REBUTTAL

The Chronicle-News
Eric John Monson/Editor
emonson@cherryroad.com
editor@trinidadchroniclenews.com

The World Journal
editor.worldjournal@gmail.com

RE: Articles published May 15, 2025, in the World Journal and on May 16, 2025, in The Chronicle-News.
Below is a rebuttal from the Board of Directors of the Santa Fe Trail Ranch POA. We respectfully request that our rebuttal be published in your newspapers to provide clarification on what were significant misrepresentations pertaining to the Santa Fe Trail Ranch in Trinidad, Colorado.

Rebuttal dated 05/29/2025

Fearmongering on Santa Fe Trail Ranch

It sounds like a bad novel, but the reality is much more sinister. In what appears to be a concerted effort to portray Santa Fe Trail Ranch in the worst possible light, two news articles were recently published that were some of the worst one-sided journalism imaginable. These articles could have been a portrait of a community that has worked tirelessly over the past 35 years to create one of the premier mountain communities in southern Colorado. Instead, an inflammatory series of rumors, inuendoes and half-truths were used to generate articles that portray the Ranch as a deathtrap.

To be clear, the POA, its Board and the related Metropolitan District have aways supported the efforts to continue to secure additional ingress and egress points on the Ranch for emergency use. The challenge has been the abuse of emergency access points as everyday exits that has generated disputes with surrounding landowners, and perhaps more importantly, with the railroad. Bad behavior by a few has lost access to these exit points for all Owners.

The representation by certain fire officials completely misrepresents this Ranch and its Owners. What basis did John Jenkins, the Chief for the Stonewall Fire Department, have for stating “As SFTR currently stands, it is likely one of the worst communities I have ever witnessed or visited in terms of public safety” (along with his other inflammatory comment)? It appears that this is an opinion that is intended to be sensational and not serve as any professional criticism which should include concrete suggestions for improvements. It also does not take into account all the fire mitigation and forest health work done on the Ranch nor acknowledges the certification for being one of the first Fire Wise communities. Quite frankly, it looks like grandstanding by a politician and not the comments of a public safety officer, nor a qualified expert witness.

The Owners are keenly aware of the fact that they live in a forested area and have consistently taken steps since the inception of the Ranch in the early 1990’s to improve the Ranch’s Forest health. The Ranch has been used as a model by other fire officials in their talks with other developments in the state (as reference in the July 1, 2023, letter from Paul Branson, Supervisory Forester, Colorado State Forest Service), yet a few officials have decided that fearmongering is more beneficial to their apparent political objectives.

Here is a list of just some of the accomplishments and improvements made to the Ranch by the Owners of SFTR since its inception:

• Fire Wise Community Certification since 2006
• Approved Current & Past CWPP (Community Wildfire Protection Plans)
• Ranch located Fire Station with equipment (Ranch Owners participated in designing, building and grant acquisition for the fire station)
• Recipient of multiple past in-kind grants for fire mitigation (these represent hundreds to thousands of hours of donated Owner’s work)
• Extensive Owner driven defensible zone development around structures and roadways on a continuous basis
• Educated owners who have equipped themselves with the means to fight fires (mobile water tanks, water backpacks, tools)
• Owners have attended recurring Smoke Spotter Classes
• Annual Weed-Out and Adopt-a-Road programs that support forest health by mitigating noxious weeds
• Access to Lake Trinidad that could be utilized for water drops
• Availability of over 300,000 gallons of on-ranch water in Metropolitan District storage tanks

The Ranch residents have worked tirelessly every year to improve ingress and egress of the Ranch for emergency purposes. The POA, its Owners and the related Metropolitan District have supported and financed or coordinated financing of formal efforts to continue to improve the fire safety on the Ranch including building a new 2-lane concrete span bridge at exit 6. Ongoing road work includes expanded road development, bar ditch expansion, culverts and continual maintenance and grading of roads to ensure high quality roads for the residents, which also serve to improve emergency ingress and egress.

The POA developed firebreaks in partnership with Vermejo Ranch and the Wootton Ranch on the southwest and south borders of the Ranch. The Ranch has City of Trinidad supplied water throughout the Ranch as well as a water system that includes three 110,000-gallon water tanks as well as 12 fire hydrants and an additional 65 smaller flushing hydrants throughout the Ranch. The POA has routinely funded and managed mitigation and forest health programs on an annual basis.

The talk about four exits being reduced to one is a complete misrepresentation of historic facts. Here is a summary of the entrance and exit history from the beginning. Around 1991, the only exit or entrance onto or off the Ranch was Exit 8. The Ranch roads were not built south of Exit 8 at the time, so there was no need for a southern exit. When the flat car bridge was built around 1991 at Exit 6, Exit 8 was permanently closed by the railroad. When the Ranch roads progressed far enough to the south, the Morley Crossing was available for oversized loads, but only with the prior approval of the BNSF Roadmaster. The Morley Crossing was subsequently closed by BNSF when a contractor brought a bulldozer across without permission to clear the Ranch roads after the December 2006 100-year snowstorm. The culvert at Exit 2 was seasonal and very rough and hardly a reliable point of access. During the Track Fire in 2011, which happened along the New Mexico-Colorado border, south of the Ranch, the POA realigned the culvert road and made it more passable in case we needed access during a fire. It was never used in this capacity by the POA. BNSF granted the POA/Metropolitan District access to this culvert during the construction of the new bridge at Exit 6 for a limited period in 2017 and 2018.

Although it is hard for some people to take responsibility for their actions, there were foreseeable consequences to the actions of a few residents that have impacted all of the Owners. The culvert at Exit 2 is and has always been the private property of BNSF railroad. Further, the road on the East side is CDOT property and POA representatives were told specifically in a meeting with CDOT in 2012 that it is not open to the public. The Ranch had provided a locked gate to limit access, but certain residents wanted to have daily access to the culvert, which resulted in ongoing trespassing across BNSF and CDOT property. BNSF, in their sworn depositions, stated that they installed gates at both ends of the culvert, which were vandalized, driving the railroad to permanently block the culvert with large I-beams in November 2021. Attempts to get BNSF to reopen the culvert have been unsuccessful. Quoting BNSF sources, there has been only one private application since 2021, which was rejected by BNSF, and an Application by the Metropolitan District was also rejected. Even our county commissioners were clear that they would not take responsibility or liability associated with assisting the Ranch in getting access to or maintaining the culvert at Exit 2.

 As mentioned previously, it does not mean that the POA will not continue to look for options with surrounding landowners, but these challenges are not new to any developments within the State of Colorado. All of our residents along with the POA and Metropolitan District are very aware that fire is a real risk when living in a forest setting. It is a risk that we weighed and accepted when we decided to buy properties and build our homes on SFTR. The Santa Fe Trail Ranch POA Board is proud of the work done by its Owners and volunteers that has resulted in the Santa Fe Trail Ranch being a model community for preparedness and responsible forest living. We are committed to continual improvement, which requires the ongoing volunteer efforts of the Ranch Owners as well as the formal mitigation efforts of the POA. In addition, we have had success in receiving various matching grants for mitigation purposes in the past and will continue to apply for grants to assist in our efforts when they become available.
Presenting the Santa Fe Trail Ranch as a dangerous and ill managed community is inaccurate and a terrible disservice to its Owners.

Respectfully submitted,

The Santa Fe Trail Ranch POA Board of Directors