While Colorado Springs City Council on Wednesday enacted a six-month moratorium on oil and gas exploration within city limits, Ultra Resources has submitted temporary use permit applications with El Paso County.

Ultra is seeking county approval for three well sites in eastern El Paso County. The company also is getting state approval for the drilling.

The applications are being worked through the county’s permitting system, said Craig Dossey, a county project manager and planner.

Dossey said he does not have a timeline for finalizing the permits. Local temporary use permits usually take 60 to 90 days to process.

It has been estimated that Ultra could receive clearance to begin drilling late this month or early in January.

El Paso County commissioners enacted a four-month temporary suspension on the application process on Sept. 29, to give county officials time to draft land use regulations for the industry, but three weeks later made an exception for Ultra Resources, a Texas-based energy developer with an office in Englewood.

Ultra representatives told commissioners they thought they were in the application process at the time commissioners imposed the moratorium because Ultra had spoken to county staff prior to that.

Ultra wants to test drill  for oil and gas on three well sites on Colorado State Land Board property in El Paso County. Ultra paid $1.67 million in July and August to Denver-based Pine Ridge Oil & Gas LLC for mineral leases on nearly 100,000 acres of land in eastern El Paso County and an exploratory well east of Fountain.

The county administrator and county attorney jobs are subject to annual review and extension.  And it looks like El Paso County commissioners will approve County Administrator Jeff Greene’s contract and extension for another year at Thursday’s meeting.  County spokesman Dave Rose said commissioners spent 2.5 hours in an executive session discussing it earlier this week.

County Attorney Bill Louis’ contract also was supposed to have been renegotiated by Dec. 1. But that hasn’t happened yet. Rose said he doesn’t know why, and Louis declined to comment. Instead, commissioners will consider extending his contract negotiations for three more weeks, until Dec. 22. They’ll vote on the extension Thursday.

Greene is paid $137,000, and if commissioners approve his new contract, he’ll be eligible for up to a 3 percent pay-for-performance raise —  if commissioners approve salary increases for county employees at their final budget hearing on Dec. 15.

Louis’ salary is $132,100. The request for an extension to negotiate his contract says it’s a mutual agreement between Louis and the commissioners to do so.

There has been some tension in recent weeks. In early November, Louis questioned Greene’s decision to move forward with a lease/purchase agreement on an office condo building and called for him to be placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation of alleged campaign kickback promises involving the building’s owner. The District Attorney’s Office looked into Louis’ concerns and determined there had been no wrongdoing and no need to open a formal investigation. Greene was never put on administrative leave. And commissioners agreed to proceed with negotiations on leasing and possibly buying the building, which is on Arrowswest Drive, next to the county’s new Citizens Service Center on Garden of the Gods Road.

The downtown branch of the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office, 200 S. Cascade Ave., will be closed all next week, Dec. 5-9, for construction.

Customers are asked to go to the main headquarters of the Clerk and Recorder’s Office, at 1675 W. Garden of the Gods Road, for services. The Motor Vehicle and Recording departments are on the first floor, in suite 1200. The Election Department is one the second floor, in suite 2202.

Customers also can use two other branch offices, one at Union Boulevard and Research Parkway, and another at Powers Boulevard and Airport Road.

All offices are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The north branch at Union and Research also is open 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.

The downtown office, in Centennial Hall, is being remodeled into offices for county commissioners and executive staff. The branch Clerk and Recorder’s Office will remain in the building and will reopen Monday, Dec. 12.

The state’s main supporting organization of counties, Colorado Counties Inc., is meeting in Colorado Springs this week for its annual winter conference, and Gov. John Hickenlooper is the keynote speaker. He will deliver the opening remarks Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Elected officials and staff from Colorado’s 64 counties will be attending the seminar, which is being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and runs through Wednesday.

The governor will

Users of the Pikes Peak Regional Development Center shouldn’t go hungry while they’re waiting to get building permits or do other construction-related business.

The building has dispensed of its contracted-out, limited-service coffee cart and is staffing it with Regional Building Department employees who dish up breakfast and lunch food and beverages.

