Chinle (Ariz.) High School’s ensemble goes on tour

The Chinle, Ariz., Jazz Band and Guitar Ensemble will be performing in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado in April. Photo by Sonja Horoshko

Jazz improv is a conversation, says Eric Swanson, guitar, band and jazz ensemble teacher at Chinle High School in Arizona. “It’s like language, sharing ideas, connecting.”

This month, that musical conversation will move out of a remote canyon in the Navajo Nation and on the road. This is the first professional venue tour of the Chinle High School Jazz Band and Guitar Ensemble.

It’s a rigorous schedule. “Four performances and one workshop in four days is tough, but they’re first-class musicians and are ready for the road,” says Swanson.

Performance stops will include Red Mesa, Ariz., Aneth, Utah, and two in Durango, Colo.

The tour emulates reality, the professional experience, what it feels like to play for the public. Students are accustomed to the intensity of more typical competitive guitar festivals and concerts at other schools. Swanson knows they are valuable, educational and help a student, “but they’re not really musically experiential. The tour is the real thing.”

When Swanson, a guitarist, applied for the position, the school system told him he could teach his instrument. He began by offering ensemble curriculum for guitar and jazz that leads to performance and masterful musicianship, which, he says, “is the level of where we are today. The students are very advanced musicians, and show remarkable growth over the past four years.”

Now, their dedication is being rewarded.

Ten advanced students make up the Chinle High School Guitar Ensemble and Jazz Band. All but two in the group are seniors. They’ve been together for a long time.

As beginners Swanson required them to perform before an audience. He told them it was important for them to come out of their shell.

“Oh, they were so scared, some even had excuses for staying home, but after their first public initiation they just glowed,” he says. “Now they say it feels so good and it’s awesome. It’s an infectious experience, the students become music junkies and then there’s a general feeling that they’re addicted to the art of music,” he adds.

Chinle is located beside the scenic tourist destination Canyon de Chelly, in the Navajo Nation, Ariz. Traditional values embedded in the culture influence family and community activities. Students are asked to do a lot of chores at home – babysit, herd sheep, haul water and wood.

According to Swanson, the Chinle afterschool music, sports, and arts programs are popular with the young people. Forty percent of the students take advantage of staying after school to have something to do besides chores.

Ninety-eight percent of the Chinle students qualify for free lunch program in the community where adult unemployment hovers near 50 percent.

That percentage has provided the school with the opportunity to provide instruments for the students while they are in high school.

But once the students get in the groove, they want to own their own instruments. Even though some students already own their own, most wait to buy until after graduation.

Eight of the 10 advanced students are seniors and plan on attending college next fall.

Swanson is encouraged by their growth as musicians and human beings. “They have remarkable skill and the interest to develop it.”

Advanced students compete and many win a place in the Northeast Arizona State Honor Band where 150 students try out for only 40 positions.

The 10 students in jazz and guitar ensemble are high-caliber musicians accustomed to the competitive world of contemporary music.

Cody Donald plays trumpet and has been in honor band three years in a row. He is also a cross-country star.

Swanson sent Donald and Brian Bainbridge, another Chinle jazz trumpeter, to Stax Summer Music Academy two years ago. They were freshmen at the time and the first Navajos to attend the academy.

Blues buffs know the Stax record label introduced soul, funk and the blues to a mainstream audience in the 1960s. The label died when Martin Luther King died.

Today a museum and foundation dedicated to the history of jazz and the Stax label artists also offers an opportunity for disadvantaged urban youth to study with professional musicians and perform at local events if they are accepted into the summer program in Memphis, Tenn.

In a May 2010 interview with the Navajo Times, Bainbridge said, “I picture Memphis as a place with musicians on every street corner, and a bunch of people milling around.”

Donald said, “It’s a chance to find out what we’re capable of. And hopefully a doorway to even bigger opportunities down the road.”

“We’ll learn about the history of our instrument and the people who played it, and maybe get as good as them,” Bainbridge added.

Like a dream come true, today they are part of the jazz milieu.

“When students come to jazz class for improvisation, I explain it’s like a conversation, a musical back-and-forth, a question and answer. I ask them who’s going to start the conversation. They love that idea.” They’ll get the science of music in college. Here, on this level, Swanson wants them to be comfortable with the conversation.

“They laugh and enjoy the improvisation, but usually come with the idea they have to play a lot of notes, fill up all the spaces, but, like language, the space, the pause, is a musical tool you can use to make your point.”

The tour includes a stop in Durango, where Swanson found support for his performance tour. The Stillwater Foundation provides music and sports programs to people 6 through 60, says music Director Steven Dejke, who has lived in Durango since 1997.

