colorful evening
Dr. Joondeph of Colorado Retina Associates saved my eyesight again today by closing a retinal tear in a brief in-office laser procedure, so I could see images like these tonight.
(click to enlarge)
B_Imperial
science and democracy
New Plains advertised a webcast about fracking from the Union of Concerned Scientists. See below.
Science. Scientific method. Hypothesis, experiment, evidence, contingent proof, repeatability.
Democracy. Majority rule, the common good, enforced equality, regulatory bureaucratic control.
There’s nothing scientific about democracy. Democracy is about controlling people. Science is about understanding nature. Why link the two?
Because you want to enforce specific outcomes under the pretense of scientific authority. And what outcomes do the Union of Concerned Scientists want to enforce? Look at their web site . . .
- Global Warming – The Earth is warming and human activity is the primary cause.
- Clean vehicles – We must act now. Our cars and trucks consume more oil than all other sources combined. America’s reliance on oil threatens our health, economy, and environment—and the costs and risks will only intensify as oil becomes more difficult and expensive to acquire.
- Clean energy – Renewable energy resources like wind and solar power generate electricity with little or no pollution and global warming emissions—and could reliably provide up to 40 percent of U.S. electricity needs within the next 20 years.
The list goes on. No nukes, sustainable this and that, one Pollyanna “solution” after another. I respect that we all have free speech and we can say whatever we want in America, for the most part. But the left is just so fundamentally unserious on so many of these issues.
Imagine what problems could be solved in the world if the half of humanity with their heads up their democratic collectives were actually engaged in real solutions.
Imagine what politically correct effluvia they’ll issue about fracking on Thursday.
The hardest part about being a conservative is the constant challenge of countering seductive fantasies with the “opportunity cost” of real accomplishments that could have been made, had they not been crowded out by bovine scatology.
Take my commissioner, please.
The Elbert County Planning Commission rubber-stamped an oil & gas zoning regulation that would have put the county in conflict with state COGCC regulations, making grounds for litigation in the grey area of Colorado county vs. state authority to legally occupy a regulatory field. Had those regulations passed, it wouldn’t have taken long for an aggrieved party, no doubt with supporting briefs from Jerry Dahl, to come along and tie the county up in an expensive lawsuit with the state.
After listening to interminable hours of environmentalists on the oil and gas edit committee and their audiences haggle through various entrapment schemes to stymie oil and gas development, I believe that litigation was always their unspoken objective. They never intended to facilitate oil and gas development, regardless of how safe, how environmentally benign, how well planned it could be, or, and this one really chaps my butt, how much good faith they professed.
Before Larry Ross became Commissioner Ross, he and his wife were part of that clamor for oil and gas regulation. As the letter below demonstrates, the big picture from the elected office window has done little to objectify his views.
As head of the planning commission, Grant Thayer should have had the fortitude to stand against the liberal majority who proceeded without regard to the expressed COGCC warnings about operational conflicts. In doing the only honorable thing, however, he neglected to mention his own culpability, and instead dumped on the BOCC. Maybe he’ll man up on that issue someday.
If all this wasn’t bad enough, the planning commission can only be expected to issue findings even further removed from objective reality under the leadership of staunch leftists Crisan and Brown, champions of the envious, redistributors of all things appurtenant to land, holders of the door handles to Elbert County, closed tightly behind the last ones to successfully make it out here.
The movie Pleasantville comes to mind — the black and white part.
B_Imperial
RE: Thayer Resignation
Dear Editor [West Elbert County Sun, 7-18-2013],
It is with deep regret that I have accepted the letter of resignation of long time Elbert County Planning Commission Chairman Mr. Grant Thayer.
Mr. Thayer has faithfully served the people of Elbert County for over a decade accomplishing a great deal to provide a land use planning and zoning framework and leadership for our nine member Planning Commission. Grant has my most sincere gratitude.
Grant Thayer is a highly accomplished petroleum geologist. Mr.. Thayer has been the CEO of two oil companies and the COO of another. Grant is also a tremendous steward of the land having placed thousands of his acres into conservation and wildlife trusts and utilizing best practices in ranching and farming.
Mr. Grant Thayer brought all this ability and selfless dedication to the process of developing for Elbert County an oil and gas regulation that is practical and workable for our citizens, the state and the industry.