Regional Building, a joint project of El Paso County and area cities that enforces building codes and regulates and controls building design, materials, construction and other elements, is a hub for the industry.

The expanded menu at ”Grounds for Review” includes sandwiches, wraps and drinks such as pumpkin latte. Booths have been built for customers, and an overhead television screen helps pass the time.  

El Paso County commissioners and Colorado Springs City Council members will get a present Tuesday from local oil and gas industry opponent, Mary Talbott.

She plans to hand them a copy of “Split Estate,” a 75-minute DVD about drilling issues in Rifle, Colo. The documentary looks at problems that emerge when surface owners don’t own the mineral rights beneath their properties, as is the law in Colorado.

Talbott says she’ll also give a copy to county public health department officials to watch.

Her goal? That the video might influence how local officials handle local regulations for the industry.

The county’s draft land use regulations for oil and gas activity are published on the county’s web site, www.elpasoco.com. Public comments are being accepted through next Monday, Nov. 28. Commissioners plan to adopt regulations by the end of January.

The city of Colorado Springs has a group looking into what to do about regulating the industry on the local level.

As interest in energy development along the Front Range intensifies, so does the concern of citizens. Last week, commissioners in Huerfano County unanimously adopted new oil and gas regulations, after what was described as a “boisterous” public hearing in which dozens of residents said the regulations don’t go far enough to protect them from the harmful effects of drilling.

  Douglas Bruce wants his ten bucks back. But it doesn’t look like he’s going to get it any time soon.

  Bruce, author of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, was fined $10 for not showing up to a board of El PasoCountycommissioners meeting in January 2008, the day he was sworn into Colorado’s House District 15 seat.

  In levying the fine, the former board of commissioners said Bruce’s absence as a county commissioner was unexcused. Bruce contends it was excused – that his fellow commissioners knew about his new legislative job and that he would be gone.

 Bruce had taken the oath for the State Representative office, unconventionally, though, postponing the action as long as possible to extend the potential length of the appointed term. And he did not step down as an El Paso Countycommissioner until after the swearing in for the state position.

Bruce told the current board of commissioners last week – at a time during regular meetings when anyone from the public can raise any issue with commissioners — he’s noticed that commissioners who have not attended recent meetings have not been fined for their absences.

The money, Bruce said, is a matter of principle, and he was disturbed over the pettiness and unfairness of the issue.

County Attorney Bill Louis volunteered to take Bruce into his office and give him $10 from his petty cash drawer.

Commission Chairwoman Amy Lathen said she wasn’t on the board when the matter came up and wasn’t willing to do that.

So that’s where the issue stands now, nearly four years later.

  While running a personal errand recently, three shiny ice machines  and a Muzak audio system at the county’s new Citizens Service Center caught the attention of local conservative radio talk show host Jeff Crank.

   When Crank found out from county officials that the commercial/industrial icemakers in break rooms near the Clerk and Recorder’s Office and the Assessor’s Office cost $3,495 apiece, for a total of $10,500, he balked.

  “I thought it was an inappropriate use of funds,” he said. “There will be some people who say, ‘Who cares? It’s only $10,500.’ But how many taxpayers does it take to pay that?”

  He also wonders why the Clerk and Recorder’s Office needed a $16,333 Muzak audio system for customer paging and background music. The 39-month contract carries a monthly service fee of $132 or $1,581 per year.

  Crank, who is also the state director of a nonpartisan watchdog group Americans for Prosperity Colorado, will discuss the issues on his radio show, which airs 6-10 a.m. Saturday on KVOR, 740 AM .

  Crank said he invited all five county commissioners, as well as the clerk and recorder and assessor, to be guests, but said he isn’t sure if any will take him up on the request. He did hear from Commissioner Chairwoman Amy Lathen, who sent him an email, saying the board of commissioners does not have any say over how other elected county officials, such as the clerk and recorder, and assessor, spend money for their offices.

    The county recently moved six departments into the Citizens Service Center, a former Intel building at 1675 W. Garden of theGods Road, to consolidate operations and get rid of four aging county buildings.

