by Norman L. Kincaide Ph.D.

A brief summary of the Canyons & Plains National Heritage Area Initiative that was defeated in 2014, published in the Rocky Ford Daily Gazette, October 7, 2014.

In the interest of informing the public about the Southeast Colorado National Heritage Area (NHA) proposal, Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on March 3, 2014 to the National Park Service (NPS) concerning the proposed NHA. These documents provided some insight into the process and plans the NPS and Canyons and Plains of Southeast Colorado (C&P)(the entity spearheading the proposal) had for the NHA initiative. Colorado Independent Cattlegrowers Association made a second FOIA request on July 21, 2014, even though C&P was no longer pursuing the NHA in Southeast Colorado as of July 18, 2014.

The second FOIA indicated how C&P and the NPS hoped to complete their feasibility study by August 31, 2014 and present to Congress by January 2015. This deadline was established by their Request for Proposals for the Feasibility Study which was released December 1, 2013. The timeline for completion of the process was very aggressive: February-March 2014, Information Sharing, May-June, Community Meetings, July-October, Document Writing, November 2014-January 2015, Feasibility Study Presented to Congress.

How was this schedule to be compressed into a viable presentation to Congress by January 2015? A media briefing statement and email generated by Alexa Roberts, Superintendent of Bent’s Old Fort and Sand Creek Massacre NHS, March 6, 20124, is informative. Greg Kendrick of the National Park Service Intermountain Region (IMR) Heritage Partner Group was going to pull the information together to produce the study and the Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance (RTCA) Program agreed to conduct the public involvement component for inclusion in the study. “Because so much of the background work for the study had been completed, in part by a 2008 Canyons and Plains Strategic Plan,” the IMR Heritage Partnership Program and the RTCA offered to carry out the feasibility study. Canyons and Plains made an initial payment of $10,000.00 to the IMR Heritage Partnership program on February 18, 2014, for this purpose.

From what source were they going to pull the information? What was the basis for the background work? Was this information to be drawn from already extant historical data bases and studies of the region? Could it be that these two documents: Cultural Resources Survey of the Purgatoire River Region, Fall 2011 and Historic Context Study of the Purgatoire River Region, Fall 2011, produced by Colorado Preservation, Inc., were to form the background work?

Canyons and Plains Strategic Plan was published April 30, 2008, based upon data collected from 2005 to 2007. Who would continue to rely upon a strategic plan published prior to the onset of the recession? A recession which was accelerated on September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, which brought about the collapse of the sub-prime housing market, the collapse of the housing market in general and drove the country into a recession from which it has yet to recover?

The concern, already instilled in the NPS by March 6, 2014, was “a vocal group of citizens in southeastern Colorado now identifying itself as the ‘Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council’ is taking a strong position against the proposed study of a National Heritage Area in southeastern Colorado. A number of editorials, Facebook, and other electronic posts have recently targeted the NPS as the source of the NHA proposal, as a means of taking and controlling private property throughout the region.”

Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council formed on January 30, 2014, their Facebook page went live February 25, 2014. Only three op-eds opposing the NHA had been published by March 6, 2014, and only two public meetings by Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council had been held by that time. Yet the NPS was already concerned. How concerned were they?

“Despite local support among many sectors, Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council is vocally opposing the NHA initiative, and is mischaracterizing it as an NPS-driven effort designed to control private property. Local opposition is mounting due to a media campaign designed to instill fear of the federal government. The group has filed a FOIA request with NPS seeking substantial amounts of information leading to the decision for the NPS to prepare the NHA feasibility study.” Did these many sectors include: The Nature Conservancy, Palmer Land Trust, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory, C&P, and NPS?

These concerns resulted in the following from the March 6, 2014 briefing statement: “The IMR Heritage Partnership Group and the RTCA are currently considering giving up their role in preparing the NHA study.” From the March 6, 2014, email, “Greg Kendrick has been engaged, along with the RTCA, and NPS was prepared to undertake the study until these concerns surfaced.”

Could these concerns have been the reason why C&P published a schedule of Community Information meetings on March 12, 2014, then cancelled them the next day because of staffing changes, unavoidable circumstances, logistics conflicts, and personal commitments?

Was the NPS concerned this story would gain wider media attention? These concerns were, no doubt, heightened when Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU) disclosed in the La Junta Tribune-Democrat on April 25, 2014 that was it not a partner to the NHA initiative; yet RMFU was listed among the partners on the Request for Proposals issued December 1, 2013.

The ultimate result was that county commissioners of six of the seven counties targeted for the NHA initiative passed resolutions against the proposal by the middle of July 2014. On July 18, 2014, C&P issued their press release stating they were no longer pursuing a feasibility study for the NHA. C&P requested a refund on July 17, 2014 of the $10,000.00 already paid to the NPS. Crowley County Commissioners passed their resolution against the NHA on July 28, 2014.

The contents of an email from Alexa Roberts, NPS to Lisa Steed, July 22, 2014, distances the NPS from the whole process: “The National Park Service is not and never has been ‘pursuing a National Heritage Area’ in southeast Colorado. . . . As stated at every one of the public meetings held by Canyons and Plains (C&P), C&P was pursuing a Feasibility Study. C&P requested assistance from the National Park Service in the preparation of the Feasibility Study, in the event that a Feasibility Study would be undertaken. Since it is not, the National Park Service has no role in this matter.”

Yet found in, Alexa Roberts, The Future of America’s National Parks, First Annual Centennial Strategy for Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, August 2007:

“The Sand Creek Massacre NHS works closely with the Southeast Colorado Regional Toruism [sic] Group and in turn the Colorado State Parks Department and the Colorado State Heritage Tourism program tp [sic] promote tourism to Southeastern Colorado. . . . Currently, the Southeast Colorado Regional Tourism group is working with NPS to look at the possibility of National Heritage Area status for the region.”

Alexa Roberts and Janet Frederick of the NPS both serve on C&P’s board. Were C&P (then Southeast Colorado Regional Tourism group) and the NPS moving in lock-step toward a common goal which finally surfaced in 2013? They are both publicly funded entities and as such are subject to exacting public scrutiny. If their activities do not approach the threshold of adequate public disclosure and transparency perhaps an agonizing reappraisal of their status as publicly funded entities is in order.