Abandoning Hartman

Editor’s note: This episode contains some explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. 

A town with no mayor, no trustees, no clerk, and no publicly funded water system.

In our seventh episode this season, we travel four hours east of Denver to Hartman, Colorado, where a modern-day "Hatfields and McCoys" feud drove the entire town board to quit.

After years of bitter infighting, contested elections, financial disputes, and a physical altercation at a town meeting, the tiny plains community's government effectively collapsed. Hartman has become an unlikely case study in how a century-old abandonment law leaves residents to confront what happens when a town can no longer govern itself.

Can Hartman be saved, or has it already become a ghost town in waiting?

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens. 

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

Transcript

Shawna Casey: I know you know about the fight down here, right? Everybody wants to report on it.  

Velma Casanova Cooper: I was spit at, ma'am. I've been abused.  

TK: It was almost like the Hatfields and McCoys out there.  

(Intro music) 

Kirk McDaniel: Welcome to Sidebar, a podcast by Courthouse News Service. I'm your host, Kirk McDaniel. We've covered a-many a-fights here on this podcast, legal and otherwise, but never a fight over the future of an entire town. Our reporter, Amanda Pampuro, has traveled to the heart of this conflict in return to fill us in on what is going on in Hartman, Colorado. Hey, Amanda.  

Amanda Pampuro: Hey, Kirk.  

KM: Now, how did you come to learn about the plight of the folks in Hartman?  

AP: This started with a pro se lawsuit filed in rural Prowers County by a woman who said her town's government had quit.  

KM: Had what?  

AP: They quit. Yeah. You have to read it to believe it.  

KM: The three remaining members of the board of trustees resigned on January 23, 2026. The resignation left the town with no governing body, no mayor, no trustee, no clerk, and no designated election official. Without a functioning governing body, the town cannot lawfully operate, maintain or fund its public water system. Where is Hartman?  

AP: Two hundred miles east of Denver, way out on the grassy plains. The town's biggest industry is mowing the grass. It is closer to Kansas than to a library. It turns out there was a lot more to the story. I reached out to the secretary of state and the county election clerk for more information about what happened. They each confirmed Hartman’s state of anarchy but said they couldn't get involved. Then I drove out four hours east and south until I came to a green sign and a gravel road. I slowed to follow the handwritten speed limit sign and circled the tiny town in two minutes. I wasn't sure how to approach people. I'd heard Hartman residents sent a government board member to the hospital, that they didn't like strangers and they had run their last water operator out of town. So, I sat on the steps of the grand old gymnasium watching playground swings twist in the wind that's typical out here on the west end of Tornado Alley. Before long, I saw someone coming up the road. Good morning, my name's Amanda.  

Velma Casanova Cooper: I'm Velma Casanova Cooper.  

AP: I'm a nosy reporter. Velma's lived in Hartman all her life. She married her high school sweetheart, Mark, who lived across town. This is Mark.  

Mark Cooper: You can't trust anybody.  

VCC: You can't trust. 

MC: You can't trust anybody out here in this world.  

VCC: No, you can't trust these people.  

MC: If you do, I don't know where you're from, but if you trust people, you're crazy.  

AP: It's because they were wary that I got to speak with Mark and Velma.  

MC: I walked up here for a reason. I don't trust people in this town.  

AP: And you're like, who's that weirdo sitting over there?  

MC: People started approaching my wife, I get worried and then she's already been assaulted. So, it's not going to happen no more.  

AP: Talking to people in Hartman, I learned they look out for their own. And I heard two sides of a tangled history with the local government. Keep in mind, the population has dropped from around 100 people in 2000 to just 30 today, so, there is very little difference between the government and your neighbor. Through the 2010s, the town's board of trustees ran the government for like eight years without holding an election. When they finally held one, new trustees were elected, but the old regime dug its claws in. The new board even sued to remove the old mayor. Then the new board blocked recall petitions from supporters of the old government. Each group accused the other of stealing community resources. January 23 wasn't the first time things got heated at a board meeting.  

Melissa Venegas: Yelling and screaming has happened in Hartman since forever, like it's never been a quiet, peaceful meeting ever. It's always somebody hyped up about something and it's never turned physical.  

AP: This is Melissa Venegas, who was on the Hartman Board of Trustees last summer. She was pushing to complete a government audit that was required to access $1 million in state grants to replace the water tower.  

