Ideas. Stories. Community.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Donate during KSJD's Spring Fund Drive and you could win a Super73 E-Bike! Click here to donate NOW.

KSJD Newscast - March 18th, 2016

  • Montezuma County is crying foul over an apparent state requirement that it join the Southwest Colorado Council of Governments in order to receive funds toward its broadband expansion plan.

Montezuma County is crying foul over an apparent state requirement that it join the Southwest Colorado Council of Governments in order to receive funds toward its broadband expansion plan. On Monday, commission chair Larry Don Suckla said he spoke against the mandate while testifying in Denver about state Senate Bill 16-97, which would allow counties to keep more of the severance taxes produced from mineral extraction within their borders. Half of those revenues currently go to the Department of Local Affairs, which then takes 70 percent of that money and redistributes it through grants. The bill would cut that to 40 percent and give the remainder to the counties. Montezuma is launching a feasibility study to improve Internet service to its rural areas but was told March 7th by IT director Jim McLain that to get broadband grants through DOLA it must join the council, an affiliation of local governments in southwest Colorado. Current members include Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata and San Juan counties as well as most municipalities. However, Suckla says to coerce the county into becoming part of the council is contrary to “the will of the people”. He says if the county must join such a group, he would rather it be the one in southeast Utah because they are more “like-minded”.

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.
Related Content