When Swanson came to him with his tour idea he recognized that the students in Chinle are enjoying a professional program that deserves support. Together the two music educators launched the idea to benefit students of both communities.

“We’re offering an afternoon workshop for 10 to 15 of our Stillwater students with the Chinle students and then they’ll do the public performance together that night,” says Dejke.

The idea that brings students from such a rural area to Durango for music is a concept that works both ways. Dejke hopes to create a musical exchange that will bring Stillwater students to Chinle.

“Music is like that. Swanson offers an excellent program, and he works hard to create links that benefit the students. We want to create a musical friendship, a sharing of the spirit of music. We are excited to be hosting this great group of young musicians.”

The Chinle High School Guitar Ensemble and Jazz Band will perform at a private venue in Aneth, on April 27. On Saturday, April 28, they join the Stillwater Foundation at an afternoon workshop.

The 7 p.m. performance at Roshong Hall in the Fort Lewis Jones Music Building is open to the public. Cost is $5 per person. For more information about the Saturday events call Stillwater at 970- 247-9055.

The final performance, for a Durango Friends Meeting, is at 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 29, at CR233, off Highway 160. There is no cover for the event, but it is a potluck gathering.

The Colorado House is expected to approve a bill soon that will keep wind rights tied to property rights – unlike subsurface mineral rights, which can be bought and sold separately.

The bill is largely uncontroversial, and it does little more than put a policy on the books that makes intuitive sense for utility companies as well as state and local governments. Such a policy – to avoid a “split estate” for land and wind rights – is already in place in many other Western states.

Overall, though, wind energy – and renewable energy in general – has a still-shaky future in Colorado. Even though the state continues to put renewable-friendly policies in place with procedural ease, roadblocks remain. For starters, there’s still resistance to the development that large-scale renewable energy requires — namely, transmission lines.

And then there’s the Republican-dominated Congressional decision to let go of a 30 percent tax break for wind; without that, say industry experts, wind is unlikely to be competitive with more traditional – and less progressive – forms of energy.

It’s unclear who in Colorado first fronted the idea that wind rights should be separated from property as mineral rights are, said Andy Karsian, legislative coordinator for Colorado Counties Inc., a group that supports county commissioners. But the backlash was broad and decisive.

In a scenario of a split estate for wind, “if you put up a grain silo on your land interfering with my wind, I could sue you,” Karsian said. “If I sold the land, the other landowner would have to realize I could hold on to the wind interest on that land. The complexities of it are insane.”

Karsian can see why some states, like Texas, have grappled with whether to create split estates for wind: “It’s economic development,” he said. “You are able to create an economic engine in a rural part of your state.”

But most states with wind resources have opted for the simpler option of keeping wind rights tied to the land, and the vast majority of Colorado stakeholders appear to be on board with the bill that would get that policy on the books; no one has expressed opposition.

He said the move is a small step toward greasing the wheels for wind energy, and renewables in general. But there are bigger hurdles to overcome.

All powered up, and no place to go

Various projects are under way across the region to develop wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy. Among them are the Cimarron solar project in northern New Mexico, the Kit Carson wind project in central Colorado and the Colorado Highlands wind farm in northeastern Colorado. Those are all projects of Tri-State, a wholesale electric power supplier serving – despite its name – Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming. Together, the projects are expected to generate over 180 megawatts (mW) of energy, enough to power the equivalent of over 50,000 homes.

And in some areas of the state, utilities are working to strengthen or expand transmission lines to connect new energy projects. Tri-State is building a line between Burlington and Wray, on Colorado’s eastern edge where Kansas and Nebraska meet. Another transmission project has gotten started near Telluride, though it’s slow going because crews can only work in the summer months.

Closer to home, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is proposing the San Juan Basin Energy Connect Project, involving a single, 230-kilovolt transmission line from the Farmington area to Ignacio, Colo. That project is winding its way through environmental review.

Transmission lines are a necessary but costly reality for Colorado’s utilities, with price tags approaching $1 million per mile. Trouble is, there are plenty of other areas in and around Colorado where wind and other renewables could be built out – but where there are no transmission lines to carry the energy.

“Colorado is strongly challenged for transmission lines by our geography,” Karsian said. “Because we’re right on the edge of the Western energy grid, we’re really limited on where we can send our power. We need to send it to the Front Range.”

But in order to do that, utility companies would have to get power lines across southeastern Colorado, specifically through the now-famous land of billionaire Louis Bacon, who has remained stanchly opposed. Tri-State hasn’t stopped brainstorming ways to get power lines to the region – they say transmission is needed there even for the sake of regional power stability – but Xcel Energy has given up for now.

