Monday, April 25, 2011

Congressman Titpton to hold Town Hall on Pinon Canyon tomorrow night

From his office: "Rep. Scott Tipton to Hold Town Hall Meeting on April 26th in Trinidad; Following a tour of Pinon Canyon (and Fort Carson) during the day, Rep. Scott Tipton will host a town hall meeting to TO DISCUSS PINON CANYON and other important issues, and take questions from constituents.
When: Tuesday, April 26th, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Sullivan Student Center, TSJC
Please attend......... we're not sure what exactly is being pushed so of course our eyebrows are raised.........
So we haven't received word from Mr. Tipton on the exact nature of this visit - 
We do know he's talking to three individual commissioners from three local counties while at the site,and wanting them to also visit Fort Carson and then fly down to the maneuver site.  (we have no qualms about the commissioners meeting with them - and trust those commissioners will stand fast with no expansion positions).
We do know when a staffer was asked if he wanted to speak to the landowners around the current site as part of his 'tour' his staffer advised that 'if they want to talk to Tipton they can come to the Town Hall meeting.'
So yes, we're a bit on edge - will you attend with us?

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Army not providing all the facts? Doug Holdread Blog

Let me try to say this delicately; the Army is not providing all of the facts when they say, "The waiver does not authorize land acquisition-it simply allows the Army to continue studying the requirements and plan accordingly." There is a document that Fort Carson and other bases produce for this purpose. It's called a "Land Use Requirement Study," (LURS). The waiver goes beyond studying and planning. It is a permit. The very first sentence of the waiver approval states it pretty clearly, "the Army is requesting an exception to the subject moratorium in order to acquire approximately 418,000 acres of land, estimated to be valued at 108.8M." If it has no intention of expanding Pinon Canyon, why won't the Army cancel the waiver? After all, they claim it doesn't really mean anything. So why won't they grant us this additional reassurance? All it would take is a simple memo from Secretary of the Army McHugh stating that, "the waiver, granted by my office on February 7, 2007 is hereby by declared null and void." It's pretty obvious that want to keep the waiver in place because it an important weapon in their acquisition arsenal. Right now the safety is on,(year-to-year spending ban) and there's no bullet in the chamber,(Congressional funding), but they've got the gun, aimed and ready. Telling us that there is nothing (currently) in the budget for acquisition is cold comfort. We've seen how military budgets can turn on dime. And what about their "black budget;" all of the billions that nobody is allowed to monitor? What about the fact that a couple of years ago, then Army Undersecretary Keith Eastin said, "we believe we already have adequate money appropriated for that purpose in our current land acquisition budget?" (Pueblo Chieftain, July 18, 2008)

PCEOC Position Unchanged regardless of Army letter - NPR Story on same

PCEOC Release in response to letter of 5 yrs without money promise

NPR Story April 6, 2011

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