MV: We were told we were supposed to have our audits and our budgets done, so we could move forward with our grant for our water tank. And nobody was really in any kind of motion. And, you know, I just, I was just there to try to help. I wasn't trying to push anybody out. I wasn't trying to do anything except move forward with the path of a water tower.  

AP: When Melissa started organizing the town records for the audit, she found out how the other board members had been spending town money. Do you think they pushed you out because they didn't want the CPA to look at the paperwork, or was it just more infighting?  

MV: I think there was a little bit of both. I think they were a little bit afraid to find out that our Covid relief money was squandered. I think they were a little bit afraid to have people find out that that went to places that shouldn't have. Yeah, I think they were afraid that people were going to find out that husbands and boyfriends were taking money, which, I mean, when we found out, we made it very clear we weren't going to hold back any punches.  

AP: It turns out none of these scandals are secrets. I asked former board member Tammy Lucero, and she confirmed they used their Covid relief funds to hire an attorney to force the previous board out. Then they hired the same attorney to fight a recall petition filed by the old board three years later.  

Tammy Lucero: The Covid money was basically for things for the town.  

AP: They think it was well spent.  

TL: Yes, because the council that had was on there before they stole a lot of money, switched a lot of money around, still a lot of money disappeared and they ran the town and nobody could oppose them. And they seeing as they didn't have election for eight years.  

AP: Did you question it or did you just accept that's how things are in Hartford?  

TL: Well, I think people just left it the way it was.  

AP: Is there money that was misspent while you were on the board?  

TL: When I was on the board, I had a boyfriend, and at one point he was acting as clerk, not real, not, basically clerk. He was doing the, what he did was forge my name on some checks and paid himself.  

AP: The boyfriend was not formally hired to be clerk, and the position was not paid. 

TL: But this was the worst thing he could have done to me, because they put it all over Facebook to trash me on Facebook and make me look like a thief, and I never, ever stole. I would take a lie detector test, I don't care. I would go to court over it because I never ever stole from this town, I gave, I gave my time, my sweat, my money to this town. I never, ever would have done that.  

AP: No charges were filed over the fraud allegations. I tried to call the boyfriend, but none of the numbers listed went through. The more residents scrutinize these decisions, Tammy said she felt attacked. Residents filmed her, trash-talked her online and filed what she saw as excessive requests for records.  

TL: I would be sick at my stomach knowing that I had to go to a meeting and to be screamed and cussed at because we didn't know what was going to happen at the meeting.  

AP: Eventually, Tammy and the board stopped wanting to meet. That meant they couldn't vote to hire the auditor and Melissa quit. Months later, she learned her name was still being printed on the water bills.  

MV: I was more than happy to put my name and number on those water bills so, if anybody had questions, you know, feel free to call me, we'll work out what's going on. When I resigned, I kind of figured that my name would no longer be on the water bills. It had been, I'm gonna say probably about three or four months since I had resigned and my name was still coming up in the water bills, and I really went to find out why.  

AP: So, Melissa approached trustee Tammy Lucero after the January 23 meeting. What was her reaction?  

MV: Pretty much that she doesn't have to do anything. They can do whatever they want. Um, I needed to get the fuck out of her face. And I was angry. I was very angry, but I wasn't looking for any kind of physical altercation. I mean, I try to stay away from confrontation because there's times I get angry and I can't control myself. And I've gotten myself in trouble in the past, younger, doing that. So, I try not to, I try not to get myself in trouble. I'm old enough to know better. We were probably two or three feet apart when this whole situation began, and by the end of it, she was in my face. She pushed me, trying to move me or whatever she was trying to do, I don't know what she was trying to do. But my instinct immediately was to shove back, and I did. And when I shoved her, she had ahold of my hair, pulled me down with her, kept ahold of my hair. I tried to get up a couple of times. I'm not sure if it was on the way down or once we were already down. I got bashed in the face a couple of times. I'm not sure if it was with a phone, with a camera, with a fist. I think it was a camera just by the way, the bruise kind of was.  

AP: The police report said you broke the camera, but you think the camera got smashed into you?  

