Former representative and senator Maynard Yost honored at Capitol

The House held a memorial on Feb. 20 for former State Representative and Senator Maynard Yost, R-Sterling, who passed away on Dec. 1, 2019 at the age of 83.

Seventeen members of Yost’s family were in the Colorado Capitol for the memorial, which was read in both the House and Senate.

Yost served in the House in the 1977-78 sessions and in the State Senate from 1979 to 1982. He chaired the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee in the 1981 and 1982 sessions.

Senate Joint Memorial 2, offered by Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling and Rep. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, noted that Yost, who was born in Haxtun, enlisted in the United States Navy, serving on a submarine as a communications electrician. He later ran a cattle trucking business with his father and other family members and served as mayor of Crook.

Pelton told the House that Yost was a respected businessman. “He served this country and State in a meaningful and practical way.”

Sonnenberg has known the Yost family for years and told the House that his son had once worked for the Yost trucking business. Sonnenberg also sang at the wedding of Yost’s son, Dennis.

“He was a true servant. He came from the agricultural background where he made sure everyone else was taken care of first,” Sonnenberg said. 

“He was about service, making sure everyone, including his family, had what they needed,” Sonnenberg said. “He was the ultimate legislator working across the aisle for the entire State, even when he didn’t have to, since Republicans were in the majority in both the House and Senate at the time.”

In other news:

A Pelton-sponsored bill on parental rights met its demise in the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, part of a long day of hearings on seven bills regarding gay rights issues.

Pelton told the committee that his bill, House Bill 1144, came to him as a result of legislation that his constituents, especially families and young mothers, are concerned about. They have said some of the legislation is taking too much control over their children. “God gave these children to the parents,” he said.

Pelton didn’t identify a specific measure that his bill would challenge, but the bill addresses a number of laws passed in recent years, such as a sex education bill in 2019 and another that allows 12- to 14-year-olds to seek mental health counseling without parental consent. The bill also referenced State efforts to improve vaccination rates, although that legislation failed in 2019. A 2020 version passed the Senate Health & Human Services Committee on Wednesday.

Carolyn Martin of Christian Home Educators of Colorado, which supported the bill, noted that a child is not a mere creature of the State, citing a Supreme Court opinion.

Decisions have respected the private realm of family life, she said. Membership in a family is fundamental, and the more a state interferes in the upbringing of a child, the more unstable a society becomes. “The State continues to ask children who don’t have life experience to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives,” Martin added.

“Will the State, with its laws, force me out of my role as a parent?” she asked.

Opposing the bill, Carla Gonzales-Garcia of the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, said her organization is invested in the well-being of children and families. Most young people do involve a parent in health care decisions, but those in tough family situations make it impossible for them to get the support they need, she said. 

Homeless youth who don’t have contact with parents, or those who may be ashamed to bring up mental health needs or other health care issues, such as unintended pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases, also have problems getting help, she said. 

“We should not put up roadblocks” to young people who need help, she said. 

The bill died on a party-line 6-3 vote.

This week, the Colorado House spent hours debating a bill that would allow unionized state employees to collectively bargain on pay, benefits and working conditions. During debate on House Bill 1153 on Feb. 14, Pelton advocated for an amendment to allow voters to make the decision about whether to allow collective bargaining. It was one of more than two dozen amendments offered by Republicans during the debate. While Pelton’s amendment did not succeed, he did pick up support from four Democrats, among the most for any Republican-sponsored amendment. The bill passed on a party-line 41-23 vote on Tuesday and now heads to the State Senate.

A Sonnenberg-sponsored bill, Senate Bill 101, dealing with complaints against pesticide applicators, won unanimous support from the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 13 and is now in the hands of the Senate Finance Committee.

The bill was originally reviewed by the ag committee on Feb. 6 but they delayed voting to see if they could find a way to deal with its expected revenues of $882,000 that would come from fee increases. The problem isn’t the revenue itself: what worries lawmakers is that it could drive a refund under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, taking the revenue that comes in to manage the program and instead refunding it to taxpayers. 

The bill comes from a flawed complaint process by the Department of Agriculture, Sonnenberg told the committee. Whomever the complaint is against often doesn’t even know action is being taken against them, even for years, he said. 

Under SB 101, the applicator must be notified within 24 hours of a complaint, and the department would be prohibited from suspending a pesticide applicator’s license if the applicator has not been notified of a complaint.

Another Sonnenberg amendment removes the marijuana industry from the bill, which he said is driving some of the complaints.

The issue comes out of a series of complaints filed as long ago as 2012 and which were dismissed last year by an administrative law judge. 

According to the Colorado Agricultural Aviation Association, the Department of Agriculture alleged that aerial applicators sprayed pesticide from an aircraft in an unsafe manner in May 2012, May 2014 and July 2014. The judge dismissed all three complaints, citing a lack of evidence of violation and evidence from the applicators that they had used “appropriate care in planning and performing the pesticide application.”

A final agency order issued by the Department of Ag in January 2020 admitted they had used a broad interpretation of the phrase “use of a pesticide in an unsafe manner” and that they lacked actual evidence of the violations. But the agency’s actions forced the three applicators, who were not identified, to spend “an inordinate amount of time and money defending against these spurious complaints,” according to the CAAA.

“CAAA members are all highly trained professional applicators who strive for perfect applications on every flight. Our members’ professionalism was well demonstrated by the evidence entered in each of these three unfortunate cases,” said CAAA’s Jessica Freeman in a statement.

John Scott, the pesticide application chief for the department, said they doesn’t feel they could meet the 24-hour notice requirement. “We’re not always aware of who the applicator is, and that could take days, weeks or months” to identify.

The bill’s 12-month limitation on investigations also is a problem, Scott said, given that lab testing, for example, can take months. Only 23 percent of its cases in the last three years could be resolved within 12 months, with top priority given to violations involving public health. 

Sen. Don Coram, R-Montrose, questioned why the department couldn’t make notification in 24 hours, given that aerial complaints would likely come from a next-door neighbor. And there just aren’t that many applicators, he said. In his area, there’s just one for three counties. 

Matt Reck, an applicator representing the CAAA, said there are 43 aerial application operations and about 100 applicators in Colorado. “We need a complaint system” but it must be timely and fair, and the current process isn’t, he said.

Emily Ibach of Colorado Farm Bureau said they support the bill. “There’s no statute of limitations for complaints” against applicators, she said. SB 101 would ensure that the process does not allow for frivolous and years-old complaints.

The bill’s future, however, remains uncertain due to the fiscal issues.