Mr. Thayer stated in his letter the following: “It appears that the motion by Commissioner Schlagel and its subsequent passing that it is the intent of the BOCC to bypass the Planning Commission in drafting and recommendations of future county regulations.”
Our citizens should be concerned and alarmed when the Board of County Commissioners ignores and bypasses our Planning Commission on zoning issues of any kind.
An effective Planning Commission can protect us from land use decisions being made by a mere two County Commissioners and placing special interests above yours.
Best Regards,
Larry D. Ross, Elbert County Commissioner, District 3
Left wing vs. Right wing
Assuming that the terms “left wing” and “right wing” are pejorative toward the opposite side, about twice as much left wing propaganda exists as right wing propaganda. Also, “Obama” seems to be a leading indicator for left wing propaganda.
B_Imperial
Fighting the Ideological War
From an essay by Stephen Ulph, Islam and Totalitarianism: The Challenge of Comparison, in, Fighting the Ideological War, ed. by Katharine C. Gorka and Patrick Sookhdeo, 2012.
A conspiracy requires the existence of a constant enemy. If for Nazi Germany the role was filled by the Jews, in the case of the Islamists it is actually more than merely the Jew, it is the ewige Kafir, the eternal infidel. If the “enemy” defines those with an unclear sense of their own identity in the modern multi-faith pluralist environment, Islamist ideologues make ample use of the device to force the message of an eternal plot of disbelief against Islam. Beyond Jews, Christians and imperialists luring Muslims away from the true faith, the roster of enemies expands to the more sinister, internal conspirators: these are the liberal Muslim thinkers and the secularists. The al Qaeda affiliated al-Neda jihadi website provides us with the list and the commentary on elements that pull Muslims away from the true faith:
The Threat to Islam from Muslims
“Sometimes a hundred times worse than the hatred of the enemies of the nation, the Jews and the Christians” emanating from the leaders of Islamic countries and the clerics who serve them.The Secular Threat
“One of the greatest threats to the hegemony of Islam and the dominance of Shari’a is the American secularism that will be imposed forcefully on the region… The Islamic world will change from dictatorship to democracy, which means subhuman degradation in all walks of life.”The Threat of Those Who Abandoned the Islamic Tradition
Since secularism will be rejected by a large section of Muslims, the Zionist-Crusader coalition is encouraging major spiritual groups such as the Sufis, “who are mostly infidels” and believe in monism, pantheism, and re-incarnation and observe “conscience, inspiration, and other endless falsehoods.” Orders such as the Sufis “oppose Jihad and do not oppose the infidels.”The Threat of the Rational School
A “deadly seedling that maintains that Islam is not opposed to atheism, and that Islam must get close to the infidel and coexist with him.” A school of thought, planted by British imperialism and “established by Muhammad `Abduh and which maintains that logic takes precedence over the text [of the Quran].” This school “may become the first stepping stone to secularizing the region, because it is a mixture of secularism and Islam.”More intensive than Fascism, the plot in this case is nothing less than machinations of Satan against the Truth, and his exploitation of the enemies of Islam within the Islamic world for this purpose.
~
No matter how you slice it, Obama fits multiple infidel threat categories. Turns out it was never reasonable to expect he could become a peacemaker between Islamism and America.
B_Imperial
Regulators ignored COGCC
On May 14th, representatives from COGCC and COGA met with the BOCC, members of the CDS department, and Grant Thayer representing the proposed oil & gas zoning regulations and MOU, in a study session. The entire video is here:
COGCC and COGA raised a number of objections about the proposed zoning regulations as follows:
(Each of the links in this list starts the video at the relevant point. You might want to open them in a separate tab.)
- The MOU is a vehicle for you to negotiate things which you cannot mandate
- Operational conflicts in general
- The MOU is NOT the entire agreement for expedited CDS approval
- The community meeting requirements are redundant of state regulations
- If you want to have a completely duplicative process (with COGCC), you can
- Page 14 dust control measures with produced water. Operational conflict with COGCC rule 910.
- Hazardous material inventory statement undefined and potentially conflicting with COGCC.
- All weather surface on private property undefined. COGCC recommends this be in MOU. Fire Depts. want it regulatory. Not resolved.
- Disposal of produced water section thoroughly regulated by COGCC. Operational conflict.
- There is no presumption against open pit storage at COGCC. Operational conflict.
- COGCC regulates produced water pits used by multiple operators
- Permit time frame for removal of operational equipment conflicts with COGCC interim reclamation.
