My side of a continuing MOU discussion –
I don’t think one can sufficiently torture the English language so as to disguise the fact that this MOU, written into this county zoning process, is a regulatory document that must exist, must be agreed to, is contemplated to contain certain elements, and will be integral to further regulatory enforcements in both county and state jurisdictions.
The Elbert County MOU is framed as a voluntary agreement – a contract. This interpretation is a precedent condition necessary to make the argument that the MOU is non-regulatory – and an MOU with terms in operational conflict with COGCC regulations must be non-regulatory, else the county will be non-compliant with COGCC rules on regulatory operational conflicts, and will get sued by the Colorado Attorney General.
At the very least this MOU is a non-voluntary contract of adhesion within a mandatory regulatory framework enforced by a superior power. As currently conceived and extensively written into proposed ECZR, looking at the totality of the circumstances, I don’t see how this MOU + ECZR can survive judicial review as a contract.
The Left is hung up on the MOU in Elbert County because they need a device to enforce more stringent operational requirements and end run operational conflicts with the COGCC. They’re attempting a “cake and eat it to” construct. It’s inappropriate to stand by while they corrupt language and common sense in order to accommodate a partisan purpose.
As currently conceived, this MOU is obviously a regulatory device. To make it non-regulatory, it needs to completely come out of the proposed zoning regulations. The Left is free to follow their objectives, however, they are not free to re-engineer our common language, or set up disingenuous zoning artifices.
And to further the point, I see no problem with the county having a policy to seek MOU agreements and to use them to augment regulatory processes when they are voluntarily obtained. The key is that those regulatory procedures need to function equally well in the absence of an MOU agreement. Only then will you be able to say that the MOU is non regulatory.
References to the MOU should come out of the Part II Section 27 proposed zoning regulations. If not, the BOCC should not approve those regs.