A possible victory for moderate solar regs

Recall election unsets bitter enemy of utility-scale solar, leaving two “unaffiliates” in majority on Montrose County board

by Allen Best

Proponents of solar energy in Western Colorado’s Montrose County got a win on election day when County Commissioner Scott Mijares was recalled.

Mijares was elected in November 2024 and invariably sided with Scott Pond, another commissioner. Together, they upset many apple carts in local governance. This included provoking the resignation of key employees.

Among the issues that united the two commissioners was in wanting regulations governing solar and other special developments to be more restrictive. Those proposed regulations would have virtually eliminated all solar projects, according to some who had analyzed the proposed regulations.

Kirstin Copeland, Mijares’s successor, appears to have a more moderate take on the world. A park manager and ranger at Ridgway State Park from 1998 to 2022, she had run as a successor if Mijares was recalled at the Nov. 5 election.

Copeland is politically unaffiliated. That means that the Montrose Board of County Commissioners, long comprised only of Republicans, now has just one, Pond. Sue Hansen, the third commissioner on the board, became unaffiliated earlier this year after sparring with Mijares and Pond.

Mijares blamed his defeat on Hansen and Dennis Anderson, publisher of the Montrose Daily Press, and the “recall machine that drove this campaign,” he said in a statement furnished to the Daily Press. “Fueled by dark foreign money, the Blueprint is complete — but not forgotten.”

Pond was appointed by the Montrose County Republican Central Committee in February to fill a vacancy when a previously elected Republican died while in office. Under Colorado law, an elected official must be in office for six months before a recall petition can be filed. In August, the filing deadline for this election, Pond was still shy of the six-month mark.

A resident of Nucla, on the county’s west end, Pond sees this part of a conspiracy to turn Colorado, once a purplish state, into a Democratic stronghold. He outlined his thinking in an essay, “How Montrose County showed Colorado’s ‘Blueprint’ is complete,” which was posted Nov. 6 in the Rocky Mountain Voice.

This recall should be understood as a sharp division within the Republican Party in Montrose County. It’s been reliably Republican for many decades. In the last presidential election, 64% of votes went for Trump. But in tossing Mijares, Montrose County showed that it has limits. Still, the margin was relatively narrow, 52% in support compared to 48% opposed to the recall.

Solar regulations were part of the turmoil. Regulations that reflected a moderate stance toward acceptance of utility scale solar installations had been before the county commissioners. Mijares, allied with Pond, had rejected those regulations and asked for far more restrictive regulations that, according to Don Coram, a former state senator from Montrose County, would have effectively prevented any solar from getting built.

Coram was considered a moderate in the Colorado General Assembly, a Republican who sometimes found common cause with Democrats.

The case presented in a Sept. 2 story in Big Pivots was of a relatively modest utility scale solar installation proposed near Naturita, close to an electrical substation and on land previously used for an industrial purpose. The installation would have been rejected because it was within a half mile of a highway that is a designated historic and scenic byway. The solar installation, however, would not have been visible from the highway.

The regulations also would have barred utility-scale solar from land used for agriculture. That drew the ire of the Harold family, the progenitor of Tuxedo Corn, the driving force under the branding by King Soopers and City Market of “Olathe Sweet” corn.

“I’m extremely agitated. It’s hard to remain calm,” testified David Harold at a public meeting in August. In the Olathe area, David and his father, John Harold, manage 2,500 acres, of which 1,300 are higher-intensity farmland.

John Harold testified at a Montrose County meeting on Nov. 3 that locking out most “prime farmland” from solar development isn’t necessarily protecting agriculture’s future, reported the Montrose Daily Press.

The Press reported that Harold said he regrets turning down offers of $1,000 an acre to have solar on his land. “As things stand today, this will be the third year in a row I’ve lost money farming,” he said. “You gotta understand, farming, sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s bad. When you start putting restrictions on what I can do with my property, you may end up with houses instead of farmland.”

Coram, the former state lawmaker, said the more restrictive solar regulations were akin to “stepping on the neck of private property rights.” Coram is now a pro-bono solar consultant who is working on behalf of the solar project near Naturita. It would supply electricity to San Miguel Power Association, an electrical cooperative based in Ridgway.

The more restrictive regulations also had supporters. One speaker, Monty George, a geologist who works for oil and gas companies, said that in 10 to 20 years solar will be a dinosaur technology that will be replaced by more efficient, smaller-footprint energy sources. He cited nuclear power.

Another speaker, Scott Riba, predicted a hybrid of the two alternatives would be approved. He cast doubts about whether agrivoltaics is actually viable. He said the solar panels would need to be 15 feet off the ground.

The Daily Press noted that the issue will be before the county commissioners on Nov. 19. It’s possible that Mijares will still be a county commissioner then, as he will not be unseated until the canvassing of votes has occurred and the election results certified. That can take several weeks.