- Most counties are not using an MOU legal structure. Most rely on COGCC LGD interface.
COGA – “We’re not seeing this is the norm by any case.”
The proposed oil & gas zoning regulations and MOU, both dated May 10, 2013, were subsequently sent to the BOCC for approval without any of the above cited operational conflicts and other problems addressed.
As of this writing on 7-13-2013 they are still on-line at the county website at:
It would appear that Rowland and Schlegel paid attention this day, and Ross did not. Knowing that none of these concerns had been addressed in the draft documents, Rowland and Schlegel subsequently ruled on them in the only reasonable way they could have.
Why did the oil & gas edit committee and the CDS department not respond to the COGCC warnings?
Why did the planning commission accept documents they knew had been made obsolete by COGCC criticisms?
Why did the edit committee, the planning commission, and the CDS department, try to convince the BOCC to put Elbert County on a litigation collision course with the state?
Should there be wholesale changes in personnel in all of these groups?
How can the citizens of Elbert County trust future advice from the people currently operating these groups?
B_Imperial
applause, please.
When the BOCC announced at the June 26th meeting that only the zoning element of the proposed oil & gas regulations was on the table that day, many people in the room started to visibly shake. Speaker after speaker stood up to rebut severing consideration of the zoning from the MOU, the emotional barometer rising with each second on the clock.
No words were left unsaid, no constructs unexplored, no state vs. county vs. industry vs. the environment scenario went undiagnosed, in the attempt to convince the BOCC to reconsider and get that MOU back on the table.
So many bloody bodies piled up on the sword of the MOU that proceedings became a little farcical. At one point a wrestling match for the microphone almost broke out when Paul Crisan staked out turf next to the podium and the BOCC had to order him to stand down. He’s probably still smarting from that rebuke — like an ice bucket of cold water in the face.
After all, he’s one of the insiders! One of the hearty givers who seize the reins of power in the planning commission, or the oil & gas edit committee, or the water advisory board, or who faithfully show up as acolyte enabling audience for one of the law-giver groups. And these folks aren’t shy about heaping praise upon other members of the law-giving communities, which is to say, upon themselves. All of these committees have periodic rituals of mutual adoration that the uninitiated have to sit through.
Mind you, no one denies that the work is difficult, or that it doesn’t have value. But the question of value remains open. To listen to the ones puffing about their public service, the value is quite high. But all that puffing probably gets offset by the self-aggrandizement factor.
Even things like gold that have intrinsic value still trade at an objectively determined market value.
In the objective market for this round of oil & gas zoning regulations, it appears their value came up well short of their expectations. No amount of puffing could save it.
The oil & gas edit committee, the planning commission, the water board, the acolyte enablers, all of them gambled on a payoff that their self-fulfilling prophecy of an MOU would get anointed by a majority of the BOCC and given the force of law. They knew they had Ross in the bag and all they had to do was convince Rowland. Surely that was a done deal.
And what a victory it would have been! So strong was the allure of success that they ignored warning signs about operational conflicts from the Attorney General’s office. They’d considered all that and figured the risk of the County getting sued was worth the exposure. The COGCC, COGA and Jake Matter from the AG’s office all came out to talk some sense into the planners, and planners didn’t even bother to update their zoning and MOU proposals, so sure were they of the righteousness of their path.
And then it all came crashing down on the 26th. All that remained on July 10th was to hammer a few nails in the coffin, the patient already long gone. Who knew that Rowland would decide that the risk of the County getting sued was not something Rowland was going to gamble over on his watch?
Well, the name calling, the raising of procedural doubts, the personal disparagements, all of it is just kicking into gear. You don’t affront this bunch of professional do-gooders without paying serious blood money. They will have their revenge. People will pay dearly for interfering in their all important work of furthering the agenda.
They’ll never admit this failure was their fault. But it was. They overreached. They gambled. They shut out contrary indicators. They refused substantive inputs from industry and the state alike. They argued down reasonable opposing views. They made themselves more important than the truth. They put faith in their own club of mutual admirers over the objective reality that surrounds all of us. They gave into hubris. They were big fish in a small pond.
Someone didn’t get the memo and came along to drain the water.
No worries though. They’ll be back. The lure of power, and their lust for it, remain strong. Oh yes, they’ll definitely be back. And they’ll expect us to applaud.
