Commissioner recounts first year


    My first year as Larimer County commissioner has been more successful restoring individual citizen's life choices and associated personal responsibility from regulatory special interests and county government restrictions than anticipated. I appreciate the hundreds of letters, e-mails, and personal conversations expressing gratitude and approval of my job performance and my allegiance to God & Country.
    I also value the attempted organized, political smear campaign by 20 or so political activists. I regret that they must rely on personal attacks and demonizing citizen loyalty to American values, patriotism and tolerance for differing opinions and beliefs of others to promote their agenda.
    I'm proud to serve on this Board of County Commissioners, which has made it a team effort to put the best interest of people and environment ahead of the special interests of a few. I credit the leadership of Commissioner Kathay Rennels and the character of Commissioner Glenn Gibson for our achievements. Our shared political philosophy that our American institution of government was created to serve the people, not that people exist for the benefit of government makes a difference. This BOCC's record of accessibility, openness and serious consideration of factual, consistent and relevant citizen input is restoring a sense of cooperation and less distrust of county government.
    We began 2001 (by) establishing reasonable conditions for W.O.L.F. compliance to insure the sanctuary remains in operation as long as management respects its responsibility to its neighbors and their agreement with the county.
    Despite the irrelevant, bird-kill evidence for our area, agriculture, wildlife habitat and open space was protected by our approval of a 500-foot Clear Channel tower site. The Buckeye resident's testimony insisting that tower construction would discourage residential development and urban sprawl was an important consideration.
    Parks and Open Lands worked with the environmental leadership of this BOCC to enthusiastically implement natural resource stewardship on county lands. I hope my passion for sustainable environmental stewardship will continue to be a driving force for active control of alien plants, restoration of wildlife habitat, protection of air quality and wildlife from catastrophic wildfire risk and reestablishing healthy ecosystems on county lands. As a significant landowner, Larimer County must now recognize and implement its caretaker responsibilities.
    My most memorable experience was visiting county employees on Sept. 11 to reassure one another and to calm the personal distress and fears resulting from the terrorist attack.
    My major disappointment came when the North Poudre Irrigation Company withdrew its Fossil Creek Reservoir surface rights from lease negotiations. Our only responsible option for compliance with the Fort Collins IGA was not leasing an empty green bucket with taxpayer money, but negotiate when the surface rights are returned to the table.
    We began moderating environmental extremism by lifting baseless, fireplace restrictions on county residents only outside the Colorado Air Emissions Program Area. I respectfully and responsively turned over the testimony of the catastrophic Fort Collins' air quality conditions from the few concerned citizens to city officials for verification and possible action by City Council.
    These are only a few of the media's focal issues that required a small amount of my time in 2001. I'm looking forward to the new budgetary and policy challenges of 2002 to continue addressing affordable housing, public safety, sustainable environmental stewardship, county fiscal responsibility, parks and our transportation shortfalls.
    I'm proud to be an ordinary working class citizen and commissioner representing the good, hard- working folks of Larimer County. I promise to continue my efforts to moderate all forms of extremism attempting to prevail over the best interests of families and the communities of our county.

Tom Bender is a Larimer County commissioner.