Voters likely won’t get to decide whether public transit should get a bigger share of a 1-cent sales and use tax that funds road construction and maintenance projects and public transit.

Officials from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority, its Citizen Advisory Committee and a Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce task force agreed in a joint meeting Monday that the formula for dividing up the tax shouldn’t be changed, when a renewal question is brought to the ballot in November 2012.

 Under the 2004 voter-approved division of revenue, public transit gets 10 percent of the 1 percent tax that’s collected in unincorporated El Paso County, the cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, and the towns of Green Mountain Falls and Ramah.

 Maintenance projects receive 35 percent, and capital construction projects 55 percent. The latter sunsets in 2014. Transportation officials agreed Monday to bring a renewal measure before voters next November.

 A nearly year-long study of the local public transportation system, called the Future of Regional Transportation, had looked at the possibility as a way to boost revenue for the city of Colorado Springs-operated system because it has experienced drastic budget cuts in recent years.

 Other agreements reached Monday:

 – The PPRTA board would refer the measure to the ballot and pay for the cost, an estimated $200,000 to $350,000.

 – Gross revenue for the RTA is estimated at $69 million per year

 – Future projects should be reprioritized for voter approval

 – Projects will shift from large-scale ones to relieve traffic congestion to smaller, ones to sustain and improve existing infrastructure

 – Still to be decided: Whether the extension should be for 10 or 12 years and whether voters should be presented with just one project list instead of three lists, which is what voters approved in 2004. Projects on only the A list are likely to be completed before the existing capital tax expires in 2014. But there are projects on a B list and a C list that won’t be addressed. The PPRTA’s Citizen Advisory Committee will review those and other issues and make a recommendation to the PPRTA board, the final decision-maker on the plans.

 Former County Commissioner Douglas Bruce advised the group to reconsider referring a renewal measure to the ballot next year, saying it should be brought to voters in 2014, when it expires, not before.

Ultra Resources, which wants to do exploratory oil and gas drilling on the Banning Lewis Ranch,  is meeting with Colorado Springs’ Council President Scott Hente and some city staff today in a private meeting, presumably to talk about  de-annexing the land, which the energy developer purchased after the property was auctioned as part of an October 2010 bankruptcy.

Environmentalists have been following the issue closely. A documentary viewing and panel discussion on the controversial mining technique known as fracking, held last Thursday at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, drew 150 people.

“If possible, please ask some tough questions about disclosure and the environmental soundness of Ultra’s fracking processes,” Steven Saint-Thomas of the Green Cities Coalition urged city leaders in a Facebook post Monday.

Ultra recently got clearance from El Paso County officials to drill three exploratory wells on Colorado State Land Board property, one of which is near Banning Lewis. The activity could start next month. County commisisoners had suspended issuing new permits for exploratory drilling until late January, saying they needed more time to write land use regulations for the industry. But, three weeks later, on Oct. 20, they made an exception for Ultra.

The reason, said County Commissioner Dennis Hisey, is that an Ultra representative personally contacted him immediately following the Sept. 29 meeting when commissioners enacted the moratorium on new applications, saying the company believed it was already in the process of getting a permit because it had talked with the county’s development services department. After getting more details, Hisey asked that the resolution be changed to accomodate Ultra’s request to  begin drilling before the county’s suspension is lifted.

If the 18,000 acres of Banning Lewis that Ultra owns is de-annexed from the city, the land would fall under the jurisdiction of the county, and Ultra would be subject to the county’s new regulations. A draft copy is available for public review through Nov. 28 on the county’s website, www.elpasoco.com. The regulations are expected to be adopted by the time the moratorium on new applications is lifted in late January.

If Ultra is successful in the de-annexation, which could be settled by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Colorado, Ultra also won’t be under the thumb of Colorado Springs Utilities, which would mean it could drill new wells for water needed for exploratory oil and gas drilling and not rely on the city’s water system.  

Ultra since has submitted a court filing in Colorado that essentially restates the disputed issues; the city has until Nov. 30 to respond.