Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission restructures public comment to get meetings back on track
The changes will be introduced at its June meeting this week in Glenwood Springs
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW)
Starting this week, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is changing how the public can comment at meetings to increase meeting efficiency.
At the May meeting in Durango, commissioners discussed making potential changes to public comments after concerns were raised about the structure, timing, decorum and repetitiveness of the input. In recent meetings, hours have been spent on public comment, nearly all revolving around wolves and the agency’s bobcat and mountain lion regulations.
Commissioners acknowledged the importance of allowing public input, but also the need for improvement in how it’s structured.
“As everybody here has seen the last four meetings now, we run hours over, and those people are sitting here waiting, thinking they were going to come up at 11 o’clock in the morning, and all of a sudden, it’s 3 in the afternoon,” said Dallas May, the commission’s chair. “We’re going to change our public comment to agenda-driven comments.”
According to an advisory posted to the agency’s website, the commission “will only be accepting public comment on rulemakings and non-adjudicatory action items at the discretion of the Chair” in an effort “to ensure all voices are heard within the meeting’s time constraints and to allow the commission to conduct its business effectively.”
Travis Duncan, a public information officer for Parks and Wildlife, said in a statement that the changes are intended to provide more time for “robust” commission discussion and to get meetings “back on schedule,” after recent public comment periods have made meetings “last beyond their scheduled time.”
The board will continue to accept any comments during a “general public comment period.”
The advisory stipulates that the amount of time allocated to commenters will be adjusted based on the number of requests. At a minimum, individuals will be given one minute to speak.
While individuals must register ahead of time to provide virtual public comment, the commission also accepts comments on a walk-in basis in person at meetings.
Previously, the commission offered multiple opportunities for comments. The commission historically had general public comment periods on both meeting days, but will only have one comment period on the meeting’s second day in June. At every meeting between March 2025 and June 2024, it also set aside specific periods for comments specifically relating to its wolf restoration effort and occasionally for other topics.
The commission is meeting Wednesday, June 11, and Thursday, June 12, at Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. The agenda includes information on Colorado’s new outdoor strategy, an update on Sweetwater Lake State Park, bobcat research, the election of new commission officers and more.
The agenda does not have a wolf-specific program update — something that the commission has had on every meeting agenda since March 2024, with the exception of its April 2024 meeting. Parks and Wildlife introduced the first wolves to Colorado in December 2023.
In an emailed statement on June 3, Duncan indicated that a wolf program update was not scheduled for the June meeting “because at the time the agenda is drafted — which is several weeks before the meeting itself — staff did not have additional information to report.”
The statement added that Eric Odell, the agency’s wolf program manager, has given “several, comprehensive updates at the last few commission meetings,” and any updates this month are likely to be included in the report given by Jeff Davis, director of Parks and Wildlife, on Wednesday.
“We have no regulatory or rulemaking items related to wolves on the agenda, and it is important for (Parks and Wildlife) to share information about our many programs and operations, which the commission has encouraged the agency to do,” Duncan concluded.
Suggestions at the May meeting included reducing the two public comment periods to one period at the end of one of the meeting days, which is what the June agenda has scheduled.
“I think we’re not allowing ourselves to do business like we should be doing,” said Commissioner Marie Haskett in May. “I think we should look back to before COVID and wolves of how our comments worked.”
Commissioners emphasized that comments can be sent via email and that they are now hosting individual office hours for members of the public to attend and ask questions.