“It became way too complicated,” says Xcel spokesman Gabriel Romero. “It just wasn’t worth it.”

Expensive future?

Romero said the distribution of power through adequate transmission lines is a definite challenge. But from where he’s sitting, there’s an even bigger one looming: money.

The longstanding federal tax credit for wind power expired at the end of 2011 – and so far, Congress has made no moves to renew it.

“You’re talking about a 30 percent tax credit for builders of wind farms,” Romero said. “That’s huge.”

He said with the subsidy in place, wind has been comparable in price to natural gas. Without it, it’s possible that utilities will begin passing up opportunities to buy wind power in favor of cheaper alternatives, leaving wind-energy builders high and dry.

For Xcel, such a scenario is not such a big deal; the investor-owned company is easily on track to meet its state-mandated goal of generating 30 percent of its power from renewables by 2020, with wind power it’s already secured at great prices – including a 400 mW wind farm expected to go online in the next year west of Denver. But plenty of people could lose jobs if the wind industry takes a significant hit, he said.

“I think it would be highly unlikely that [the feds] don’t find some way to subsidize the wind energy,” he said.

“That’s a really large number of people who will be out of work, assuming they’re going to have to start closing plants. All you can really do is speculate.”

What’s brewing close to home?

Besides the large-scale renewable-energy projects that are springing up across the state, many smaller ones are ramping up locally. Here are a few home-grown examples: La Plata Electric’s 5.8-megawatt Williams Four Corners waste-gas plant was one of the first significant distributed renewable-energy projects, alongside the 4-megawatt Trailblazer waste-heat recovery plant in Holyoke.

La Plata Electric is building a photovoltaic project at the Durango uranium waste disposal site. At 4.5 megawatts, the facility will generate enough energy to power about 1,000 homes.

San Miguel Power and the Clean Energy Collective have partnered to develop a one megawatt, community-owned solar facility in Paradox Valley; it could be completed by summer.

Wind generation, small hydroelectric projects and biomass production make up a growing renewable portfolio at Empire Electric Association in Cortez. Earlier this year, Empire added a 72-kilowatt Red Wagon Energy project, on a 1-acre site in Mancos.

William Furse

William Furse, an area defense lawyer, is the Republican front-runner for District Attorney for the 22nd Judicial District, which includes Montezuma and Dolores counties.

Because there is no Democratic challenger, the DA election will be decided during the Republican primary on June 26. Only registered Republicans can vote in this election.

Furse defeated incumbent DA Russell Wasley for the party’s preferred candidate during the Feb. 24 Republican General Assembly, garnering 57 percent of the votes and earning the top spot on the ballot. He will likely face Wasley, who had a pending petition to get onto the ballot; at press time it could not be confirmed whether Wasley had enough valid signatures to qualify.

Furse, 33, has a law degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago, and has practiced law in Colorado for seven years working as a private attorney and a public defender, including for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

He is campaigning on a platform of more collaboration between the DA’s office and law enforcement, stiff prison sentences for violent criminals, an improved juvenile court and a renewed focus on rehabilitation programs for drug addicts.

Furse told the Free Press it is paramount for the DA’s office to communicate effectively with local cops most familiar with specific crimes being prosecuted. He said keeping closer ties with officers from the Cortez Police Department, Dolores and Montezuma County sheriffs, local marshals, the Colorado State Patrol, federal law enforcement and the Ute Mountain Ute police in Towaoc benefits public safety.

“Right now there is not a close working relationship between the DA and law enforcement, and one of my first priorities will be to re-build that relationship,” Furse said.

“When the DA does not work closely with officers to prepare for trial, motion hearings and general litigation, then you are neglecting a huge part of the process.

“During court hearings I see officers frustrated because they have not had the opportunity to prepare with the DA or because they are there unnecessarily; they seem excluded from the equation. This needs to change. Law enforcement has gathered the information necessary to prosecute cases and a DA cannot be effective if he does not maintain a working relationship with them.”

District attorneys prosecute cases involving a variety of criminal acts — from the most violent offenses, such as murder and assault, to DUIs, burglaries, drug dealing, drug abuse, property damage, and traffic violations. Furse believes different approaches are required for prosecuting violent crimes versus nonviolent crimes.

Plea bargaining, a legal maneuver in which a defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge with a specific sentence to avoid a trial, should not be offered for certain violent offenders, he said.

