Tag: Tom Jankovsky

Residents of the second-most drilled county in Colorado warn backers of eleven “local control” ballot questions to be careful what they wish for, because oil and gas money will funnel into local races, they say, stacking county commissions and city councils in the industry’s favor.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Newly released documents confirm that politicians and industry representatives secretly met in March to hammer out a position on the Bureau of Land Management's plan to scale back available lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming for oil shale research and development.

The Garfield County commissioners reportedly back a scaled-back federal plan for oil shale development in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, as long as it leaves as much acreage as possible open for exploring and perhaps eventually extracting the still unproven form of fuel.

Republican Garfield County Commissioner Mike Samson recently opened a can of worms by getting his fellow commissioners to agree to starting meetings with a prayer, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Signed off on by fellow GOP commissioners John Martin and Tom Jankovsky, the practice has touched off a debate in the letters to the editor section of the Glenwood Post Independent:

Republican Garfield County commissioner candidate Tom Jankovsky has consistently echoed the GOP party line this campaign season, blasting away at amended oil and gas drilling regulations that went into effect last year and blaming them for the natural gas bust many observers attribute to a global recession.

A Republican ski area general manager challenging an incumbent Democratic county commissioner in gas-rich Garfield County says winter sports, outdoor recreation and tourism there are no more threatened by drilling than other parts of the state are impacted by alternative energy.

GARFIELD COUNTY - Democrats drew up the blueprint on how to dominate a state in Colorado’s 2008 general election, but Republicans wrote the game plan for snatching a local election using outside oil and gas money – and they’re apparently sticking to it in 2010 Garfield County commissioners race.

Automated phone polls, anonymous mailers, big-bucks campaigning by shadowy outside interest groups – not the typical tactics of a local county commissioner race. But when it’s the top natural gas-producing county in the state, rules bend and get chucked out the window.

Happy coincidence or strategic tipping of his campaign hand? That’s what Garfield County Democrats must be wondering after the “surprise” appearance of Republican gubernatorial...