Secret survey might explain lack of fire camera bill

BY SCOTT FRANZ KUNC

It’s a four-year-old mystery at the state Capitol.

Why does a bill that would deploy high-tech cameras to scan for potentially deadly wild res fail year-after-year despite universal praise from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle?

Equipped with arti cial intelligence and heat sensors, the cameras are steadily replacing an older warning system used in wild re areas that relied on humans scanning the horizon from watch towers.

State Sen. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, said the new technology can give re ghters a key advantage.

“It can detect just a wisp of smoke, and it’s that type of situation in remote areas that could save forests and homes and properties and lives,” she said at the bill’s rst hearing this year.

Colorado lawmakers have tried and failed three times in the last four years to pass a bill to purchase the cameras. ey’ve also struggled to explain why such a bill has not passed.

Democrats blamed Republican libuster attempts of other bills at the very end of last year’s session for its death, but that didn’t explain why Democrats didn’t schedule it for a key vote after it passed its rst test unanimously two months earlier. is year’s revived version of the camera bill unanimously passed the Senate in April. But just like last year, the bill never got scheduled for that key vote in the House appropriations committee. e results are anonymous though, so it isn’t clear which House members didn’t vote to prioritize the camera bill, and why. e results of the survey weren’t released to the public until almost a month after it was taken in response to an open records request .

Republican Rep. Mike Lynch sponsored the bill and said he wasn’t told why it was being killed before a public vote.

“If there’s backroom stu that went on with it, I wasn’t privy to it,” he said last week.

KUNC discovered there was some “backroom stu ” that Lynch and the public weren’t aware of at the time. And it might help explain what happened.

In late March, Democrats who control the legislature privately ranked the legislation in a secret ballot process they call quadratic voting.

Democrats in the Senate, which passed the bill unanimously, ranked the bill as their no. 2 priority on a list of 25 bills requiring one time payments. On that same list, the House ranked the bill 15th of 25.

Lynch said Republicans don’t participate in the survey and aren’t given the results. Only Democrats received links to this year’s survey.

Lynch says if he had known earlier that the cameras ranked at the bottom half of the House Democrats list of priorities, he would have fought harder to pass it.

“I think that that’s a pretty scary way of legislating,” he said of the anonymous bill ranking process. “You know, when you start putting something into a calculation, you now have taken some of the human aspects…or the subjectivity out of there.”

Sen. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, introduced the secret bill ranking survey to the Capitol in 2019 as a way to help Democrats decide how to spend a limited budget. He told KUNC last year that bills that rank higher tend to get scheduled for votes earlier in the session.

“And the earlier something gets moved, the better chance it has of success,” he said. “If it gets held up or delayed, there’s always more risk.”

Some lawmakers have downplayed the in uence of the secret survey, saying it doesn’t determine what legislation lives or dies.

A KUNC analysis of the outcome of the bills included in the secret survey shows a pattern.

Bills with higher price tags that ranked at the bottom of the survey typically had funding removed, were voted down or left to die without a public vote more often than the bills that ranked at the top of the survey.

Rep. Lynch says the Democrats’ survey process raises questions and could help explain why his push to buy wild re cameras suddenly died this year without a public vote.

“Especially a bill that (passed) unanimous out of the Senate,” he said. “ at kind of raises an eyebrow going, ‘wait a minute, where was the pushback on this?’”

Lawmakers did pass several other wild re-related bills this year, including a new militarygrade re ghting helicopter and investments in ameresistant building materials.

Rep. Junie Joseph, D-Boulder, co-sponsored the failed camera bill with Lynch.

She said it was unique because it was one of the only policies focused on prevent- ing res from getting out of control.

“We know, for instance, the Marshall Fire actually spread pretty quickly,” she said. “Imagine if we had more of (the cameras)...Could we have gotten gotten to it quick, much (more) quickly.” e state forester’s o ce estimated in 2019 that 2.9 million Coloradans, or more than half the state’s population, lived in areas that are prone to wild re. is KUNC story via e Associated Press’ Storyshare, of which Colorado Community Media is a member.

Joseph says she’s committed to sponsoring the wild re camera bill again next year.

“I’m disappointed that community members do not have that extra tool or, you know, in their toolbox to help them when it comes to mitigating a wild re,” she said last week. e wild re detection camera program would have cost $2 million, while the new reghting helicopter lawmakers ordered will cost $26 million. Some wild- re prone places aren’t waiting for the legislature to pay for the cameras. O cials in San Miguel County in southwestern Colorado announced they are installing four of them this year to scan for res.

Legals

Public Notice

DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT RE-1 LEGAL NOTICE OF PROPOSED SCHOOL BUDGET

Notice is hereby given that, at a properly noticed public meeting on May 23, 2023, a proposed budget has been submitted to the Board of Education of Douglas County School District RE-1, Douglas and Elbert Counties, Colorado, for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2023, and has been filed in the principal administrative offices of the School District, 620 Wilcox Street, Castle Rock, Colorado, 80104, and online at the Douglas County School District website at www.dcsdk12.org, where it is available for public inspection.

