{"id":23994,"date":"2025-01-17T19:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T02:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-commissioners-refuse-to-sign-personal-information-agreement-call-it-ridiculous\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:46:14","slug":"montezuma-commissioners-refuse-to-sign-personal-information-agreement-call-it-ridiculous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-commissioners-refuse-to-sign-personal-information-agreement-call-it-ridiculous\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma commissioners refuse to sign personal information agreement, call it \u2018ridiculous\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners meets every Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. in Room 250 at 109 W. Main St. in Cortez. (Journal file photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday reaffirmed a decision to decline to sign an agreement with the state of Colorado that would protect immigrants\u2019 personal identifying information.<\/p>\n

Montezuma and Weld Counties are the only two in the state to not sign it.<\/p>\n

The bill, Senate Bill 21-131, <\/a>arose among concern that state agencies including the Division of Motor Vehicles, would share immigrants\u2019 personal information without proper authority or documentations. Signed by Gov. Jared Polis on June 25, the law prevents agencies from sharing nonpublic personal identifying information without a court order.<\/p>\n

The law requires counties to sign an agreement, under the penalty of perjury, that says it will not share personal identifying information unless there\u2019s a subpoena or court-issued warrant for it.<\/p>\n

It was sponsored by two Denver Democrats, Sen. Julie Gonzales and Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez.<\/p>\n

According to Montezuma County Attorney Stephen Tarnowski, the law is more of a formality than a game changer. However, funding can be tied to the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether or not it\u2019s signed, it doesn\u2019t change obligations\u201d the county has always had as far as protecting \u2013 and when necessary, sharing \u2013 personal information goes, Tarnowski said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk the county is engaging in by not signing this agreement is that \u2026 anyone who wants to access databases that are created or maintained by the state that include personal identifying information, they\u2019re going to have to sign one of these letters on an annual basis,\u201d Tarnowski said.<\/p>\n

In extension, the refusal to sign threatens funding, since existing programs within county departments \u2013 namely the Public Health department \u2013 would be impacted and could possibly not continue if it no longer had access to such databases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just hate being held hostage under the threat that we are going to lose our funding,\u201d Commissioner Jim Candelaria said.<\/p>\n

At the meeting, county Public Health Director Bobbi Lock said the department \u201cabsolutely\u201d needs access to those databases to do their jobs, especially when it comes to the Colorado Immunization Information System and the WIC Program, which, according to its website<\/a>, is \u201cthe Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there funding attached for us to do those programs? Absolutely. Has there been any mention of that going away without us operating in 2024 without signing this? No,\u201d Lock said.<\/p>\n

Lock said she stands behind the commissioners\u2019 decision.<\/p>\n

Public Health \u201cis funded primarily by grants for the various projects they take on,\u201d according to county spokesperson Vicki Shaffer.<\/p>\n

Lock called the wording of the state law \u201cvery poor\u201d and didn\u2019t like how it specifically mentioned sharing information with federal immigration officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we singling out that population?\u201d Lock said.<\/p>\n

That population is singled out because the state broke their trust, \u201cand it\u2019s on us to make it right,\u201d said bill sponsor Gonzales.<\/p>\n

Essentially, a 2013 law allowed \u201cColorado residents who were not lawfully present in the United States, as well as people with temporary permission to live in the country, to apply for and receive driver\u2019s licenses through the Division of Motor Vehicles,\u201d according to an article by Colorado Newsline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Roughly 150,000 undocumented people applied, and it was revealed that the DMV had \u201cconsistent and deliberate communication\u201d with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition said that \u201cconfirmed the worst fears of the immigrant community, who placed trust in government services.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where the increased protection comes in.<\/p>\n

The bill was just one of many during Colorado\u2019s 2021 legislative session that addressed \u201cservices, benefits, and protections\u201d for immigrants, according to a summary of such legislation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bill offers greater protections to the immigrant population.<\/p>\n

\u201cState employees are prohibited from disclosing PII for the purpose of federal immigration enforcement,\u201d the bill<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n

It adds that \u201cstate employees cannot request information or documents to determine a person\u2019s immigration status or compliance with federal immigration laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussion Tuesday focused on access to databases and funding with little mention of what the bill means for immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see what happens,\u201d said Lock. \u201cSometimes you do have to take a stand on things and let the chips fall as they may.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candelaria shared this view at the Sept. 24 board meeting when he and fellow Republican Commissioners Kent Lindsay and Gerald Koppenhafer first refused to sign the agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another way for us to fight back to the state,\u201d Candelaria said at the September meeting. \u201cEverything that they send us doesn\u2019t mean we have to comply with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commissioners revisited the conversation Tuesday because Lock received an email from the state asking why Montezuma County declined to sign it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe denied it, that\u2019s the explanation. We don\u2019t want it, we don\u2019t care about it, so just quit sending it to me,\u201d Candelaria said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do exactly what this says already,\u201d said Lock. \u201cEvery client we see, no matter where they come from, who they are, we protect their personal identifying information and health information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t surprise me; that\u2019s what\u2019s required under law, so it makes sense,\u201d Tarnowski said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get the sense that they\u2019re (the state) probably interested in whether or not the county intends to violate the law and share PII,\u201d he said of the state\u2019s email.<\/p>\n

The commissioners agreed to allow Tarnowski and Lock to reply to the email and relay their intent to follow the law without signing the state\u2019s form.<\/p>\n

Candelaria said they ought to reply and ask the state to answer their initial question on whether their failure to comply impacts funding or database access.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is ridiculous, they\u2019re going to pull the funding anyway,\u201d said Candelaria. \u201cIf they want to pull it, they can pull it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one of two counties in the state to not comply<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,60,109,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-county-commissioner","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78350,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23994\/revisions\/78350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23994"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}