B_Imperial
Left has myths about Weld
Assessed valuation is a gusher in Weld County
Property values hit $7.1 billion, among richest in state
 Weld County’s assessed value soars – Assessed value from 2001 to 2013 (in $billion). *This figure from Weld Assessor Christopher Woodruff is preliminary. Source: Weld County Assessor’s Office |
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Steve Lynn
Assessed property values in Weld County, long known for its affordable, rural lifestyle, have reached $7.1 billion this year, putting it on par with the wealthiest counties in metro Denver.
The increase in value is largely attributable to oil and natural-gas production, which makes up 55 percent of the county’s total assessed value, Weld Assessor Christopher Woodruff said.
“In terms of what’s driving the dollars, it’s oil and gas,” Woodruff said. “The other classes of property are not big enough or don’t change enough to make enough difference into the actual tax dollars that are paid.”
The largest increase came from the Wattenberg field, the area extending from north of Denver well into Weld County, which marks the sweet spot of Weld’s oil and gas drilling boom.
Assessed value for 2013 determines the amount of tax revenue the county’s more than 300 tax districts collect next year. The assessed-value figures are preliminary, but could increase in coming months. The county will certify this year’s values for the first time in August, with a final certification coming in December.
Last year’s assessed value in Weld reached $6.5 billion, netting $454 million in revenue for tax districts, including the county itself, junior colleges, schools, fire and water districts and others. Property tax revenue increased $71 million from the $383 million collected the prior year.
In 2012, oil and gas accounted for 52 percent of assessed value. Noble Energy Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., two of the largest oil and natural-gas companies in the region, paid the county $148 million in 2012 property taxes, nearly one third of all the county’s tax revenue.
This year, agricultural assessed value rose 18 percent, but it only makes up 2 percent of total assessed value, Woodruff said.
In April, Weld was ranked No. 4 in total estimated assessed value at $6.8 billion, behind Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties, according to a study from the state Department of Local Affairs’ Division of Property Taxation. Denver County ranked No. 1 with $11.3 billion in assessed value, well ahead of the others.
Of the top-ranked counties, however, Weld saw the largest percentage increase in assessed value of 4.9 percent.
Based on the new $7.1 billion figure, Weld’s assessed value growth rises to 9.2 percent.
“Some counties, such as Weld County, are growing dramatically,” said JoAnn Groff, the state property tax administrator, who also attributed the increase to oil and gas activity.
By contrast, Larimer County’s 2013 assessed value was estimated at $4.19 billion, up slightly from $4.13 billion in 2012.
The influx of tax revenue has helped keep Weld’s mill levy low. In 2001, Weld’s mill levy was 20.599; by 2006 it was down to 16.804, where it has remained.
Bill Jerke, a farmer and oil and gas consultant as well as a former state representative and Weld County commissioner, said the low tax rates have promoted economic prosperity.
“The overall wealth keeps going up, and as a result, the tax rate goes down,” he said. “It winds up making us more attractive. … You can live in a home or have a business in Weld County and have the property taxes be quite a bit cheaper than they would be across the county line.
“It’s a continuation of the wonders oil and gas have been bringing us.”
Foreclosure filings drop 54 percent in Weld County
Foreclosure filings were down 50.5 percent in Colorado metro counties during May 2013, falling year over year to the lowest level recorded during May in any year since the Colorado Division of Housing began collecting monthly totals in 2007. In Weld County, foreclosure filings dropped 54.7 percent from 139 to 63. Foreclosure auction sales in Colorado’s metropolitan counties were down 25.4 percent in May this year compared to May of last year, falling from 965 to 720, according to a report released Wednesday by the Colorado Division of Housing. Over the same period, foreclosure filings dropped from 2,249 to 1,113.
Unemployment Rate in Weld County, CO
leadership vs. litigiousness
Other polarities here:
- Republican vs. Democrat
- Rule of Law vs. Manipulation of Law
- Conclusive Decisionmaking vs. Adversarial Provocation
- Elected Representation vs. Aparatchik Subversion
The BOCC majority, in this case, prevented bad zoning laws from overtaking Elbert County. Let’s hope they continue to do so.
