From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

Here we are — Tod, Peggy, Venus, and Zeus — at Dogland on the banks of the Colorado River with the Roan Plateau in the back ground. My big accomplishment this year was the River Park ordinance, designating the park as a rest area where dogs may be walked off leash. As you can see, Silt has the happiest dogs in Garfield County.

With this new year 2008 we have the opportunity to reclaim open government in Silt and restore democracy in the US government. Run for office. Exercise your right to vote. No matter what — get involved!

Wishing you joy and laughter in 2008!

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Today I found this story buried on Page 13 in The Paper. Couldn’t find it on their website so I went to the Rocky Mountain News for the story.

Check this out:

Sec. of state’s campaign advisers also represent e-voting firm
By Myung Oak Kim and Lynn Bartels

The political consulting company running Secretary of State Mike Coffman’s congressional campaign also was working for a voting machine manufacturer when Coffman gave that company’s devices his seal of approval on Monday.

Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold, was the only one of four voting machine companies to have all of its equipment conditionally approved for use in 2008 elections.

Premier hired Phase Line Strategies, a Highlands Ranch consulting firm, in September to lobby on its behalf, records show.

Phase Line also is running Coffman’s campaign to take over U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s 6th Congressional District seat. Coffman said he hired Phase Line in November but has been talking to them since the summer.

“This is an outrageous conflict of interest,” said Paul Hultin, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit that resulted in Coffman’s certification process.

Hultin said Premier’s machines are known to be flawed and there was no credible basis for Coffman to certify them. “This explains what was going on,” he said.

Coffman and a Phase Line official both deny that Premier got any special consideration in the lengthy review of Colorado’s electronic voting systems.

“There was absolutely no outside influences that affected any of my decisions on the vendors,” Coffman said Wednesday night.

Chris Riggall, spokesman for Premier, said the company found out Wednesday night about Phase Line’s connection to Coffman.

“That was certainly news to us and of great concern to us . . . and effective tonight that relationship is terminated,” he said.

“Oh my God!” said Claudia Kuhns, executive director of the Voter Integrity Project, an advocacy group that pushes for accurate and verifiable elections. “I thought (the certification process) was politically capricious before but now I really do.

“When you have a situation where there’s the appearance of impropriety, it really causes one to be completely distrustful of the entire process” …

We can’t trust that our vote will be counted. We can’t trust the results of the certification process – or should I call it the DE-certification process.

You know what else is interesting about this story? Go back to Colorado’s 2006 Democratic landslide. Secretary of State Mike Coffman and Attorney General John Suther were the only 2 Republicans elected to state cabinet offices – by slim margins. The Secretary of State and Attorney General are the guys who control elections. 

This whole thing has a great big stink to it. Looks like the fix was in long before now.

Wow.

If you live in Colorado, I sure hope you are writing and calling and bitching. I sure am.

All I want for Christmas is my vote back!

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It’s a big fat mess! And here’s even more bad news:

Garfield County can’t count on voting machines
County clerk not sure what will happen in upcoming election
By Phillip Yates

… One of the machines that had its Colorado certification pulled was Hart InterCivic’s eScan, which Garfield County uses to read paper ballots in county elections, Alberico said. Coffman also pulled certification of the company’s Ballot Now system, which is balloting-printing equipment the county has purchased but has not used in an election. Voting machine vendors and clerks have 30 days to appeal the decertification, Alberico said.

The company’s eSlate machines, used by Garfield County voters to make their selections, remain conditionally certified, Alberico said.

“Right now, I am not quite sure what we are going to do,” Alberico said. “It is going to be difficult. I am just going to wait and see what comes out of this. Everyone knew something like this could happen. We have been contemplating what our contingencies might be.”

Coffman has scheduled meetings with county representatives and voting equipment vendors for Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday morning, there will be a special session at the state Capitol building that all county clerks are invited to, Alberico said.

“I am hopefully going to make that meeting,” Alberico said. “I am just waiting for more information and to see, bottom line, how (Coffman’s decision) affects us before we make any decisions.”

But any move to remove Hart InterCivic’s voting machines is a decision Alberico said she would have to make with county commissioners.

“Once we decide what is going to happen, we are going to have to sit down and talk and figure out what is going to be the best solution for Garfield County,” Alberico said.

Coffman said Colorado’s actions would have national repercussions.

“What we have found is that the federal certification process is inadequate,” he said.