MV: I, okay, I did break the camera. I did admit to breaking the camera only because after I was hit in the face, I took it out of her hand and I threw it. It either hit one of the walls or something, but I mean, it wasn't, I was just trying to get it out of her hand. I mean, I didn't want to get hit in the face with whatever she was hitting me in the face with anymore.  

AP: Tammy told me her side of the story but asked that it not be repeated because she's worried it will impact probation. Resident Shawna Casey had her version as well.  

Shawna Casey: Well, I know you know about the fight down here, right? Everybody wants to report on it, but we've been kind of keeping it tight lipped between me and Melissa, because things just aren't being investigated like they should be.  

AP: Shawna Casey moved to Hartman from Grand Junction three years ago. It didn't take long for everyone to find out who she was, as she used every tool available to scrutinize her new government, recording meetings, requesting records and exercising her right to speak out.  

SC: I was injured. Nobody knows about it because it's not in the report. I've been trying to get the sheriff's department to include that or whatever, but it never got done because the deputy who was making the report up and left in the middle of the investigation. It's not the first time this has happened. I filed a report January of 2025 for Covid embezzlement and all kinds of other stuff that was going on, and it's been a long haul. I've been at this for three years. Three years I've been documenting this stuff. I've been contacting the governor on down and everybody kept telling me it's local control. We can't do anything for you.  

AP: According to the incident report, people outside heard the commotion and rushed in. Shawna told me Velma ran into her and according to the incident report, Velma suffered a seizure in the fray. Velma went to urgent care that night with a pain in her leg and Shawna had her back examined the next day at her doctor’s. Melissa and Tammy were each charged with petty offenses for disorderly conduct and given deferred sentences. Nobody I spoke to was really happy with the outcome.  

VCC: That Shawna Casey from Grand Junction, but like I said, she didn't get in trouble. Like, look, look, they didn't even give her a ticket. But I'm going to fight it because somebody's going to pay my hospital bills. They took me in the ambulance. I was spit at, ma'am. I've been abused ever since I've been in this city council.  

KM: There is a lot going on here. Amanda, can you tell me where the policy difference is, liberal versus conservative?  

AP: Not in the way we've come to expect from Democrats and Republicans. One person criticizing the new government said they wanted to develop more and limit gardens to aesthetic flowers instead of produce. But Mark mentioned something offhandedly that I found really interesting. He said his father used to be on the board and always put money into the town.  

MC: When my dad was on there, this was back in the ‘70s and ‘80s. 

VCC: They did things right.  

MC: Like Dale Simmons, my dad and all them were on there.  

VCC: They did things right.  

MC: They donated a lot of money in this town to get it where it was at. Yes, there was probably $10,000 a year that these people donated to this town.  

AP: In the 1970s, people made a good living out here. Now, the average wage is around $12,000 a year and the median age is 58. Most of the townspeople are retirees on Social Security. They can't support the town like they used to. It doesn't matter who's on the board of trustees when the cost to replace their 100-year-old water tower is passed on to residents’ water bills, they won't be able to afford a shower. Even so, residents have been paying their water bills and haven't felt like that money was well spent or their government was being transparent. It had been years since the town filed an audit or budget with the state government, and they racked up $133,000 worth of fines from the state public health department for failing to maintain a safe water supply. Everyone told me about some expense the other board made that was selfish or wasteful.  

MC: I mean, I've done give up. That's where I'm at. I'm just to the point where, you know, this town has been turned over to county years ago.  

AP: Why would that be better?  

MC: Because the town's never really brought a lot of money.  

VCC: Because they could control the money. We want somebody else to control the money. We don't want these people. We don't want these people control the money.  

AP: Is there anything you would have done differently?  

VCC: Like...  

MC: What do you mean?  

AP: I don't know, you were in a position on the board to try to fix things.  

VCC: They wouldn't listen.  

MC: We tried, we tried. We did.  

VCC: They want nothing else.  

MC: You think you know the problem?  

VCC: They want to fight.  

MC: They couldn't even have a town council meeting.  

VCC: I got videos. We got videos where she just. Fuck you, this, fuck you, that. And if we have an election, they're never going to get a charter operator. They're not going to get the. That's a lot of paperwork to do. And you just want it to end. Yes, we want it to end. When I was in the city council, all they would tell me is, shut up, shut up, shut up. And I just be quiet till the last moment, ma'am. ‘til the last moment. Until they hit me. This is it. Hand it over to the courts, then. We can't do nothing. Well, let's hand it over to somebody that would do it. Yeah, that's what we're at. What can we do, ma'am? Get killed? Get killed for it? No, ma'am. No, it's not worth it. And that's why they hate us. That's what they hate us over here. Because we tell the truth.  

