The CCI Winter Conference was pretty much on par with most conferences…

Some good-- some not so good.  I’m more convinced than ever there needs to be more distinction between small rural counties and the larger more urban counties. Revenue streams are vastly different, economies of size and scale are totally different and the very nature of doing day to day business is different.  Some of us made some recommendations to the CTSI staff regarding this and I believe the issue will receive some attention.

            The Medical Marijuana session proved interesting. The dispensaries and distribution of MM is proving to be a  great revenue generating method for several counties and towns. ($50,000 per month in one county.) In the very near future there will be more regulation and rules coming out from the Department of Revenue, who has been designated to administer the regulation of this issue. Originally the deadline for counties to decide if they wanted to regulate the activity or ban it was July 1, 2011. This ‘effective date’ will become March 1, 2011 when the new regulations come out. Kiowa County has a moratorium on the dispensaries that is dated July 1, 2011. We will need to make a permanent decision by March 1, 2011. Declare a permanent ban or allow them and go into the regulatory process. I think the inclination currently is toward a permanent ban. We can not ban the use of MM, just the operation of dispensaries and the accompanying issues.

            Commissioners from the SE region- Baca, Bent, Crowley, Kiowa, Prowers and Otero counties- met with representatives from Tri-State and Xcel energy Dec. 2 at Bents Fort Inn in LasAnimas. Primary purpose was to get updates on the status of the transmission development process in this region.  The time-line we were given follows.  The initial step in developing a transmission line is attaining a CPCN-Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. Xcel and Tri State will file an application with the Public Utilities Commission for this certificate sometime in the first quarter of 2011.This will be for a transmission line that may be partially located somewhere in the western portion of Kiowa County. They will either attain the certificate or it will be denied and either instance could be finalized by the end of 2011. Determining sites for the lines and  gathering environmental assessments is the next step, and, pending the CPCN, could be done by the end of 2012. Permitting and land rights acquisition will take more time and  it will most likely be nearing 2020 before any construction would start.