Coffman’s move to decertify Hart InterCivic’s eScan machine could cause a tremendous headache for local election workers next year. In last year’s election, about 65 percent of county voters cast paper absentee ballots, which are also called mail-in ballots, Alberico said. A sizable group of people at polling places last year also used paper ballots, Alberico said.

The county used currently decertified Hart’s eScan machines to tabulate those ballots.

“I have to have some kind of scanning equipment that will count those paper ballots,” Alberico said.

Garfield County currently has an Elections Systems and Software M650 machine, which is a central ballot counting system, but that was also decertified by Coffman on Monday.

“This is a pretty big story statewide,” Alberico said of the decertification of balloting machines. “It is too bad. The certification process was supposed to be done so much earlier in the year and now it is crunch time.”

So this means none of Garfield County’s voting machines passed certification. Even if you vote by mail, the machine that scans your vote doesn’t work. Was your vote counted in the last election? You will never know.

You can read more stories about Colorado’s voting machine mess at Daily Voting News.

Here’s one that’s especially entertaining:

Voting machines could be fixed for ‘08
By Christopher N. Osher

Secretary of State Mike Coffman said the flaws his office found in Colorado’s electronic voting machines could be fixed with upgrades and patches in time for the 2008 presidential primaries and election.

Coffman asked the state Legislature today to change state law to give his office more flexibility in how those machines are certified.

“We need to hold a 2008 presidential election,” Coffman said. “Following the inflexible bureaucratic process is not going to get us through” …

Ha-ha! Now that’s funny. Republican Secretary of State Coffman says he can fix the machines. Ri-ight. Well of freaking course they can fix the machines. They can make those voting machines do whatever they want them to do. Even achieve whatever election outcome they want to achieve. That’s the whole point. That’s why the damn machines don’t work. That’s why your vote is no longer safe.

Upgrades? A patch?

Oh please. What reason on earth do we have to trust the voting machine companies’ upgrades and/or patches? None whatsoever.

Then there’s this line from that Denver Post article:

Hart InterCivic solved concerns California officials had with its machines by making an upgrade to the company’s computer systems, Coffman said.

Sorry, but I don’t think the 38 conditions laid out in California Secretary of State Bowen’s December 7, 2007 proclamation of decertification of the HartIntercivic represents a vote of confidence. Or a solution. On the contrary, many California counties are opting for hand-counted paper ballots next year.

And it’s the same damn thing in Ohio this week –

1,000 pages of bad news: Ohio e-voting report released
By Jon Stokes

The results are now in from a thorough, $1.9 million test of the voting machines that Ohio has used in elections over the past few years, and they paint about as awful a picture of the state’s electoral apparatus as one would expect given the stead stream of grim news out of counties like Cuyahoga. The two private-sector and three academic research teams that carried out the Evaluation & Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards & Testing (EVEREST) study of Ohio’s e=voting systems did not mince words in the 86-page Executive report that they released this past Friday (or, if words were minced, then one can imagine that the unminced version wasn’t family-friendly): “The findings of the various scientists engaged by Project EVEREST are disturbing. These findings do not lend themselves to sustained or increased confidence in Ohio’s voting systems” …

The only way to resolve this is to demand hand-counted paper ballots. It’s the only way to ensure our votes will be counted. Go to Hand Counted Paper Ballots NOW! and sign the petition. Then contact your Colorado State Legislators.

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Coffman completes electronic voting equipment tests
Premier Voting Systems - only system certified completely by state

Denver, Colorado – Today, Secretary of State Mike Coffman issued his findings from a court-mandated retesting of electronic voting equipment often referred to as “recertification.” In September 2006, a district court judge had ruled, in Conroy vs. Dennis, that the certification process used by the Secretary of State’s office was inadequate and that the voting equipment had to be retested before the 2008 primary election. Under state law, all electronic voting equipment purchased after May 2004 has to be tested and certified by the Secretary of State’s office after being federally certified.

“My job, as the Secretary of State, is to follow the law and the law requires my office to test the electronic voting equipment used in Colorado to make sure that these systems are secure and can accurately count every vote as set forth by the standards established in state law and mandated by a court order,” said Coffman.

Under state law, the clerks and the vendors of decertified equipment will have up to 30 days to formally “Request a Reconsideration” of Coffman’s decisions. The legislature, when it convenes next month, can also decide to modify the requirements set forth in the state’s certification law to allow decertified equipment to be used in the 2008 election. On Wednesday and Thursday, Coffman’s staff will meet with the clerks and the vendors who have decertified equipment for a detailed technical briefing of the testing results and the factors leading to decertification.