“A plea bargain should not be an expectation of the offender. As a prosecutor, I believe that certain crimes of violence and specific habitual offenders should not receive the benefit of a plea bargain,” Furse said. “We are experiencing an increasing number of violent crimes here, and I believe this is due to a lack of a deterrent effect coming from the current DA’s office.

“As DA I will not be reluctant to go to trial in order to take violent criminals off the streets for as long as possible. Consistently harsh sentences for violent individuals will deter them from committing future crimes, and I don’t see this strategy being utilized in this jurisdiction.”

Regarding specific non-violent offenders, Furse believes rehabilitation and community service saves the expense of jail time, gives offenders — especially youth — a second chance, and deals directly with the societal problem of drug and alcohol addiction.

“Drug addiction, in particular methamphetamine use, is a huge problem here and I think you need to have a real deliberate rehabilitation approach to these types of crimes,” Furse said. “Rather than institutionalizing addicts and perpetuating their existence in the system, I feel it is important to utilize available treatment programs. For certain non-violent offenders, using pro-social sentences such as public service tailored to an offender’s job skills is also a good fit.”

The criminal justice system can be particularly harsh on younger people making extraordinary mistakes. Furse said for non-violent youth offenders a special effort should be made to prevent them from becoming felons, a “scarlet-letter for life” that limits future employment, promotes a criminal lifestyle, and disenfranchises people from society.

“We need to find ways to sentence them that keep them out of the criminal justice system and promote positive participation in their community,” he said, adding that it costs taxpayers approximately $50,000 per year to incarcerate one prisoner.

A priority for Furse is to improve the juvenile court system and re-open youth diversion programs. The closing of Montezuma County Partners, a support system for at-risk youth, leaves a gap in the community justice system, he said. Reviving a youth diversion program is critical in order to “take the juvenile out of the court system and into a restorative- justice, community-based program that prevents someone from being institutionalized in the courts.”

Furse points to his knowledge and love of law, experience as a public defender and “zealous determination” in the courtroom as reasons he will serve the public as an effective DA.

“As a defense attorney, I know the strategies and tactics unique to that position, and knowledge of those skills will translate effectively to the prosecution side,” he said. “It’s like being traded to a different team, not unlike Tim Tebow. When he plays Denver, he’ll know the ins and outs of their playbook, and as a prosecutor I’ll have that advantage as well.”

Russell Wasley

A career prosecutor with 12 years’ experience, District Attorney Russell Wasley is ready and eager to serve citizens of the 22nd Judicial District for another term.

And despite failing to make the ballot during the county’s Republican assembly on Feb. 24, Wasley was not deterred, garnering the required 869 signatures in six weeks’ time to petition onto the June 26 ballot.

At press time, the signatures still had to be confirmed by the Colorado Secretary of State, but Wasley is confident voters will have the chance to vote him in for another term.

He will face Republican William Furse in the June 26 Republican primary election, which will decide the race because there is no Democratic challenger.

“I’m optimistic that I’ll be on the ballot, and then it is up to the voters,” Wasley said during an interview.

Wasley, 55, worked with former DA Jim Wilson until his death in a motorcycle crash in May 2010. Gov. Bill Ritter appointed Democrat Mac Myers to complete Wilson’s term, and Wasley left the office. Then Wasley defeated Myers in the fall 2010 election.

Warming up to his passion for prosecution, Wasley speaks earnestly in an unassuming, straightforward way about his successes putting violent criminals behind bars.

“During the 2010 election, I promised voters justice for habitual offenders and career criminals, and I believe that I have accomplished that,” Wasley said. “For habitual felons, we were able to use Colorado enhancement statutes to get tougher sentences, and that is an appropriate and effective tool for prosecutors.”

For instance, someone committing a felony after three prior felonies can receive a sentence of four times what would otherwise be the maximum.

He said his track record shows that he is willing to go to trial to convict individuals who commit the most heinous violent crimes. In 2009, Wasley and then-DA Wilson successfully convicted Ignacio Rael during a trial for the second-degree murder of Rael’s girlfriend, Diane Cordova, in 2008.

“The victim was physically beaten to death, and we got the maximum sentence of 48 years for Mr. Rael,” Wasley said. “That was an extraordinarily serious and tragic case.”

Wasley handled the successful convictions of two men who robbed the Cortez Giant Convenience store March 31, 2011.

“Those cases did not end up in a plea bargain, they went to trial, and one offender went to the department of corrections for 14 years and the younger of the two was sent to the youth offender system.”

DAs are often criticized for offering too many plea bargains for offenders. Wasley explained that some plea-bargaining is necessary because it is impossible to send every case to a jury trial.

