April 16, 2008 06:01 PM UTC

San Miguel County pulls out of Club 20

•  
• by: Oliver

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Tired of riding what has become a one trick pony, San Miguel County is pulling out of Club 20.  The Sentinel reports:

San Miguel County leaving Club 20

Lobbying group has been taken over by energy industry, commissioner says

Club 20 has moved away from its roots as an organization of consensus and has become an arm of the energy industry, San Miguel County Commissioner Art Goodtimes wrote in a letter of resignation from the Western Slope advocacy group.

“I believed that Club meetings provided a valuable regional forum for diverse interests, and, at times in its 60-plus year history, this Western Slope institution has done exactly that,” Goodtimes wrote. “But not so currently.

“The club has been taken over by the oil and gas industry, from its recent leadership to its big-gun funders.”

More

Kathy Hall, also known as Kathy Halliburton, is well-known for her one-tune advocacy on behalf of the drillers.  

Her tight reign over Club 20 policy, and the abdication of leadership by the organization’s staff, puts the lie to the claim that Club 20 is “The Voice of the Western Slope.”

Club 20 fails to grasp that stacking its committees with industry-insiders (like Hall and her hand-picked replacement on the Mesa County commission, Craig Meis) will push out all those who have real concerns and issues to be addressed, real ‘voices of the Western Slope.’  

No matter how well-versed someone might be in the issues, no matter what concerns landowners, local governments, and conservationists might have about the mad rush to industrialize hundreds of thousands of acres of western Colorado, Hall is quick to criticize anyone and everyone who disagrees with her the one-sided agenda, even Mark Udall, who COGA will likely have to deal with as our next Senator.  

[Kathy] Hall is the West Slope representative of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, which has frequently been critical of Udall’s positions on drilling for natural gas on the Roan Plateau and elsewhere.

Hall, also a Republican and a former Mesa County commissioner, said she’d welcome the opportunity to accompany Udall on a swing through the West Slope.

That’s “because he has a lot to learn about energy and public lands,” she said.

Rather than being the voice of the Western Slope, Club 20 has become the voice of EnCana, Williams, El Paso Energy, ExxonMoble, Shell, and Halliburton.  Rather than being “Western Slope” voices, these companies are based in Canada, Oklahoma, Texas, The Hague, and Dubai.  

In his resignation letter, San Miguel Commissioner Art Goodtimes wrote:

Open letter to Reeves Brown and the Club 20 membership:

   I am sorry to have to end my decade-long association with Club 20.

   I thought I offered the Club a diverse perspective from one of the more economically successful counties on the Western Slope, and I did my best to work in partnership with other interests in order to arrive at collaborative positions appropriate to our far-flung membership. However, when an organization gives an officer a vote of no confidence, I believe that the only appropriate action is resignation.

…I believed that Club meetings provided a valuable regional forum for diverse interests and at times in its 60-plus year history this Western Slope institution has done exactly that. But not so currently. The Club has been taken over by the oil and gas industry, from its recent leadership to its big gun funders.

   Call it Club 19, from here on out. As far as I’m concerned, it no longer represents the voice of San Miguel County.