“I had to strictly follow the law along with the court order,” said Coffman. “If I’m too lenient in determining what passes then I risk having the state taken to court by activists groups who will ask for an injunction on the use of electronic voting machines for the 2008 election, and if I exceed the requirements of state law and the court order, then I will be sued by the vendors who manufacture and sell the equipment.”

Coffman carefully reviewed the process for certifying electronic voting equipment used in 2006 and made dramatic changes, which include three additional layers of technical experts reviewing the tests results. He instituted a testing board composed of four technical experts to decide the passage or failure of individual tests, and an outside audit of technical experts to review the testing process, as well as making sure that the results matched the tests. He also engaged the cyber security experts from state government to also review and comment on the security testing.

Coffman’s decisions:

Premier (formally known as Diebold): All voting equipment submitted for recertification passed.
 
Sequoia: The optical scan devices, Insight and 400-C, used to count paper ballots both passed, but the electronic voting machines, the Edge II and the Edge II Plus, both failed due to a variety of security risk factors, including that the system is not password protected, has exposed controls potentially giving voters unauthorized access, and lacks an audit trail to detect security violations.

Hart: The optical scan devices, eScan and BallotNow, both failed because test results showed that they could not accurately count ballots. The electronic voting machine, eSlate, passed.

ES&S: The optical scan devices (M 100 and the M650) both failed because of an inability to determine if the devices work correctly and an inability to complete the testing threshold of 10,000 ballots due to vendor programming errors. The electronic voting machine (iVotronic) failed because it is easily disabled by voters activating the device interface, and the system lacks an audit trail to detect security violations.

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In this season of gift giving, consider a gift to CARE (Colorado Animal Rescue). They really need our help!

This article appeared in The Paper on December 11:

Garfield County discusses CARE funding
Sheriff to meet with shelter staff Wednesday
By Phillip Yates

GLENWOOD SPRINGS - It was matter of just tens of thousands of dollars in a $107 million spending budget.

But that small sliver of money generated an hour-long debate among Garfield County commissioners, and directors and supporters of the Colorado Animal Rescue (CARE) shelter, as county leaders considered adoption of the 2008 budget Monday. The budget included a reduction in the shelter’s contract.

All three Garfield County commissioners approved the county budget for 2008. It called for the local animal shelter’s contract to be cut to $150,000 next year from $200,000 this year. CARE officials asked for $275,000 in 2008.

In a move to cooperate with the local shelter, Sheriff Lou Vallario said he would meet with the shelter’s staff on Wednesday to learn what they wanted to do with the $75,000 increase they requested for 2008 and try to accommodate their needs.

Vallario will report on his discussions with shelter staff to the commissioners, who later could vote on a supplement for the shelter.

Leslie Rockey, director of CARE, said she was looking forward to speaking with the sheriff about the shelter’s needs.

“I feel we will be able to figure out our finances (with the county),” said Rockey.

She and supporters of the shelter came to the Monday meeting to open a dialogue with commissioners.

“We do a phenomenal job,” Rockey said.

The reduction in the shelter’s contract comes as the county plans to spend $107 million and collect $102 million into county coffers next year. The difference will come from the county’s fund balance, which will decrease to $50 million in 2008.

The county budget increased almost $8 million since the budget was presented Oct. 12, because of meetings commissioners had with elected officials and department heads, said county manager Ed Green. The additional money is directed mostly to projects, he said.

As the commissioners began discussing the county budget for 2008, Commissioner Trési Houpt immediately voiced her concern about a decrease in CARE’s contract, saying the county proposed lowering the shelter’s funding without figuring out whether the move could close the shelter’s doors in 2008.

Houpt said she also was concerned that the county’s move could create a potential policy decision regarding animal sheltering during the budget process.

“We are not asking to reduce the amount of service that CARE gives us, but we are lowering the amount of money (given to them),” Houpt said. “I am seeing a real disconnect with that.”

During the discussion about the shelter, Houpt proposed postponing adoption of the budget for another meeting so commissioners could look more closely at what the reduction could mean for the shelter. That proposal drew a strong reaction from Commissioner John Martin.

Martin said what many consider to be a growing animal control problem in the county cannot be solved simply by “throwing money at the problem.” He said county officials should consider working with other entities to take care of animal-control issues.

“I like CARE. It is not about CARE,” Martin said. “We will continue to donate and fundraise, (but) we need to branch out.”

Commissioner Larry McCown also raised concerns about the level of funding CARE officials requested, saying animals get turned away 50 percent of the time at the shelter.

