By Teresa L. Benns
MOFFAT—With marijuana cultivation owners front and center, exchanging pleasantries with town board members both before and during the meeting, the Moffat Town Board approved the annexation of an undetermined number of acres north of Moffat.
The property annexed is owned by Potch LLC, a retail marijuana cultivation. The owner, Whitney Justice, comments in the impact statement delivered to the town of Moffat, and last week to Saguache County, that she intends to subdivide the property to accommodate “non-cannabis-related and legal cannabis-related commercial entities.”
The property annexed is estimated to be about 70 acres by Saguache County Land Use administrator Wendi Maez. The actual size of the acreage is nowhere mentioned in the impact statement, although property coordinates and maps are provided.
A map passed out by the town of Moffat at its April 3 board meeting shows the annexed acreage is 102.2 acres. The Saguache County parcel viewer on the assessor’s site lists one Potch LLC acreage as 160 acres. Another view of a parcel owned by Potch LLC on the parcel viewer shows 66 acres. None of the coordinates in the parcel viewers correspond with the property description given in the impact statement.

The annexation — was it legal?
Board members Michael Raymond Miller and Sandra Fox were sworn in as town trustees prior to the annexation vote.
Mayor Patricia Reigel and other board members believe the town can offer growers the acreage free and clear of the excise tax paid by other retail grows in the county by annexing unincorporated acreage into the town. This, however, appears to contradict the ballot language for the excise tax, passed in 2016:
“Shall Saguache County increase taxes by $350,000 annually in the first full fiscal year and by such amounts as are raised thereafter as authorized by Colorado Revised Statutes 29-2-114 through the imposition of an excise tax of five percent of the average market rate, as determined by the Colorado Department of Revenue, on the first sale or transfer of unprocessed retail marijuana by a retail marijuana cultivation facility located within Saguache County.”
Some question the legality of the annexation for several reasons, one being that it will create an unfair exemption for some, forbidden by federal law, while others will be required to pay the tax. Amendment 14 to the U.S. Constitution requires equal treatment under the law.
Other reasons that cloud the legality of the annexations is the constitution of the town board at the early stages of its approval, the fact that trustees did not approve the impact statement before it was presented to commissioners and ex parte communications with growers prior to the public hearing.
Saguache County commissioners approved the annexation at their April 17 meeting, with County Attorney Ben Gibbons commenting they should approve it because Moffat would go ahead with the annexation anyway.
Brothers Robert and Virgil Tafoya, property owners in the area, objected to the passage of the annexation, explaining to the board that the impact statement was not properly prepared, annexation law was not followed and Moffat residents were not made fully aware of the consequences of the annexation. Some fear Moffat will now become a mecca for pot growers flooding to the area.
Mayor Reigel defended the impact statement, announcing she had written it herself. The copy of the statement received from the county clearly shows it was authored by Potch LLC landowner Whitney Justice. Reigel said the annexation process had been followed according to law, with advertisements in public places such as the post office and publication of the public hearing and intent to annex in local papers (Saguache Crescent and Valley Courier).  
Reigel also cited the many economic benefits the annexation would bring to the town of Moffat.
Prior to the annexation vote, Reigel granted a request for a street vacation and easement grant to Virgil and Sue Tafoya and said the town of Moffat would maintain the easement. She also mentioned that Robert and Virgil Tafoya had received CORA documents from the town they have been requesting for several months.
The board refused, however, to read a letter from a relative of the Tafoya family who attended the April 3 Moffat town board meeting and expressed her dissatisfaction with the way the town conducted business. Trustee Brian Morgan told Robert Tafoya the letter was addressed to the board and could not be released to the public.