“I wish there were enough weeks in the year to take more cases to a jury trial, but given that we filed approximately 240 felonies in 2011, there has to be some plea-bargaining because there are not enough judges or prosecutors to try every case,” Wasley said.

Wasley said for violent crimes, when he does offer a plea bargain it contains stiff penalties.

“For example, we recently had an individual who pled to attempted second-degree murder, and his sentencing range will be between 18 and 20 years in prison. Also another individual recently pled guilty to first-degree burglary and that agreement has a sentence of 20 years. So, when a tough plea bargain with a stiff sentence is accepted by a defendant they are taken out of the community for a significant length of time. That guaranteed result protects the community.”

Wasley said the 22nd Judicial District is one of the smallest offices in the state, but the area has a heavy case-load. In 2011, he said, the office handled approximately 2,000 cases, including 240 felonies, 700 misdemeanors, more than 1,000 traffic cases and at least 60 juvenile cases.

A chronic problem in this area is methamphetamine use and crimes associated with it such as trafficking, burglary and violence. Controlling the craze for the illegal drug requires a dedicated effort, Wasley said.

“Meth is an extremely serious and dangerous drug, it is a poison and people who sell, or possess it with intent to distribute will be rigorously prosecuted and that is a focus of our office,” he said.

Pursuing additional funding outside the county budget and seeking extra help from the attorney general for serious crimes is key for rural districts to be more successful, he said.

His office applied for grants from the Department of Justice to hire an additional prosecutor and investigator specializing in sexual-assault cases. “We try and take advantage of everything we can to make sure we have appropriate staffing, because with a growing case-load anything I can do to create more prosecutorial resources on behalf of our community, that is a good thing,” he said.

Although he would not comment on the murder of Jonathan Hayes, who was found dead Jan. 14 near Dolores, Wasley noted that he reached out to the attorney general’s office for assistance because of their expertise in prosecuting homicides.

“We are proud to have help from a highly experienced assistant attorney general in this case, and there is no charge,” he said. “I am not ego-driven, I am a fairly modest person, so I think it is important to recognize that rural DA’s offices should make use of whatever resources are available.”

Greg Kemp of Mancos has announced that he will run as an unaffiliated candidate for county commissioner. Photo by Gail Binkly

Greg Kemp, a longtime champion of land-use planning and government transparency, will run as an unaffiliated candidate for the Montezuma County Commission seat open in District 3, the Mancos district.

He will be vying with Larry Don Suckla, another unaffiliated candidate planning to run in that district. If both are successful in petitioning onto the ballot, they will face the winner of the Republican primary in the November general election.

Kemp told the Free Press his top issues include economic development, government transparency and accessibility, and being a full-time commissioner.

The latter is particularly important today, he said. “I feel that now it does a disservice to the people of the county not to be a fulltime commissioner, because everything has gotten more complex. There are a lot of boards the commissioners are supposed to serve on and issues to keep up with.”

The current commissioners, who are all involved in running personal or family businesses in addition to their positions on the board, don’t have time to do their jobs properly, he contended.

For example, he said, the commission failed to comment on the Forest Service’s original travel-management plan for the Boggy-Glade area – a plan that proved to be highly controversial – and thus did not have standing to appeal the agency’s decision.

“The Dolores County commissioners made comments during the comment period, but our commissioners didn’t even look at it until it was too late. I think that’s an example of how they’re not able time-wise to put the kind of effort into the job that it really requires nowadays.”

He also said he believes the commissioners don’t come to meetings prepared. “My impression is they read reports at meetings that they should have reviewed ahead of time, or when it comes to planning issues, they’ll ask the planning director to give them an overview. They should have already done an overview themselves.”

Kemp pledged to be accessible to citizens and to have office hours if elected. He would also like to schedule some public hearings and other key meetings in evenings.

Kemp moved to the area in 2001 and has since become a familiar face at commission meetings and public hearings, having attended more than 100 such meetings. He was one of the founding members of the Montezuma Vision Project, a group that worked for increased land-use planning but that has more or less gone dormant.

However, Kemp still believes improvements need to be made to the county’s landuse code – in particular in regard to zoning. “The lack of zoning is one of the issues that is hindering growth and economic development,” he said.

As an example he cited the Stringer warehouse south of Mancos. Jay Stringer, who started out in 1992 with a machine shop in the same location, has said he came to the county planning department after the landuse code was adopted in 1998 and asked for his 52-acre tract to be zoned commercial.

Instead, he was advised to select AR 35- plus (large agricultural) zoning. Under that zoning, a high-impact permit has to be obtained for operations that exceed certain standards.