But CARE shelter trainer Tracey Yajko disputed that contention. She said the shelter does whatever it can to take in animals, finding room in every “nook and cranny.”

Much of the debate about the funding for the shelter centered around the county’s long-term plans for stray and vicious pets. Vallario said there are plans to include a shelter in the county’s budgeting plans, but a new facility is expected to cost about $4 million.

I spoke with CARE Director Leslie Rockey after her meeting with Sheriff Vallario today and she said it went well and she felt very positive. Vallario said he will look at other ways of achieving some of the additional funding they have requested. They talked about doing a survey to assess the level of support from county residents. However I think it’s safe to say under those circumstances, when it comes down to juggling finances, CARE will not end up with the full amount they requested. And that is wrong on so many levels.

In Garfield County we have CARE and the Rifle Animal Shelter – which only takes in animals from inside the city limits of Rifle – so for the rest of the county it’s CARE. When Commissioner John Martin says “we need to branch out”, I don’t understand what he means. There are simply no other branches. There is only CARE.

We don’t hear much about CARE other than at budget time, because those good people are busy doing the job that no other agency does countywide – animal rescue and adoption. When you have an agency that provides a much-needed service, is good at what it does, and is successful at it, you don’t go looking elsewhere to branch out. You support the agency that has proven itself over and over again – and that’s CARE.

As everyone knows the booming gas well drilling industry and all of its subsidiary industries have brought a population explosion to this county – and with it a pet overpopulation explosion. We are already at a crisis level with too many pets and not enough homes. That’s not CARE’s fault. On the contrary it’s all the more reason the county needs to fund CARE at the level they have requested.

We also know that Garfield County receives millions in property taxes from the energy companies. Since CARE’s mission to address pet overpopulation has been severely impacted by the influx of workers from the gas well industry, the county should make up the difference in CARE’s funding request with a grant from the energy companies’ property tax proceeds.

As a way of addressing the population explosion, the county used the energy companies’ property tax funds to build a new elementary school in Silt. CARE’s not asking for a multi-million dollar facility, they just need funding to keep their facility in operation. When you put it in perspective, it is not too much to ask, for a job no one else wants to do – not even Garfield County.

For now CARE needs our help.

Go to the Garfield County Commissioners webpage and email the commissioners. Voice your support of the work CARE is doing and the need to fully fund that work. Thank Tresi Houpt for her continuing support. Urge Larry McCown and John Martin to fully fund CARE.

Send a tax deductible donation to:
CARE
2801 County Road 114
Glenwood Springs, CO 81601

Consider adopting a pet this holiday season! Go to Petfinder.com to see photos and profiles of cats and dogs ready for adoption at CARE.

Last month, Ema adopted Calie, a calico kitten from Street Cat Coalition, CARE’s feral cat trap/neuter/return program. Calie was born in the wild, then trapped and put in a foster home as a kitten until she was tame enough to be placed in a home. She’s already very attached to 6-yr old Hailey and blossoming into an affectionate lap kitty. Hailey is thrilled. And their other cat Hobbes is happy to have a new friend.

Last year, we adopted Venus from a family who moved here to work in the gas well industry. They moved from 2 acres in Utah to a tiny lot in Battlement Mesa and could no longer keep their 10-month old Great Pyrenees/Lab mix. She has added love and laughter to our lives. And Zeus isn’t lonely anymore.

The point is, there’s always room for one more.

Pet overpopulation is a problem brought on by our booming gas well industry that we can all do something about. We can give and we can adopt. And we can demand that Garfield County give its share on our behalf.

This holiday season we have the opportunity to give to a local agency that really works and needs our help. There’s always a solution – if we all CARE enough.

* BTW, The Paper ran an online poll this week: “Do you agree with Garfield County’s decision to cut funding from Colorado Animal Rescue?” Out of 184 votes, 121 voted for “Care needs the money – give it back.”

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Rep. Salazar’s office released this information yesterday (12/04). Click through to read the entire article:

Push to pause Roan drilling dead for year
By Mike Saccone

A one-year ban on developing the top of the Roan Plateau is dead, at least for the remainder of 2007, according to the office of Congressman John Salazar, D-Colo …

Now it’s up to our state and local leaders to save the Roan.

Garfield County Officials urge Governor Ritter: Colorado can afford to save Roan Plateau
Protecting Roan Plateau protects economic strength and area quality-of-life

SILT, Colo.—Elected leaders from Garfield County today urged Governor Ritter to support strong protections for the Roan Plateau as he finishes a review of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s plans to allow drilling on the area of popular public lands, located about 40 miles east of Grand Junction. 

