High fire danger is behind the Garfield County Commissioners (BOCC) decision Monday to prohibit the use, sale and possession of fireworks in unincorporated Garfield County. Emergency Manager Chris Bornholdt told the BOCC that sagebrush fuel moisture “is at or below 100%.” Piñon pine and juniper fuel moisture is at 72% and is expected to dry out even more over the next two weeks. The ban is for unincorporated Garfield County only; municipalities will make their own decisions about holiday fireworks displays. Fireworks and other incendiary devices are always prohibited on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) lands.
Speaking of public lands, Commissioners Mike Samson and Perry Will signed a letter to Utah Senator Mike Lee, opposing the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of BLM and USFS lands as proposed in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
“This proposal is not only misguided but deeply threatening to the environmental, economic and cultural integrity of our county, state and the American West at large,” reads the letter. Samson said he asked county manager Fred Jarman to draft the letter last week.
Commission Chair Tom Jankovsky has not yet signed the letter. “I don’t feel like it’s our place to send a letter to a senator in another state,” he explained while sharing his take on whether or not to sell public lands. He said he didn’t like the idea of selling off large swaths of public land but was not opposed to selling smaller parcels surrounded by private land. “I do think that there are some things that need to be cleaned up that could be done by selling some of those public lands,” he said.
“I support this letter one hundred percent,” said Will. “The public lands are our lands; they don’t belong to the government.”
Last week, The Wilderness Society published a map detailing lands eligible for sale that included close to 5 million acres of BLM land and 9.3 million acres of USFS land in Colorado.
In Garfield County, said the letter, federal lands make up close to 62% of the county. The BLM manages 615,973 acres and the USFS manages 515,865 acres. The letter also questions why public lands in Montana escaped the chopping block. “This provision … deliberately places a higher value of public lands in one state over another so that we are picking winners and losers across the federal western landscape.”
On Monday night, however, the Senate parliamentarian found that Lee’s provisions violated the Byrd Rule, which keeps proposals unrelated to the congressional budget out of the reconciliation bill. Earlier, Lee posted on “X” that he would remove all USFS land from consideration and limit the proposal to BLM land within 5 miles of population centers.
The Garfield County letter will be ratified at the regular BOCC meeting on July 7.
In other news, the BOCC renewed a $2.8 million contract with CorrHealth to provide health care to inmates at the Garfield County Jail. The county finance department presented the “pre-kickoff” to the annual budget process. Overall property tax in 2026, including oil and natural gas and residential, along with sales tax and intergovernmental income through federal grants is predicted to be significantly lower than 2025.
The county’s fund balance for 2025 is forecast to be $12.7 million lower than 2024 and to keep dropping for the next several years. County budget manager Shari Neuroth reminded the BOCC that this was a preliminary review of revenues, expenditures and fund balance forecasts and that the 2026 budget process is just getting started.
“We will balance the budget but that will mean some tough decisions,” said Jankovsky.
Commissioners also heard updates from Mountain Family Health, the county’s Human Services and Public Health departments and Health Solutions West (HSW), which has replaced Mind Springs Health. Jason Chippeaux, CEO of HSW, told the BOCC that HSW is not Mind Springs Health under new management.
“Health Solutions West is a completely new company operating on the Western Slope,” he explained. “Mind Springs Health is gone.”
This is HSW’s first foray into Western Slope communities, expanding from a southern Colorado base in Pueblo, Huerfano and Las Animas counties. Chippeaux wants to create a substance use disorder treatment hub in Glenwood Springs, adding that the short-lived withdrawal management unit is also gone. Detox services are currently offered at Recovery Resources in Aspen and Health Solutions West in Grand Junction. He emphasized treatment partnerships.
“I’m interested in putting depression out of business,” he said. “I’m not interested in putting local providers out of business.”
Archived Garfield County Commissioner meetings dating back to 1996 are available at the Garfield County website