AP: In a town the size of Hartman, every election comes down to one or two people. So, Mark and Velma see holding another election as keeping them locked into fighting each other. They'd rather see the county take over. On the other side, the woman who filed the lawsuit, Dawn Railsback, told me she still wants the court to jumpstart an election.  

Dawn Railsback: I felt, I felt a little mad at first. How dare they tell me I don't have a right to vote on anything in my life? You know, this is something that should have been voted on. I thought if I started with the district court, if he doesn't want to appoint somebody to run an election in Hartman, I could always go to the Colorado Supreme Court for appeals and see if I can't get a chief magistrate, somebody to step in and run an election, or even just run the town until we can have an election. Like I said, it's in peril that we have it because our water tower is at stake. Now we're liable to lose our grants. They say that the water, the electricity that runs the pump for our water well will be, is paid ‘til June. But when the water goes off, the residents of Hartland, which is, I'll say 75%, if not higher, senior citizens won't have any water.  

AP: The one thing that makes Hartman a town is the water tower. But that is also what's been expediting the town's collapse. Built in the early 1900s, one engineer said the whole water tower needed to be replaced 25 years ago, when the town took out a loan from the USDA for repairs. Today, if the tower doesn't come down, the lining needs to be replaced, and a water operator needs to test and treat the water. Without that, they're under a boil-only order and have been for months. But the most pressing problem is the groundwater pump. Before they left in January, Velma and Tammy paid the electric bill on the water to run through June, or July. No one really knows. Without a government to pay the next bill, the utility will cut the power and the town will be left without running water.  

MC: Trying to get it where we will still have water.  

VCC: Yes. Amen. Praise the Lord.  

MC: Water is your most important asset in life.  

VCC: Yes.  

MC: You can live without electricity. You can live without gas. But you cannot live without water.  

KM: Isn't there another water authority that can step in?  

AP: The town's burned bridges, so no other water utility is volunteering. Plus, bureaucracy. You need a government to make those contracts and pay for them.  

KM: Wouldn't Colorado have a secretary of state who can run an election to reset this government?  

AP: That was one of my first questions, too. But Colorado has strong local control laws, so the state can't just run a county or municipal election. The town must be declared abandoned before the state or county can come in. Under current law, a town is eligible to be declared abandoned five years after its last election.  

KM: For Hartman?  

AP: That was last November. So, theoretically, they can have their government declared abandoned in 2030, then reincorporate or let the county take over.  

KM: So, they're stuck.  

AP: Yeah, they're in a weird legal purgatory where they don't have a government and they can't get one because they're still incorporated as a town. That's made it hard not just to hold an election, but even to get records. When Hartman's trustees quit, they gave their records over to the county. And normally you can file a CORA, a Colorado Open Records Act, request to get budgets and meeting minutes. But the county attorney told me she can't even open the boxes and tell me what's in there until abandonment has formerly occurred.  

KM: In five years? 

AP: Yeah.  

KM: That's a weird law.  

AP: I don't think people were thinking about the impact on open records access. The father of Colorado's abandonment law actually died a decade before the first open records law was enacted in the late 60s.  

KM: You really looked into this.  

AP: Yes, I did. Amos Walther brought the bill in 1921. He was a representative for Ouray County, which was dominated by booming mining towns from the mid-to-late 1800s. According to the papers at the time, Amos ‘showed business capacity of a superior order.’ He was ‘the very type of man of which our legislature should be composed.’  

KM: Oh, I see the Silverton Standard said he ‘was a man of sound conservative judgment in all financial and business affairs.’ 

AP: And ‘punctual in attendance in committees.’  

KM: ‘A representative worthy of future recognition.’  

AP: For a while, at least. From what I can gather, just before the start of the 20th Century, the silver industry collapsed and those big mining towns went bust. You can still go out there and explore the remains of Ironton, Alta, Mineral Flats.  

KM: Ghost towns.  

AP: Yep. Most of those towns were abandoned in the early 1900s. Amos Walther brought the bill in 1921.  

