The first session of the 68th General Assembly of Colorado recessed on the late evening of May 12, 2011. I was home by the middle of the afternoon on May 13 and immediately was in the lambing pens helping my son Levi, wife Debbie, and our wonderful hardworking hired men save the lives of baby lambs.
I tell folks that we make our living in 17 days in May. Let me explain. Our sheep begin having baby lambs in earnest on May 5, and by May 22, 95 percent of approximately 1600 ewes (mother sheep) have had their babies. Through our crossbreeding program, we have developed a unique breed of sheep that have mostly twins and triplets. This is good for the Brown ranch bottom line in the fall when we sell our lambs, but it takes a lot of work at lambing to make sure those babies get on the ground alive and get their tummies full of milk. If we get that done then, for the most part, they will make it to payday in the fall.
Almost half of lambing was done by the time I got back home from the legislature, and Levi did a wonderful job of managing, which will keep us in business for another year.
Following lambing, on June 1-3, the Capital Development Committee (CDC), on which I serve, had its first of three tours. This was a tour of some of the state facilities in the northeastern part of Colorado. The CDC is responsible for approving funding for both the new construction and major maintenance of these facilities. We toured the Limon Port of Entry, the Fort Morgan Port of Entry, the North Sterling State Park and Reservoir, the Andrick Ponds State Wildlife Area, Northeastern Junior College, the Morgan Community College, the Fort Lupton Readiness Center, the Old Logan County Courthouse, the Limon Correctional Facility, the Sterling Correctional Facility and the Hudson Correctional Facility. The CDC will tour southeastern Colorado in August and will be here in Southwest Colorado in October.
I do not have the room in this article to comment on the needs of all of these facilities in detail. Many of these facilities are in need of millions of dollars just to keep up replacement and maintenance. In the not-too-distant past, Colorado had a huge reserve built up specifically to take care of these needs. Our legislative predecessors were wise. However, that money has been robbed and not replaced. I have been told that in years past, CDC prioritization of maintenance projects was a huge deal. This year we had $2 million to spend and $400 million in requests. This is a crisis that the current legislature can not afford to ignore. We must set up a disciplinary system that will insure that money is set aside for current and future maintenance needs. We must be very careful not to spend money on new projects or we will see continued raids on K-12 education and other critical needs.
J. Paul Brown represents House District 59 in Colorados General Assembly. The district encompasses San Juan, Archuleta and La Plata counties and parts of Montezuma County. Contact Rep. Brown by e-mail at [email protected].
