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Tomorrow marks an anniversary of interest to few people
other than my fellow history buffs: 125 years ago, on Aug.
1, 1876, Colorado became a state. The transition from
territorial status required certain actions here, like
adopting a constitution, and some work in Washington, like
having Congress pass an enabling act,
which it did
on March 3, 1875.
Our state has managed to operate under that enabling act for 125 years, but now there are proposals to amend it.
At issue are certain lands that the federal government
granted to Colorado in 1876. Section 7 of the enabling act
provides that The sections numbered sixteen and
thirty-six in every township ... are hereby granted to said
state for the support of common schools.
(A township is a block of land six miles square, and a
section is a square mile, making 36 square miles in a
township, with two square miles devoted to education. Out
in the hinterlands, those parcels are known as school
sections.
)
Section 14 says That the two sections of land in each
township herein granted for the support of common schools
shall be disposed of only at public sale and at a price not
less than two dollars and fifty cents per acre, the
proceeds to constitute a permanent school find, the
interest of which to be expended in support of common
schools.
That was in 1876, and soon Colorado had a State Land
Board to oversee the sale or lease of these lands. In
1996, Colorado amended the state constitution. The Land
Board would have five part-time members, and they were
directed to set aside 300,000 of the state's 3 million
acres into Stewardship Trust
lands.
These lands, presumably set aside for their scenic or open-space values, can still be sold -- it takes four votes, instead of three, when the Land Board meets. That's sure a lot of protection, isn't it?
There doesn't appear to be anything in the enabling act
that requires the state to sell the land. The requirement
is that, if the land is sold, it must be by public
sale
for at least $2.50 an acre.
However, I'm not an attorney, and there are people who've raised questions as to whether the Stewardship Trust for state lands complies with federal law. And so, Sen. Wayne Allard, as well as Reps. Mark Udall, Scott McInnis and Diana DeGette have proposed changing the federal law.
Allard's bill, also supported by McInnis, would amend
Section 7 to read that the land is granted to said state
for the support of common schools and for use for open
space, wildlife habitat, scenic value, or other natural
value, regardless of whether the land generates income for
the common schools as described under section 14, except
that the amount of land used for natural value shall not
exceed 300,000 acres.
DeGette and Udall propose
basically the same language, without the acreage
limitation.
While it may be good to have our state government protecting open space, wildlife habitat and the like, it's not a good idea to amend the enabling act. Our state government can't be trusted now to manage lands properly, and there's no sense giving it any more power until it can demonstrate that it can act in a legal and proper way.
Earlier this year, the district court in Salida halted a sweetheart deal that the State Land Board was trying to push through -- selling a school section on Little Cochetopa Creek for $1,560 an acre when nearby land was going for upwards of $10,000 an acre.
Now there's another Land Board deal proposed in Chaffee County, with the Land Board offering property near Mt. Princeton for just over $1,000 an acre while nearby stuff is fetching over $10,000.
That deal has been in the works since 1999, although nobody here got official word of it until this summer, with something like 90 days to comment or propose alternatives.
This seems rather typical of the Land Board -- cut a
sweet deal with a land developer, make the formal
announcement with a 60- or 90-day deadline for public
response or alternate offers, and then call this charade a
public sale.
Nor is the Land Board the only state agency that mishandles land that the national government gave the state. Hunters and anglers pay federal excise taxes on ammunition and fishing gear, and the feds distribute this money to the states to buy land for wildlife. Colorado has used this land for things like prisons, and a federal audit says the state has thus misused about $40 million of land.
Amending the enabling act might be a way for the state
to weasel out of that problem, as well as a way to remove
one check on the Land Board's wheeling and dealing (since
the current federal law doesn't seem to allow the
non-simultaneous exchanges
that the Land Board
engages in).
So, until Colorado can demonstrate that it can
administer land in a responsible way, the enabling act
ought to stay as it is. Maybe in another 125 years, we'll
have a state government that knows the meaning of the words
public sale
and which doesn't build prisons on
wildlife refuges. But it hasn't happened yet.
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