In 2004, Stringer sought and received a high-impact permit to build a 30,000-squarefoot expansion onto his warehouse. Neighbors objected and some filed suit; in November 2007 the Colorado Court of Appeals found that the county commissioners had erred in granting Stringer the high-impact permit because, “the right to continue the use does not include the right to enlarge the use.”

“Mr. Stringer did everything the county told him to do,” Kemp said, “until his operation got so big and so obtrusive and he wanted to expand it, and residents said this was an intrusion on their property rights because this is a real agricultural area, and they sued and won. So this guy did everything the county told him and now he has a milliondollar investment out there and he’s not using it and there’s no guarantee he could use it again. Its use was discontinued so it’s no longer grandfathered in.”

Another example of how a lack of zoning is hampering development, Kemp said, involves the graffiti-covered building south of Cortez that used to house the M&M Truck Stop. Out-of-state investors wanted to convert it to a chain motel, he said, “but as soon as they found that the land is unzoned, they decided they didn’t want to take the time and money to invest in this property with no guarantee they would be able to get the necessary zoning.

“They decided to just move on down the road, and now we’re left with what’s become kind of an eyesore, because it is unzoned.”

Kemp knows that the concept of zoning is not popular with everyone in the county. His opponent, Suckla, has said he thinks the county has already gone too far with regulations. But Kemp believes the county’s current system, under which people can remain unzoned if they choose, has created confusion and ill will among neighbors.

When the LIZ system was adopted in 1998, there was a sign-up period for people to zone their property. However, if they chose certain zones, such as small-lot subdivisions or commercial, they also had to get county approval. Many people didn’t understand that and thought they were already zoned for a certain use, only to learn later that they weren’t.

Kemp said establishing zoning is also important for the real-estate market. “When somebody comes into the county, they see the signs saying, “Montezuma County is zoned,” so they look into the parcel of land they’d like to build a retirement home on. They find out the land around it is not zoned and say, ‘Before I invest my life savings here, I’d like to have some idea what’s it’s going to look like around me.’

“That’s not to say I would never allow development because I don’t have that right, but I’d like to give people an idea how things might stay, within the range of development potential.”

A lingering and contentious issue is visual blight. Kemp said the best way to deal with it is through voluntary measures, not regulations. “Visual blight is a real issue but it is in large measure in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “The best way to control it is by positive reinforcement when something is cleaned up. This is a rural area and outside of positive reinforcement I don’t know there is much we can do.”

Kemp said he has chosen to run as an unaffiliated candidate because it will allow him to best represent all of the county’s residents if he not allied with one political party. He said the county’s interests have not been served as well as they could be because, since January 2005, all the commissioners have been Republicans.

But Kemp said this board has done some good things. They have been financially prudent, he said, and made a wise decision in purchasing the First National Bank building so they could create more courtroom space – as mandated by the state – without having to build a new structure.

This board has been good about publishing county agendas and other information on the web, he said. Also, they directed the planning commission to resolve the issue of unzoned properties and they implemented the state plumbing code. “We always had the state electrical code,” Kemp said, “but plumbing wasn’t enforced, and now it is. And despite the outcry when it happened, there hasn’t been any resistance to it once it’s taken effect.”

Kemp said promoting wise economic development is a key interest of his and that he recognizes its importance. “Everybody has a Not in My Backyard attitude, but quite frankly, development is going to happen. It’s the responsibility of the commissioners to make the best effort they can to have it be as unintrusive as possible for the neighbors.”

He does believe the county needs to be more proactive in seeing whether businesses and industrial operations are adhering to requirements placed on them, rather than merely reacting to citizen complaints.

As a member of the Montezuma County Economic Development Association, Kemp helped to keep the Four States Ag Expo in Cortez when its organizers considered moving to Farmington, N.M., several years ago. He said he is an ardent supporter of agriculture but sees its future as moving toward more small-scale operations.

He also believes in cooperation and communication, particularly when it comes to the Forest Service and BLM, and believes most issues about road access can be worked out. A good example was the recent decision by the Forest Service to grant an easement to the county for the Red Arrow Mine road near Mancos.

Kemp and Suckla cannot start circulating petitions until April 9. They have to collect 320 signatures from registered voters in order to get on the November ballot. The petitions must be turned in June 4.

Kemp has a web site at www.vote4kemp. com. He can be reached at 970-560-3898.

It’s been 10 years since any Democrat was elected to a county office in Montezuma County.

Back in 2002, two made it. Sandy Greenlee was chosen treasurer, and Joey Chavez was re-elected as sheriff.