KM: Words travelled slowly back then.  

AP: Maybe, but the law contains a few clues embedded in it. It said that towns could be declared abandoned 20 years after their last election. So, that would address the towns that collapsed in the silver bust, but it also mentions roads in the title.  

KM: ‘Concerning towns and villages in which local municipal government has been abandoned, and to provide for vacating streets, avenues and alleys.’ So, you have these towns that were abandoned in the 1900s, and they got cars in the 1920s. They had to figure out who to tax to maintain the roads.  

AP: That's my best guess. So, then, like now, the loss of a town's government really becomes a problem when an important thing, like roads or water, is left without someone to take care of it. In the 1970s, the legislature shortened the abandonment period to five years and moved the process from the purview of county courts to the secretary of state.  

KM: I've been meaning to ask what happened with Dawn Railsback’s lawsuit, the one asking the judge to order an election.  

AP: The judge dismissed it, citing the provision that sends these kinds of cases to the secretary of state. And while Colorado is known for real old timey ghost towns, the director of the Colorado Municipal League says towns still appear and disappear every few years. 

Kevin Bommer: With the exception of the difference of having the failing water system, Hartman is no different than Bonanza City or Carbonate.  

AP: This is... 

KB: Kevin Bommer. What has happened in Hartman is not common, but it sort of is derived from some common themes. You have a very small population, mostly older, working, retired, very impoverished community, not, you know, no tax base, folks that just doing everything they can to survive that. You see that in a lot of rural towns, there's not anything essentially economic driver at all. Their case here, and this is common in some places, not in others, they have a water system that is owned by the town, been the subject of several state compliance orders. They've received funding to try to, made some upgrades, repairs in the past, but the thing that sort of set Hartman apart was the very sharp divide between a small group of folks in town and others in town. It was, it was almost like the Hatfields and McCoys out there. You ended up with a dwindling number of folks that were willing to be elected officials, run for, or be willing to be appointed to, vacancies.  

AP: Abandonment is a legal process. But Kevin argues Hartman has struggled for long enough to be considered lost.  

KB: I mean, for all intents and purposes, there is no town. The town still exists as a legally incorporated body, but without a functioning government, there is no ability for them to come up with any solutions. Even if everyone agreed, and they don't.  

KM: Ouch.  

AP: The same time I was digging into this story, I saw an interesting petition pop up in Boulder County: a petition to incorporate a municipality.  

KM: Into a new town?  

AP: Kind of.  

Nick Little: Last year, 2025, we actually celebrated our sesquicentennial, which was our 150th anniversary as a town from the founding of Niwot. But the funny thing is, is that Niwot, from the beginning until now, has always been an unincorporated community.  

AP: This is...  

NL: Yes. My name is Nick Little. I am the president of the Niwot Incorporation Committee.  

AP: Niwot is a small community north of Denver, near Boulder, known for its artists and impromptu performances of the Niwot Semi Marching Free Grange Band. While some people in Hartman out east want the county to run their town, some folks in Niwot want to become incorporated to better insulate themselves from countywide decisions.  

NL: So, we are only 1.4% of the population of Boulder County. The people who are governing us are the Boulder County Commissioners and Boulder County. Yet, we basically can't move the needle in terms of we basically have no voice in an election.  

AP: When Boulder County commissioners make decisions, they do it on the scale of the county, which isn't always what's right for Niwot.  

NL: My wife and I, we left Boulder after 20 years in Boulder. We had two little boys and we're like, all right, let's, we're going to go to Niwot. And one of the things that really we liked about Niwot was it had like this cute little downtown and like some nice restaurants, but then those restaurants ended up going away. And as a, as a citizen, it was like, like what, what, what happened? Like the 1914 House was a great was a great place. We loved that place. That was part of the reason we moved to town. And you, you look into it and you ask around town, it ends up that there was a lot of pressure on the business community, because Boulder County had had set a very progressive minimum wage policy, and it was continuing to go up until 2030. They were going to they were scheduled to do go take it up to $25 an hour.   

AP: A town government could also levy taxes to fix the roads, and they could choose how to comply with state level requirements to put more houses along transit corridors like, do you want to make it horses, a horse track walking down your town because it fits the character instead of big buses or a train track or something like that?  