Rick Brown (4/2/2013) “Frankly at this point I don’t care what the state says.”
overreachers
C.R.S. 30-28-116. Regulations may be amended
From time to time the board of county commissioners may amend . . . any . . . provision . . . of the zoning . . . Any such amendment shall not be made or become effective unless the same has been proposed by or is first submitted for the approval, disapproval, or suggestions of the county planning commission. If disapproved by such commission . . . such amendment, to become effective, shall receive the favorable vote of not less than a majority of the entire membership of the board of county commissioners.
Over the past 2+ years, the Oil & Gas regulation edit committee, and its contributory audiences, were both heavily weighted with Democrats and environmentalists.
Last Spring, the Elbert County Planning Commission took the wholesale work product from this partisan group and passed it without objection.
In June, the BOCC offered to strike a middle ground with these forces by saving the zoning regulation component with minor language changes, and revamping the MOU into a more fair negotiation tool, one not repugnant to industry and COGCC regulations.
Democrat forces would have nothing to do with that compromise and spoke vehemently against it.
Democrat forces never intended to produce a workable process. They intended to create, and did create, a document to legalize a zoning process of interminable discretionary procedural delays — pretty much the same approach they used for the new zoning for Special Districts.
Apparently, the BOCC learned something from the Special District zoning fiasco.
At yesterdays’ oil & gas regulatory denouement, Mr. Blotter threw up a Hail Mary with another call for a moratorium — essentially the legal effect he and compatriots had intended to achieve with the zoning process they’d constructed over the past 2+ years.
The majority of the BOCC correctly realized that another turn on the planning commission merry-go-around, with zero assurances that the unelected planning commissioners would produce any kind of workable outcome, would just end up extending the debacle.
The majority of the BOCC realized that a substantial change in governing law must be arguably better than the status quo, and that on the working documents presented to them, and likely to be presented to them from the same people in the future, they could not make that case. Judging by the weak objections from Commissioner Ross, there indeed was no case to be made. And the majority knew that Elbert County already had plenty of regulatory protection in place under the COGCC’s legal occupation of the field, and Elbert County’s land use zoning under special use review.
The ones who came away from yesterday licking their wounds are the over-reaching planners who have now marginalized themselves — and that includes CDS employees, lawyerly code writers, the rubber-stamping planning commission poobahs, and the acolyte zombie enablers of this circus — into a boring predictable bunch of partisan hacks.
B_Imperial
more Kiowa color
East v West
Indian Paint Mines
hyperbolic times
Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Polite debate is no longer the accepted norm in our society. The liberal left is not tolerating divergent opinions, they want them eliminated. Outrageous labels, personal threats, and even violence have escalated during what used to be polite discourse and disagreements of opinion. [Read more…]
…and another
another good evening
Coincidence?
Must Read: Look What Just Happened: Damning Expose Of The Greatest Fraud In History
Coincidence?
By: Joan Swirsky
Any one of these ‘coincidences’ when taken singularly appear to not mean much, but when taken as a whole, a computer would blow a main circuit if you asked it to calculate the odds that they have occurred by chance alone. Sit back, get a favorite beverage, and then read and ponder the Obama-related ‘coincidences’ … then super-impose the bigger picture of most recent events i.e. Fast and furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal and the NSA revelations … then pray for our country.
Obama just happened to [Read more…]
good evening
EC planning gets a *fail*
In the context of MOU argument at the BOCC meeting yesterday, planner Paul Crisan made much of his purpose on the Planning Commission and Oil & Gas Zoning Edit Committee to protect property values in Elbert County. The record does not appear to sustain the kind of support he assumes.
The most current census data shows total home property values in nearby counties as follows:
- Arapahoe $55.4 Billion
- Douglas $36.6 Billion
- Elbert $3.8 Billion
- El Paso $55.2 Bllion
On a per resident basis, census data shows average home property value as follows:
- Arapaho $93 Thousand
- Douglas $128 Thousand
- Elbert $132 Thousand
- El Paso $86 Thousand
So, Elbert County property values look pretty good on a per-resident basis, but only at about 10% of the total value of our next highest neighbor.
Elbert County planners have impoverished total home property value in Elbert County. They have restricted supply of valuable property and made us the poor cousins of the neighborhood. If your claim to fame is you’ve stopped everyone else from improving their lot in life by locking down the potential for economic growth, maybe you need to reevaluate your purpose. And this analysis does not include the value of commercial property which would make the numbers look tragically worse.
This is not a record that supports continuing the current planning philosophies governing Elbert County.
B_Imperial