But Greenlee lost her next bid in 2006 to Republican Sherry Dyess, and Chavez resigned in the middle of his term and was replaced by Republican Gerald Wallace.

Since then, all the county’s elected officials — commissioners, assessor, sheriff, clerk and so on — have been from the GOP.

And the one-party lock stands a good chance of continuing. At press time, there were six Republicans vying for two open seats on the county commission. Dewayne Findley and Casey McClellan are on the ballot in District 3, and Tim Hunter had turned in petitions to join them. In District 2, Keenan Ertel made the ballot, Pat DeGagne-Rule petitioned on, and Bud Garner had turned in his petitions. The number of valid signatures for Garner and Hunter had not been confirmed. No Democrats or Greens are running, although two unaffiliated candidates — Greg Kemp and Larry Don Suckla — have said they will try to petition onto the general-election ballot in District 3.

The Republican lock on the county has prompted a lively discussion about, first, whether Democrats and Greens should switch parties in order to vote in the primary — and second, whether they should bother changing back, since so many local races are decided in the primary rather than the general election.

“I switched several years ago to vote in a Republican primary, and that’s still where the action is,” said Chuck McAfee, who ran for county commissioner as a Democrat in 2002 but lost. “I never switched back.”

He said he isn’t shy about telling people he’s a Republican. “I do it every chance I get. I don’t have any problem acknowledging that.”

He sees nothing strange or unethical about belonging to the party, even though it isn’t the one that would best reflect his values.

“The laws are clear, and I’m not violating anything. I have an opinion that on a national and state level, a lot of political effort goes into trying to limit access to the polls, and to me this is kind of fun, to know I can get around some of that by switching parties.

“Plus it makes me feel like I’m doing more than being a bystander.”

Tazewell Vass, owner of the Dolores Food Market in Dolores, became a Republican in 2006 to vote for Wallace as sheriff in the primary.

He urges all his left-leaning friends and acquaintances to switch over and has been sending out e-mails with a link to a state web site where voters can change affiliations.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “Our election for commissioner will probably be decided in the primary in June.”

But he’s encountered some resistance, and he blames it on political laziness.

“Some Greens and liberals and Democrats are relieved that they don’t have to vote — that’s been my perception,” Vass said. “I talk to some of them and their eyes glaze over. They don’t want to have to make the effort to get educated about the commissioner candidates, even though they know there are some of them they would prefer over others.”

This year Vass went a step further and became a delegate to the Republican county assembly. “I went to our precinct caucus here at the Ponderosa restaurant and we elected 13 delegates to the assembly. I was fifth [in the voting].

“I’d never been to an assembly before. It was weird.”

The Republican assembly turned out to be turbulent. For instance, in the voting for district attorney in the 22nd Judicial District, former Democrat Will Furse received 80 out of 140 votes cast and made it onto the ballot, forcing incumbent DA Russ Wasley to have to petition on. Vass was one of Furse’s supporters.

“I had Republicans yelling at me, because you can change 30 days before the caucus [and vote in the caucus]. I said, ‘I’ve been a Republican since Gerald Wallace’.”

Vass said his message to locals on the political left is: “You want the Republican party to be more moderate? Then show up.” Though some traditional Republicans are dismayed by the idea of Democrats infiltrating the party, others are saying, in effect, come on in — the water’s fine.

DeGagne-Rule, longtime chair of the Montezuma County Republican Party until she resigned to run for commissioner this year, said she understands Democrats’ motivation to switch.

“If they want a voice on who’s going to be in office, they do need to change parties,” she said. “If you truly do vote for the person, putting your party beliefs aside, you’re going to have to change in order to have a voice.”

Likewise, Judi Lichliter, president of the Montezuma County Republican Women and a member of the executive board of the Republican Central Committee, said, “That’s something that people have done and I think it’s their personal call. I think a lot of them in the past have made it quite clear that’s what they’re doing, to vote in the primary for a person they support.

“Some became Republican delegates to the assembly and some just flipped back. That’s acceptable. That’s their prerogative.

“I don’t have much of a problem with it until they affect the whole system and get it off keel.”

County Clerk Carol Tullis said people have indeed been switching, but so far there hasn’t been a huge surge of them.

“Every primary election we have people switching,” she said. “I can’t say that there’s been a big flood so far. We’ve had a lot of unaffiliateds declare a party – we’ve had more unaffiliateds change than Democrats to Republicans.”

People who are registered in a party can change their affiliation through May 25, either by going to the clerk’s office and filling out a short form or by going online to the Secretary of State’s web site.

