Lamborn corners Ritter in hopes of getting veto
Seeking to bolster the waning prospects of the Army's campaign to expand a Fort Carson training ground in southern Colorado, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn strategized on Monday in a meeting with a group of county and state officeholders.
No grand plan emerged, according to several of the participants.
Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, said the immediate objective was to persuade Gov. Bill Ritter to veto HB1317, a bill passed by the state Legislature forbidding the sale or lease of state-owned lands for purposes of expanding the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site northeast of Trinidad. Without the state lands, an expanded Piñon Canyon would look a bit like Swiss cheese, making the expansion less attractive to the Army.
Local ranchers have led the fight against expansion, fearing their lands will be seized by eminent domain. Colorado Springs interests fear the Army will reduce its investment of troops and money in Fort Carson if the expansion is blocked.
Lamborn argued that "the bad message" that the Piñon Canyon bill sends to the Pentagon makes it less likely to form a fifth brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division at Fort Carson.
"The Army is promising $140 million of construction and a $9 million annual payroll" with the new brigade and the Piñon Canyon expansion, said Lamborn, promising to hold the Army accountable for its pledges.
"I just hope he looks at that statewide perspective and not just some ranchers and landowners who felt they were done wrong in the past, or they might be done wrong in the future," Lamborn said of the governor. "If he's OK with 1317 and we lose the new brigade combat team, then we're going to hang that around his neck."
At a bill-signing ceremony in Colorado Springs Monday evening, Ritter said he had not decided whether to sign the Piñon Canyon bill.
Participants in the earlier meeting said they would seek to counter the perception that the Army would condemn land to expand Piñon Canyon. El Paso County Commissioner Dennis Hisey, whose district includes Fort Carson, noted that the Army had promised not to use eminent domain, and Lamborn said the Army had assured him "that they can work around a few isolated parcels."
State Reps. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, and Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs, said they would seek a dialogue with folks in southern Colorado, as Waller put it, "to figure out a way we could work together to achieve the common interest, and the common interest is economic viability for southern Colorado."
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