NL: Yeah, or if we have to do density, it's like it all comes down to who is making the decisions. Are we as the people who living here, are we making decisions based on our local experience, based on what we know, based on what works for the town? Or are we letting other people make their, make the decision for us?  

AP: I asked Nick how he plans to make everyone happy. He said you can't. Some people oppose incorporation and always will. But the process is also designed to reach a consensus.  

NL: A lot of this is actually already defined for us in how we do that. Should we win and should the Niwot citizens, the Niwotians, vote yes, we'll have nine charter commissioners, and these charter commissioners will draft our town's constitution. What we want is we want nine people that have a good representation of what Niwot currently is, and they are going to work together to draft our town constitution. And once that happens, the people of Niwot have to vote on it. As I look at this, I'm like, this is very American. I mean, I'm I'm obviously biased, right? I am very unapologetically pro incorporation because I think it is the better thing for us to do, because being against incorporation means that you don't trust your neighbors, right? Because if you're for incorporation, you're trusting your neighbors. If you're against incorporation, it means you're, you're trusting people you don't know in a different town with decisions that impact your livelihood. And this is what it's hard. It's like, OK, so you're not willing to trust your neighbors, but why do you live here? Don't you live in Niwot because you trust your neighbors? Like, isn't that why we're all here, is because we have this sense of being a Niwotian, and we're in it together? 

KM: So, there's hope for Niwot, at least. 

AP: And maybe for Hartman. 

KM: But it sounded like the law leaves them stuck where they are for years.  

AP: The thing about laws is if you don't like them, you can change them.  

Government Clip: The Senate Local Government Housing Committee will come to order. Please call the vote.  

KM: All right, Amanda, bring us up to speed here. Where are we?  

AP: This is a clip from a state Senate hearing in April. Hartman state Senator Republican Rod Pelton has been working on a bill to staunch the bleeding.  

Rod Pelton: Committee, thank you for hearing this bill today. I have a small community in my district, and actually several that are kind of on the brink of maybe the same situation as going on in Hartman, Colorado. So, what this bill does change the statute to allow in emergency for the state to step in to get the water system up.  

AP: The bill fast tracks abandonment for a town with no government and critical water infrastructure. It also makes sure the county doesn't inherit the town's debts. And it creates a temporary emergency grant program to cover Hartman's water costs through the abandonment process.  

KM: What did he mean by there are a couple of towns in this situation?  

AP: It depends on who you ask. Some people I spoke with at the state told me other towns shouldn't be compared here, but there are a number of people living in rural Colorado who see the collapse of government in Hartman, and they're like, ‘You're not alone. Our government isn't being transparent with money, and they're not listening to us at meetings. And we want reform, too.’ And they're actually worried that the bill will make it too easy for the government to get away with fraud, then walk away from their posts and let the county take over.  

Jammie Darrell: Senate Bill 157 is short-sighted because it responds to Hartman in isolation without examining the broader pattern of statutory failure across statutory towns in Colorado.  

AP: This is Jammie Darrell testifying before the committee. She bought a house for her mom, Shawna Casey, in Hartman.  

JD: This bill is introduced without conducting any assessment of governance fragility. The collected data on, collecting data on statutory failures and no evaluation of the town's current currently show those towns currently showing risk, nor has it considered the population this bill impacts most of. Often, communities that are aging, low income and administratively fragile, failing to consider the reality of displacement of these residents.  

KM: Were a lot of people opposed to the bill?  

AP: Yes and no. In April, I went out to Holly, Colorado, where state and county officials met with two dozen Hartman residents to talk about the bill.  

Maria De Cambra: We're just going to give it five minutes, because I know some of you have said that there's more residents. So, if you guys just want to grab some snacks or anything.  

AP: The meeting had a pile of Christmas decorations on the far wall, and a kitchen counter lined with chips and drinks. At least half the population of Hartman, basically everyone willing and able, came and sat around the folding tables. It wasn't long before the old arguments resurfaced.  

SC: You're supporting the path forward for the state, but you're not supporting the town in our state. This is for, well, certainly not for us. It is my opinion. Because when you guys turn this over to another water authority, it's going to cost us a lot. Granada was going to charge us $3,000 a meter per person, per household. Can anybody afford that? I know I can’t.  

AP: That's Shawna Casey saying she doesn't think they can afford whatever fix the bill brings.  

