The Chaffee Common Ground Citizens Advisory Committee issued its third annual report for 2021, a 20-page recap of its accomplishments across the three major program areas outlined to county residents, and approved for funding through a 2018 ballot initiative in which voters approved taxing themselves to protect the county’s forest health and wildfire resiliency, better-manage recreational resources, and protect working agricultural lands.
To address the funding needs for these three areas, Ballot Initiative 1A established a quarter-percent sales tax. In its first three years of existence, the measure has raised almost $4 million. Establishing this dedicated funding source, allowed not just major programs to commence, but that financial commitment has leveraged nearly $20 million in grant and outside-sourced funding flowing into the county.
The Chaffee Common Ground Citizen Advisory Committee has recommended, and the County Commissioners have approved, future funding for specific projects and programs through 2025. By committing to future-year funding, Common Ground grantees are able to attract significant matching funds.
During the Feb. 1 meeting of the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) Cindy Williams, representing the Common Ground Citizens Advisory Group, presented the grant funding accomplishment for the past year, as well as highlighted some of the progress made in the past three years.
Chaffee Fire Protection Firefighter Doug Thompson begins to load the first of two slash piles on a driveway in Chalk Creek Canyon during the Oct. 2020 Chaffee Chips event. Photo by Jan Wondra.
One of the first steps was to update the county’s out-of-date wildfire protection plan, a months-long process involving more than 30 individuals crossing local governments, local, state, and federal forestry and land management resources. On that program alone, over three years, Chaffee Common Ground has approved grants of $3.2 million with matching funds of $9.5 million for projects in the southern, central, and northern parts of the county, where the wildfire risks were deemed highest. That effort continues.
Popular programs like Chaffee Chips have pulled in the general population, helping them see their role in protecting their property and the county from wildfire. Another example, taken directly from the Annual Report:
Investments by Common Ground in 2021 include a $1.64 million grant over 5 years to seed the Upper Arkansas Forest Fund, to aggregate and manage forest treatments that reduce wildfire threat as outlined in the Chaffee County Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
The expenditure was leveraged 350 percent with a $5.7 million federal grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
Williams commended Rick Hum who served as Vice-Chair of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee for the first three years for the program progress. “He set up the rubrics, the processes that are measurable, working as a volunteer. When we were setting up to put this on the ballot, we talked with other counties. We learned that in the first years of their efforts, they had trouble setting up programs – but we haven’t had that problem in the three program areas … due to community support.”
The county’s commitment to protecting working agricultural lands will result in around 3,000 acres of working agricultural lands protected in the first three years: primarily the Centerville Ranch and the Arrowhead Ranch conservancies. Other smaller ag projects have funded wetlands protections and critical agricultural ditch operations.
Photo courtesy of Chaffee County Recreation in Balance
The third program area, the protection of recreational assets, has broken new ground. The county’s relatively small investments as documented in the annual report, have had a big return; matching five to one the Common Ground grant funding.
“Our investment early on in recreation was in planning to spend money in the right places,” said Williams, who said key to the effort was in what she termed “interconnected planning.” The county’s investment of $340,000 in recreational programming, was matched by $850,00 in contributions from other sources.
Last year the work resulted in the Chaffee Outdoor Recreation Plan, whose goals are to help the county manage growth impacts, both residential growth and the impacts of tourism, on the county’s finite and fragile natural resources. While there has been some debate over aspects of the program related to public access to areas deemed to be wildlife areas, and controversy over camping parameters, the overall direction has been forward.
Williams said that Common Ground is especially proud that another of the Common Ground financial goals has been met: to allocate no more than five percent of the funding toward administrative costs. In fact, said Williams, “We are only at 1.2 percent — well below the threshold.
Commissioners appeared appreciative. “It’s frustrating to be in these regional meetings and hear people portray their own unawareness over how to get funds — or complaining about the process and demand things when they aren’t very cooperative,” said Commissioner Keith Baker. “Working with these interagency groups we are getting great things done. We’re going about it right … it’s tangible, on the ground, and getting grants and in-kind contributions. We’re able to do things we could never afford on our own.”
Commissioner Greg Felt noted that “the recent fires have motivated a change in how the [regional state and federal water conservancies] view their mission. The DNR (Department of Natural Resources) more broadly has some important forest health initiatives underway … forest health and the Colorado River are grabbing the headlines.”
To view the entire Common Ground Annual Report, click here.
Featured image: A view west toward the Collegiate Peaks from the Centerville Ranch. AVV file photo.
Recent Comments