DA says Colorado Bureau of Investigation to staff new Alamosa office

ALAMOSA — Commissioners from throughout the Valley met in Alamosa on June 26 for the quarterly meeting of the San Luis Valley County Commissioners Association.

During public comment, Darius Allen and Larry Crowder both spoke in favor of the agenda item for future commissioners' meetings to include an invocation. Later in the meeting, commissioners unanimously voted in favor of the item.

Larry Brown from Colorado State University — San Luis Valley Area Extension Office gave the group an update and told the commissioners, that renowned CSU professor, Temple Grandin will be the keynote speaker at the Southern Rocky Mountain Agricultural Conference in Monte Vista next year.

Brown introduced Rebecca Hill, an agricultural economist with CSU who spoke on an economic analysis done on the annual Ag conference in Monte Vista. Hill’s team interviewed 177 participants who attended the March event to ascertain its economic impacts. According to Hill, 70% of the attendees who came to the ag show from outside the Valley, stayed in hotels in Alamosa, 20% stayed in Monte Vista, and 10% stayed elsewhere. Walmart in Alamosa was a beneficiary of attendees' spending, as were the Safeway and liquor stores in Monte Vista.

Hill interviewed all of the 93 vendors who on average brought 2.6 employees to the conference and about 26% were new this year to the conference.

“People were overall positive with the event, people were excited, they loved the education they were getting and overall the comments were really positive,” said Hill.

Brown said he has almost doubled the size of the agricultural conference educational planning committee.

District Attorney Anne Kelly gave the group an overview of developments from her 12th Judicial District Office. Kelly spoke about “the mental health challenges we have in this Valley and across this state and across the country."

“I’m a huge advocate, and have been fighting very hard to challenge the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo," she said. "I have been very vocal about how they are not performing adequately, and that is an understatement. I have been talking to the Governor and other leaders about the mental health crisis in our jails. Mental health is a huge issue. Mental health was involved in the Monte Vista shooting and is involved in a number of crimes we are handling. What I would like to do in the next couple of years is really make that [mental health] a platform of my position in office to figure out ways we can try to address those issues and figure out ways that we can address issues and get resources from the state down here."

Kelly said she is interested in pursuing the idea of gathering a "working group of community leaders in the justice realm," to address mental health issues and fill in the gaps the Colorado Mental Health Institute is deficient in.

"I have great news, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, George Dingfelder, the Chief of Monte Vista police, and I have been working really, really, hard to get CBI to have a satellite office in the Valley," Kelly said.

Kelly said that she did not hear officially from CBI when such an office will open, and said the bureau is advertising to hire agents in Alamosa.

"That is so huge, it is a total game changer, CBI was down here all week long, they're still down here working on the two cases we found," Kelly said. "They [CBI] have been hugely helpful to me, they came down on the Monte Vista shooting, all of our officer-involved shootings, all of our homicides and major cases. Having them [ CBI] here in the Valley is an absolute game changer. I'm really, really, excited."

Currently, Kelly and the CBI are looking for office space and she expressed interest in the old Alamosa County Courthouse or in the office currently used by Friday Health Plans after they depart. Kelly said her need for new office space is "critical."

State Senator Cleave Simpson gave an update and prefaced his remarks by saying he and State Representative Matt Martinez had conducted town hall meetings in Alamosa and the two had collaborated throughout the session and that Martinez was, "a pleasure to work with."

Simpson said, "The DA talked about behavioral health issues. Last session, we had $500 million set aside to transform the behavioral health system in Colorado. I spent a summer on the task force to see where we want to spend the $500 million. I don't want to oversimplify it, DA Kelley touched on this; we don't have enough bed spaces for the folks across the state who need treatment. You could probably spend all $500 million there. And if you did have the bed space, we don't have the workforce or staff to support them to deliver those programs."

Representative Martinez spoke about the legislation he sponsored this session regarding Veteran mental health that needed some reforms due to complications with federal regulations. Under his legislation, Veterans are eligible for up to 12 free mental health visits annually. Martinez said he continues to work on these issues and will be meeting with Congresswoman Lauren Boebert soon.

Richard Nagley gave the commissioners an overview of the work the Veterans Coalition of the San Luis Valley does and the upcoming public meeting the organization will have at the National Guard Armory in Alamosa. The event is July 24 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to discuss the PACT Act. The PACT Act is perhaps the largest health care and benefits expansion in the Veteran Administration (VA) history. The full name of the law is The Sergeant First Class (SFC) Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. The act expands and extends eligibility for VA health care for Veterans with toxic exposures and Veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf War, and post-9/11 eras. The Valley Courier will have more on the PACT Act in an upcoming edition.

Skip Shane, the Rio Grande administrator gave an update on the proposed Intergovernmental Agreement to protect water resources. As previously reported in the Valley Courier, for that agreement to become valid, all six counties must approve the agreement that was drafted in consultation with the Rio Grande Council of Governments. Alamosa and Saguache Counties have approved the document. The agreement will make any large-scale export of water out of the Valley more difficult.

Shane said that after receiving some input at a public hearing last week, the county decided to provide "some suggested edits" to the agreement.

"Specifically, the intent from Rio Grande County, for revisions for this IGA is to strengthen the language to focus on the singular purpose of water export from the joint planning area...there are some specific concerns of the present version that don't necessarily stick to that intent," Shane said.

Sara Stober from the council of governments said that any changes to the water agreement had been made prior to the agreement being finalized for county approval and said the new proposed changes from Rio Grande County, "are surprising to me that changes are being considered at this juncture. It seems to me the time for that has passed."

Saguache County Commissioner Tom McCracken said, "If the document itself [IGA] is not standard through all six counties, I do not believe it will not go into force if it is not exactly the same through all six counties. I guess what I'm hearing is Saguache and Alamosa [counties] would need to go back and redo the whole process again?”