Painted Sky mission taken up by others

An organization that few people may know of, and that fewer people actually understand, has played a behind-the-scenes role bringing grant funding for numerous projects in Delta County and the surrounding region.

For example, the organization, Painted Sky Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D), played a key role in acquiring funding and providing management for the Hartland Dam reconstruction project.

Also, it was Painted Sky's paid professional staff, working with Colorado's U.S. congressional delegation, who wrote and submitted the successful $1.35 million on-farm Soils Health projects grant.

But last spring, Painted Sky was hit by federal budget cuts that defunded its profesional staffing partnership with federal agencies here.

Partly as a consequence of losing that funding support, the current board members of Painted Sky are making plans to dissolve the public/private, non-profit corporation. Painted Sky will likely go away, probably sometime later this year, reports Olen Lund, Delta County commissioner and chairman of the current Painted Sky board.

The year 1999 is considered the beginning of Painted Sky RC&D. It was founded by a group of individuals in the multi-county Region 10 area who had a vision: "To promote orderly development, improvement, conservation, and utilization of natural and human resources," for the general purpose of generating economic activity and the blessings associated with it.

Painted Sky was one of the early grant writing agencies here. It was a time not long ago, before almost every local government, special district, non-profit organization, along with private individuals and businesses began looking to "government grants" as a major funding source for projects.

Professional grant writers now market their services. Painted Sky's once wide open field of operations has become increasingly crowded with many others seeking work and profit in the field.

In the beginning, Painted Sky was exploring unknown territory. Today, government agencies actively market their grant funding resources and programs directly to the public.

Lund explains that the Painted Sky board, now at less than half size due to resignations and lack of new volunteers, is completing current projects or finding other sponsors to manage them. There was some interest expressed in continuing Painted Sky's non-profit status for administration of the federal Soils Health grant money. However, that prospect fell through, Lund explained.

Last December Lund said, "The board is trying to clear the decks so it can make a decision to dissolve if need be."

At a presentation during the Municipal Quarterly meeting on March 9, Lund announced that decision at this point is all but final.

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