Posted on 01/29/2021 11:53:07 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Residents have launched an effort to get a measure on the November ballot that would explore a Colorado county becoming part of Wyoming.
A Colorado campaign finance disclosure website showed that Christopher Richards registered political committee Weld County Wyoming last February, KDVR-TV reported. Its pushing a ballot measure that would instruct Weld County commissioners to engage and explore the annexation with Wyoming.
The county just east of Fort Collins has a population of more than 324,000 people.
Richards said during a November meeting that he got the idea in 2019 after reading an opinion article in The Denver Post and began pursuing the idea through a Facebook page.
“We’re going to move a county to a different state,” he said, adding that the effort would just redraw the state lines to exclude Weld County from Colorado and include it within Wyoming borders instead.
Someone else at the meeting, which was posted online, said Colorado “is at war with three major economic drivers for Weld County: small businesses, agriculture, and oil and gas.”
Officials in Colorado pushed back on the idea.
“I absolutely love living in Colorado. For those that don’t love living here, there are certainly less ridiculous ways of moving to Wyoming,” Greeley City Council member Tommy Butler told KDVR-TV.
Erie Mayor Jennifer Carroll said if the proposal makes it on the ballot, residents would have much to consider and it could be a long process.
“There are a lot of consideration(s) for Weld County voters if they want to secede to Wyoming: income tax, personal property tax, corporate state income tax, retirement income tax, gas tax, severance taxes on oil and gas, and water rights to name a few,” Carroll said in a statement. “If Weld County residents approve the ballot question, the Colorado legislature has to approve it, the Wyoming legislature has to approve it, and it’s possible both Colorado voters and Congress will need to approve it as well.”
A similar idea proposed in 2013 aimed to form a new state with several northern Colorado counties but failed. It passed in five of the 11 Colorado counties where it appeared on the ballot.
That would be funny. Both states are such nice neat rectangles
Dang, I will have to get rid of my State of Colorado shaped cake pan.
“...the Colorado legislature has to approve it, the Wyoming legislature has to approve it...”
Neither of those will happen.
Colorado would not want to lose that many residents, Wyoming would not want to annex a county that would increase their state’s population by 40 percent.
Actually no, there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents a part of a state breaking off and joining a new state.
It’s a dumb move, as it would make Colorado more Democrat and Wyoming less Republican.
I live in Greeley-Wyoming build a WALL!
Colorado is becoming California..They invaded in the 1990s
Why not become your own state. The county is more than twice the size of DC.
Oh wait. New states MUST guarantee DemonicRat senators; before they are allowed statehood.
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