County News

By Roger Baker
County Manager

02/15/2007 - Back-to-back items on the Gilpin County Commissioners’ meeting agenda this week vividly illustrated the dilemma faced by local elected officials in dealing with state and federal legislation.

  First up, the Commissioners considered a resolution urging our courts, legislature and executive offices (Governor and Attorney General) to reach some sort of conclusion about last year’s Amendment 41. That’s the citizen-approved amendment to the Colorado Constitution that was intended to limit the influence of lobbyists but is being interpreted to prohibit any sort of private funds (college scholarships, most notably) being given to any public employee, whether in a policy-making position or not.

  There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on, and a lot of political maneuvering as well. The 2008 congressional races actually come into play in the discussions, although nobody will admit to that. But the bottom line is that a lot of civil servants are being damaged through the unintended consequences of this amendment, and somehow or another it needs to be fixed.

  So that’s what our resolution said; we’ll mail it to our elected representatives, and Colorado Counties, Inc (CCI). With everything that’s going on, it probably won’t have much effect, but at least it put the Gilpin County Commissioners on record as supporting any sort of solution that will honor the intentions of the voters (and Amendment 41 passed up here by a 2-1 plurality) while eliminating the more harmful (and sometimes absurd) conclusions some people are drawing.

  The second item was a survey by CCI, which asked the Commissioners to respond, on behalf of the citizens of Gilpin County, as to what CCI’s legislative priorities should be for this coming year—in other words, what sort of issues they should lobby for. This is a little different than the Amendment 41 debate—there’s no particular piece of legislation being discussed, just a lengthy “wish list” of worthwhile, but rather vaguely described project areas.

  The Commissioners decided their number one priority would be health care reform, which CCI defined as being “needed for uninsured citizens and increased funding for Medicare & Medicaid and mental health.” It’s pretty easy to support that kind of blanket statement; it’s when the legislation gets drafted, and the dollars it will cost get identified, that the more serious discussions will begin. The Commissioners also agreed to support the general concept of developing water projects on public lands, and immigration reform.

  Two of our Commissioners—Commissioner Jeanne Nicholson and Commissioner Forrest Whitman—will be attending a national conference the first week of March in Washington, D.C. They’ll be arguing for positions like this, and when their voices are part of a larger delegation—like CCI—they will usually get at least a thoughtful hearing by our congressional delegation. But, as Amendment 41 demonstrates, even the most carefully crafted piece of legislation can sound good on paper, but prove to be a complete disaster in the real world. Even in those rare occasions when we can all agree about where we want to go, it’s really hard to know just how to get there.