Recent letters in the Journal has expressed contempt for Montezuma County commissioners doing the job they were elected to do. The writers demonstrated that they do not understand the representative form of government that the state of Colorado and the United States have agreed to in their constitutions. Nor do they understand what the specific job description, authority and responsibilities are of the county commissions. There is obviously no comprehension that the Bureau of Land Management has no authority or responsibility for planning and actions for the health, safety and welfare of the county and its residents. That authority and responsibility lies 100 percent with the county commission, as the local arm of the state government. The BLM is merely the current caretaker of certain identified lands of the state, and the agency’s legally defined responsibility is to coordinate any and all proposals and actions with the local governmental body: the county commission.
The Master Leasing Plan issue shed light on historical actions where the BLM had been routinely usurping the authority of the county commission by approving and authorizing projects and actions without first coordinating with the county as legally required, leaving the county with the responsibility for any negative impacts on the rest of the county. Current events involving federal agencies in the West, such as the mine spills, forest insect damage, numerous wildfires, range deterioration, etc., has brought to light the ineptness of the federal agencies’ involvement in state and county land issues affecting the health, safety and welfare of the County and its residents. The county is stepping up to the plate and doing its job to protect the future of the county. This is hard for some that have been used to simply getting their way at the expense of the rest of the county. I personally go to as many commission meetings as possible. This commission is the most transparent of any I have observed and worked with in the past 50 years in four different states.
Dexter Gill
Lewis