Formal adoption of the proposed budget will be considered at the regular meeting of the Board of Education, at the Wilcox Administration Building, Castle Rock, Colorado on Tuesday, June 20, 2023, beginning at 5:00 p.m.

Any person paying school taxes in said district may either at such June 20, 2023 meeting, or at any

Dated: May 23, 2023

Ronnae Brockman Board of Education Assistant Secretary Legal Notice No. 25005 First Publication: June

Last Publication: June 15, 2023 Publisher: Elbert County News

TRUST, c/o Patty McDonald, 954 White Leaf Circle, Castle Rock, CO 80108. James J. Petrock, Eric K. Trout, Hayes Poznanovic Korver LLC, 700 17th Street, Suite 1800, Denver, CO 80202.

APPLICATION FOR UNDERGROUND WATER

RIGHTS FROM NONTRIBUTARY SOURCES IN THE LOWER DAWSON, DENVER, ARAPAHOE AND LARAMIE-FOX HILLS AQUIFERS AND NOT-NONTRIBUTARY SOURCES IN THE UPPER DAWSON AQUIFER IN ELBERT COUNTY.

Subject Property: 40 acres generally located in the NE1/4 of the NW1/4 of Section 23, Township 10 South, Range 65 West of the 6th P.M., also known as 1506 County Road 86, Elbert, CO, 80106, as shown on Exhibit A (“Subject Property”). Applicant is the sole owner of the Subject Property and has provided notice to all mortgage and lien holders as required under C.R.S. § 37-92-302(2) acre-feet)

Upper Dawson (NNT)* 19.70

Lower Dawson (NT) 13.01 Denver (NT) 16.86

Arapahoe (NT) 19.94

Laramie-Fox Hills (NT)11.98 other and further relief as is appropriate. 3 pages.

* The total estimated amount of Upper Dawson Aquifer groundwater is 21.70 acre-feet per year.

THE WATER RIGHTS CLAIMED BY THESE APPLICATIONS MAY AFFECT IN PRIORITY ANY WATER RIGHTS CLAIMED OR HERETOFORE ADJUDICATED WITHIN THIS DIVISION AND OWNERS OF AFFECTED RIGHTS MUST APPEAR TO OBJECT WITHIN THE TIME PROVIDED BY STATUTE OR BE FOREVER BARRED.

1

Pursuant to C.R.S. 37-92-302, you are notified that the following is a resume of all water right applications, and certain amendments filed in the Office of the Water Clerk during the month of MAY 2023 for each County affected.

2023CW3048 MCDONALD REVOCABLE

(b). Well Permits: There are currently two wells on the Subject Property operating under Well Permit Nos. 82790 and 82828. These wells will continue to operate under their existing permits. Additional well permits will be applied for prior to construction of additional wells. Source of Water Rights: The Upper Dawson Aquifer is not-nontributary as defined in C.R.S. § 37-90-103(10.7), and the Lower Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, and Laramie-Fox Hills aquifers are nontributary as defined in C.R.S. § 37-90-103(10.5). Estimated Amounts: Applicant estimates that the following annual amounts may be available for withdrawal based on a 100-year withdrawal period:

2 acre-feet are withheld from this adjudication for use by Well Permit Nos. 82790 and 82828 (1 acre-foot per year for each well). Proposed Use: Use, reuse, and subsequent use for domestic, including in-house use, commercial, irrigation, livestock watering, industrial, fire protection, and augmentation and replacement purposes, including storage, both on and off the Subject Property. Jurisdiction: The Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this application pursuant to C.R.S. §§ 37-90-137(6), 37-92-203(1), 37-92-302(2). Remarks: Applicant claims the right to withdraw more than the average annual amounts estimated in Paragraph 5 above pursuant to Rule 8A of the Statewide Rules, 2 C.C.R. 402-7. Applicant requests the right to revise the estimates upward or downward, based on better or revised data, without the necessity of amending this application or republishing the same. Applicant requests the Court approve the above underground water rights, find that Applicant has complied with C.R.S. § 37-90-137(4) and water is legally available for withdrawal, find there will be no material injury to the owners of or persons entitled to use water under any vested water right or decreed conditional water right, and grant such

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that any party who wishes to oppose an application, or an amended application, may file with the Water Clerk, P. O. Box 2038, Greeley, CO 80632, a verified Statement of Opposition, setting forth facts as to why the application should not be granted, or why it should be granted only in part or on certain conditions. Such Statement of Opposition must be filed by the last day of JULY 2023 (forms available on www.courts.state.co.us or in the Clerk’s office), and must be filed as an Original and include $192.00 filing fee. A copy of each Statement of Opposition must also be served upon the Applicant or Applicant’s Attorney and an affidavit or certificate of such service of mailing shall be filed with the Water Clerk.

Legal Notice No. 25008

First Publication: June 15, 2023 Last Publication: June 15, 2023