The Colorado governor is currently completing his review of the federal government’s plans to open all the Roan Plateau’s public lands to oil and gas leasing and drilling.  The elected officials, representing four municipalities in Garfield County, emphasized the value that open, undeveloped public lands provide to their communities.

“Colorado can afford to protect the Roan Plateau,” said Michael Hassig, mayor of the Town of Carbondale.  “What we cannot afford is to let one use compromise our traditional economic inputs and the health of our communities.  Protecting the Roan won’t impact all of the drilling that is already taking place in Garfield County.  But drilling there will severely threaten the hunting and fishing, wildlife habitat, and other uses that are already occurring.”

Garfield County’s communities currently rely on a mixture of amenities and industries to promote economic activity, with public lands playing a large role in that mix.  Recent analysis of economic data by Headwaters Economics shows that the prosperity of Colorado’s West Slope springs from its diverse economy. The research suggests that “if energy activity displaces or repels other types of economic activity, it could jeopardize the future health of these communities, especially when the boom cools off.”

Among the report’s conclusions was that it is important to ensure that energy development occurs at a pace and scale that considers other community needs. 

“Taking a measured approached would be a better course for Colorado than rushing headlong into another energy boom,” said Bruce Christensen, mayor of Glenwood Springs.  “Garfield County has been down that road before; slow and steady would allow governments to plan for this activity, and for our communities to grow at a stable pace.  What’s happening at Roan Plateau, across much of the West, is a land grab.  Our state would be best served by protecting the Roan Plateau and similar places, and moving into a new clean energy future, than in drilling the Roan.”

If current projections hold, 2007 will become the fifth consecutive year in which a new record for drilling permits will be set, with Garfield County at the epicenter of the activity.  Tens of thousands of additional wells are planned across the Piceance Basin— which includes the Roan Plateau.   A measured approach to developing Colorado’s resources, rather than the frenzy of activity currently occurring, would better serve the long-term stability and viability of the state and local economy, the Headwaters analysis  found. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which administers many of the public lands in the Piceance including the Roan Plateau, about 95% of its lands in the basin have already been leased by the oil and gas industry.  Many of the private lands in the area are likewise owned or under the control of these companies.

“It is not in Colorado’s best interest to rush into leasing the Roan Plateau,” said Tod Tibbetts, mayor pro-tem of the Town of Silt. “The oil and gas companies should not be allowed to determine local land use, which is exactly what the BLM’s leasing program encourages.  Now is the time for Colorado’s congressional leaders and Governor Ritter to ensure that the Roan’s remaining public lands are left intact, as they are today, and like the public and our communities have asked for all along.”

Williams Companies—the largest gas driller in Garfield County, which includes the Roan Plateau—has a ten-year inventory of drilling sites already, according to company sources.  This situation holds across the state: 70% of the public lands in Colorado that have been leased for oil and gas have yet to be put into production. 

With natural gas reserves in United States area at a 30-year high, the rush to develop the publicly-owned natural gas in Colorado drives down revenue coming back to the state, which is sold at bargain basement rates. Furthermore, advances in directional drilling technology allow industry to extract most of the Roan’s resources without developing any more of the area’s public lands.  For example, the BLM management plan approved only this year assumes a maximum horizontal reach of 2,500 feet for directional wells. However, EnCana, one of the largest operators in the county, has recently demonstrated a reach of almost twice that. 

To encourage development of such technology and to ensure that the Roan’s other values and uses are protected, Colorado congressmen John Salazar and Mark Udall succeeded in including provisions in a House energy bill that would allow extraction of the Roan’s gas from outside the unleased public lands in the area.
 
“Impacts here from the drilling industry are already enormous; traffic impacts, air and dust impacts, road and bridge impacts, social services impacts, and possibly water impacts,” said Councilman Greg Russi, from the Town of New Castle.  “It makes no sense to drill the top of the Roan using old technology when we could drill later, do better at getting that gas to market as new pipelines come online, and use newer, more environmentally sound technology. We hope Governor Ritter uses his review to urge that the BLM develop such restraint, and to support Colorado’s congressional delegation and senators in protecting what we cherish about Roan Plateau.”
 
Governor Ritter won a 120-day review of the BLM’s plan, with the help of Senator Salazar, and is expected to issue his findings sometime in December.  Final congressional action on the energy bill is still pending, although all oil and gas provisions have been stripped from the bill, making Governor Ritter’s position all the more critical to winning long term protection for the Roan.   

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