land are appropriate for the terrain. The purchase, while technically extending the monument boundaries, primarily fills in a small block of largely inaccessible land. So what’s the problem?
From the county’s perespective, it is that the buyer is the federal government, triggering the mechanism the commissioners hope to use to block the sale. In doing so, they have criticized monument funding (and, by extension, management) by saying, straight out, that adding acreage to an already underfunded agency is “asinine” – a harsh and emotional word, and it carries a lot of freight: political ideology, resentment of federal influence, and perhaps frustration over 150 years of governmental decisions that have shaped the modern West into a patchwork of public and private land.
Does any of that justify preventing Bud Poe from disposing of his property in accordance with his own wishes and political beliefs? That’s not a simple question. It also may not be one the Colorado General Assembly is thrilled to take on over such a small parcel. This is an awkward stance for the county to take, because it amounts to one governmental entity asking a second entity to restrict an individual from dealing with a third. Poe is a constituent of all those governments. It will be interesting to see how they serve him.