Big Thompson column by Dennis Smith

April 25, 2008

Below is the column written by Loveland Reporter-Herald reporter Dennis Smith on April 24, 2008

Home Waters
April 24, 2008
Dennis E. Smith
 
 
 
It never fails to amaze me how often you can overlook a thing that’s right beneath your nose, until someone - quite often a complete stranger - points it out to you.
 
I was reminded of that nagging peculiarity again this month when Nick Williams invited me to fish a stretch of the Big Thompson River I’d probably driven by a thousand times in the last thirty years, but had never bothered to fish because I’d always assumed it was private property. Making assumptions is another flawed but human characteristic. We all know its dangers.
 
The section we fished that day was on a narrow sliver of county land about 15 miles up the canyon. Classic trout water rambled between pine and aspen-studded banks, speckled here and there with summer cabins and colorful mountain retreats. We met none of the homeowners that day, but Williams said those he’d encountered in the past were warm and friendly types who often waved at him from their decks and asked if he was “catching any.” He discovered the little ribbon of public land some years ago while pondering a government map that delineated public from private properties. Interestingly, the property appears to be one of those now at risk of being sold by the Larimer Department of Parks, though it’s hard to tell for certain.
 
Which brings me to this: All of the recent meetings surrounding the sale of public properties on the Big T may very well be on the up-and-up, but one gets the sense the Parks department is trying to cully the public into believing they're doing us all a favor by retaining angling access on seven river bottom properties when they, themselves, originally categorized more than sixty of them as having "high recreational value.”
 
There’s no question anglers are immensely grateful for those seven concessions, but we should remind the county they aren’t “giving” us anything we don’t already own. Those properties were purchased on behalf of the public with funds provided by a federal agency specifically for their high recreational values - read angling access - and were to remain in the public trust forever. That was the Parks Department’s commitment - in writing - to the Federal Conservation Land and Water Fund, and by inference, the citizens of Larimer County and everyone else who fishes the Big T. Retaining as many of them as possible should be their highest priority.
 
But the Parks Department violated its public trust and seriously jeopardized whatever confidence the public may have had in them when they quietly transferred those recreational values from the Big T properties to the River Bluffs birding trail project near Windsor and kept it hush-hush - presumably to divest themselves of the federal obligation to maintain the Big T properties in perpetuity. Or to put it another way - so they could sell them to finance other projects.
 
Whether that was intentional or just poor judgment is irrelevant at this point, but it certainly wasn’t Kosher, and it did nothing to inspire faith in our county leadership. When asked for copies of the documents authorizing the transfers, Parks staff was reluctant or unable to produce them, making it necessary to file Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) and Federal Open Information Act to obtain them.
 
This only served to heighten public suspicions. As did the selective meetings and mailing lists catering to prospective property buyers on the county’s web site while seemingly excluding angler interests. Add to this the recent discovery that the Chairman of the Parks Advisory Board has been withholding citizen e-mails regarding the matter from the rest of the board, claiming such e-mails addressed to her are “private.” Really? That seems odd, too, in view of language on the county’s website indicating e-mails addressed to officials are open public records unless otherwise requested. Besides, wouldn’t one just naturally assume a board chairman has a responsibility to make absolutely certain board members are informed of the public’s written concerns?  See? It’s best not to assume.
 
The collective result of all this bureaucratic hide-and-seek is divisive and destructive to good public relations. If the Park’s staff is sincere about protecting angling access on the Big T for generations to come, they need only retain those sixty parcels they originally categorized as having high recreational values in their original agreement with the public and restore those values - in perpetuity - so we’ll never have to worry about this happening again. Otherwise, we can probably assume that it will.
 
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