Unaffiliated voters can declare a party affiliation at any time, even at the polls on the day of the primary election.

No one is certain why Montezuma County has gone all red in recent years. There have been Democratic commissioners in the past — Kelly Wilson was elected in 1996 and re-elected in 2000. Certainly this is a conservative county, but it is also diverse. As of press time there were 8,234 Republicans and 4,441 Democrats in Montezuma County, according to the clerk’s office. (Numbers of unaffiliated voters were not available, but are generally between the Republicans and Democrats.) Montezuma County also has 49 Libertarians and 64 registered Greens along with one of the most active Green Party chapters in the state.

And Dolores County to the west, which is at least as conservative, has a Democrat on its county commission. Ernie Williams was re-elected in 2008 with 67 percent of the vote.

Just across the state line in San Juan County, Utah, a Democratic sheriff, Rick Eldredge, unseated the incumbent Republican in 2010.

“I’m not sure why,” said DeGagne-Rule when asked about the Republican monopoly. “I’d like to say it’s because of all the good things the Republicans do, but I don’t think that’s it. I do think we’re more active and maybe more organized.”

Bill Grimm, chair of the Montezuma County Democrats since early 2011, said he thinks the Dems’ losing record in a string of commission races has contributed to the decline of the local Democratic Party. A number of Dems have tried hard to get on the board but have fallen short, usually with about 40 percent of the vote. Fred Blackburn came the closest in 2008, getting 46.5 percent against incumbent Larrie Rule.

In addition, Grimm said, there has been a lot of “negativity” directed at Democrats in recent years. Blackburn experienced vandalism not only to some of his signs — which is a perpetual problem for any candidates locally — but to other personal property, Grimm said. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

And 2008 “was tough for Democrats in this county anyway because there was a lot of not just perceived racism, but racism,” Grimm said. He said one day a bunch of Democrats were gathered outside their headquarters on Main Street for an appearance by Sen. Mark Udall. “A pickup roared by with a couple of men in it and one of them yelled, ‘Nigger-lovers!’ at all of us.”

Along that line, Blackburn had the word “burn” scribbled out on many of his signs, Grimm said.

And the night of Obama’s election, a group of middle-schoolers walking happily along Main Street waving flags after the results were announced reported that a man in a pickup blocked their path crossing a street and yelled obscenities at them.

“I think that kind of stuff has actually created a sort of fear factor in Democrats, that they don’t want to get exposed like that,” Grimm said. “In politics, that kind of stuff goes on and you have to have a thick skin or you’re not going to last. And whether incidents like that would turn into anything substantial is another question. But some people don’t want to stick their necks out.”

While DeGagne-Rule said such incidents are terrible, she thinks Obama’s election hurt local Democrats in a different way. “I do think Bill [Grimm] is right that what goes on in Washington trickles down to everything here, and I think Obama has been an awful president and that hurts the party he’s with.”

Grimm sees a problem in that the left locally seems to be splintered. “Some people want to talk about the Move to Amend [which opposes corporate influence in politics], some want to talk about health care, some are into Occupy Wall Street. We have so many blood lines of Democrats, it’s crazy. Republicans had just a few issues they were able to focus on and stay focused.”

As party chair, Grimm said he can’t switch, but he wouldn’t anyway. “I feel there’s a certain disloyalty to my own views, even though I’m not going into it to be a Republican, just to vote in their primary. There are still some basic issues I have with the Republican Party stances – I wouldn’t be proud of myself.”

And, Grimm said, some of the current local Republican candidates are “very decent people.”

“We’ve had all Republicans in there for years and we’re all still alive,” he said. “Everything is still working. At this point I think it’s just important to get good people in office, regardless of their party, as long as they’re thoughtful and have integrity.”

Vass, however, thinks people’s reluctance to switch parties is nonsense. “My take on changing over is, you’re not going to burst into flames. If you don’t vote in the primary, that’s where the commissioners will probably be chosen, with all due respect to our unaffiliated candidates.”

No unaffiliated candidates has been elected to a Montezuma County office in recent memory.

“I’m sick to death of not being represented,” Vass said, adding that Democrats, and unaffiliated voters together make up a majority of the county. “If we had some balance in this county, if we had a strong Democratic Party, you would stay a registered Democrat and participate in the Democratic assembly.”

He also noted that a few votes can make a difference. In 1994, Sherman Kennell won the Republican primary by 8 votes and went on to become Montezuma County’s sheriff.

“When people say they can’t see themselves as Republicans,” Vass said, “I tell them, ‘Don’t call yourself a Republican. Call yourself a voter’.”