SCAMMED?: Canyons & Plains National Heritage Area Initiative For Southeastern Colorado, Degrading Private Property Rights While Subverting Local Sovereignty

SCAMMED? is best read on Kindle Cloud since the file is so large with many scanned FOIA documents. What if you discovered an organization working to undermine your private property rights, subvert your local sovereignty and undermine the integrity of your locally elected officials to oversee land use policy and economic development? What if you discovered this was being done through the designation of a National Heritage Area (NHA) in the region where you live? What would you think if your local jurisdictions financed this organization for many years through block grants and lodging taxes? All the while, these jurisdictions were unwittingly financing the subversion of their own elected authority and sovereignty. What if you discovered this was a top-down scheme from the state tourism office and the National Park Service (NPS) under the guise of a heritage sustainability partnership of governmental and nongovernmental entities? How would you feel if this organization and the NPS attempted to by-pass the public to impose a NHA over a whole region of your state? How would you feel if this organization, in conjunction with the NPS, had a feasibility study already underway before most of the people in the region knew about it? SCAMMED? Canyons & Plains National Heritage Area Initiative for Southeastern Colorado by Norman Kincaide, Ph.D., went live on Amazon.com on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. This nonfiction work recounts the campaign against the Canyons & Plains NHA in which Kincaide reproduces the editorial and presentation efforts by citizens of southeast Colorado opposing the NHA initiative which targeted the seven-county region of Baca, Bent, Crowley, Kiowa, Las Animas, Otero and Prowers. Although Kincaide grew up in Pueblo County, he delves into the story from the point of view of an uninitiated outsider who retired to Rocky Ford in 2008. Knowing little about Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site or National Heritage Areas, this is Kincaide’s story of discovery about the NHA, and discoveries by others as well. Among the contributors to this work are: Barb Leininger of La Junta, Elisabeth Erickson-Noe of San Jose Ranch, Bent County, Kimmi Lewis of Muddy Valley Ranch, Las Animas County, Marvin Hasser of Hand Springs Ranch, Bent County and Korry Lewis, Esq. of Cheyenne, WY. The fifteen chapters, three appendices and bibliography, describe and illustrate Kincaide’s journey from member of Canyons & Plains of Southeast Colorado in 2009 to his eventual opposition to the NHA initiative and the founding of Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council. These chapters carry the reader through the process by which the citizens of southeastern Colorado challenged and ultimately defeated the Canyons & Plains NHA in 2014. Through a public outreach and media campaign those opposing the NHA effectively raised public awareness to the detrimental aspects of NHA designation. This public awareness brought the issue to their elected officials who responded by passing resolutions opposing the Canyons & Plains NHA. Kincaide emphasizes this was a victory for private property rights, for the sanctity of local sovereignty and maintaining the integrity of locally elected officials to oversee land use policy and economic development. The unelected management or coordinating entity of the NHA would have subverted local sovereignty by inviting interference in local affairs by special interest groups who claimed to be stakeholders in the region, such as the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy. Appendix A captures the seven boards of county commissioners’ resolutions opposing the NHA. Appendix B is an abridged collection of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents, requested on March 3, 2014 by Southeast Colorado Private Property Rights Council. Appendix C captures those FOIA documents requested on July 21, 2014 by the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association. Read more