MC: Well, you got a choice. Either you got this bill go through or we do without water.  

AP: And Mark Cooper saying there is no other way. Maria De Cambra from the Department of Local Affairs moderated the meeting. Though she kept telling me not to call her a mediator, she really kept people on task.  

MD: Okay, so let's do one thing. Last time we were here, just one second, let's start with kind of grounding this for a second. Last time when we met, we agreed that we were going to be respectful to each other. She was, she spoke. Let's each speak one at a time. That's my ask, please. Because if not, this is not going to be productive and we really need to leave here today, like the legislature is going to end in a few weeks. We need to leave here making sure that this is the direction you want, any questions you have for the senator. This needs to be productive or you guys are not going to have water in a couple months. It's pretty simple.  

AP: Shawna and I spoke more on the phone.  

SC: So, for anybody to say that this fight and the hostility or whatever is what brought the town down, that's not true. What's true is that we have gone to every state agency we can go to for help, but they don't have the ability to help us because the statute doesn't allow them. There's no place in the statute to give anybody the authority to step in and clean this mess up. Aguilar is going under right now. They're circling the drain right now. Fowler, Sugar City. Sugar City is right on the end, too. Ouray. All these little towns are going to go down. Things are not looking good for Hartman right now. Isn't look good for any small towns right now. We're fighting not just for us. We're fighting for every small town right now. It's a, it's a big burden right now because we feel if we fail, we fail all the small towns, and that's not going to be great.  

AP: Do you think most people would credit you with starting the mini revolution.  

SC: God, I hope not. Nope. I have really tried to stay behind the scenes. You know what I mean? I really, I really don't want to be out in front of anything. I really, really don't. I'm not in this for that. I'm, this is my life. I know a lot of people think I'm just a troublemaker. They didn't realize I was trying to help, you know what I mean?  

AP: Yeah. 

SC: But I do hope that, I do hope that they realize that I really have been working towards all of us, not just myself, because I don't know what this would have benefited just me. You know what I mean? Because it's not, it's health wise or anything else, it's not benefiting me, I can guarantee you. But I really do hope that something positive comes out of it, not just for Hartman. I hope it brings a change to Colorado law because it affects a lot of people.  

AP: A change that is not a change in the abandonment law.  

SC: Yes, not that. That is not the change I'm looking for. No, that law is an example of what is wrong with Colorado statutes right now. You know what I mean? It's just another bill, another law that is leaving small towns, small rural town people out of it. It's just punishing us. It's just punishing us for, for what? Tell them the truth? And I do feel guilty for that. I feel like, see, that's why I don't want to be known as the person who started the revolution, because I'd be the reason that this bill came about. And if it passes, I'm going to feel very guilty. You know, I've just struggled so hard that it just, if that is the legacy I leave, oh my God, you know what I mean? After all this time, after all this. Oh, what a waste.  

AP: Shawna didn't testify, but she went to the Senate hearing with her daughter, Jammie Darrell, who we heard from earlier. Shawna was the only person from Hartman to go to the legislature for the bill. I asked Melissa what she thought of the bill.  

MV: I think instead of fixing the problem, they're trying to hide from their mistakes. I feel sorry for any small town that follows in our footsteps.  

AP: Did you write any letters to Pelton or the lawmakers in opposition?  

MV: You know, I didn't. Honestly, I'm really not that political. I kind of saw it the way probably most Americans see it. Why? What's the point? They're not going to listen to me anyways. I'm just some hick from the hills and it doesn't matter what I have to say.  

AP: Lawmakers also had a handwritten petition in support of the bill, signed by 21 residents with a stake in Hartman.  

KM: How did the bill fare in the state House?  

AP: The bill is as controversial as it gets in Hartman, but it passed every committee hearing and floor vote unanimously. Even with that support, the bill had three weeks to go through both chambers before the end of the session. After Governor Jared Polis signed the bill into law, someone still has to petition for abandonment, then the secretary of state has to post signs and hold hearings. Meanwhile, the chlorine in Hartman's water tank ran dry in May.  

MV: It's kind of a scary thing, honestly. I mean, our water stinks to high heaven right now. I thought that's what the whole agreement was about, was if we abandoned the town, that we would still have chlorinated water. May not be drinkable, but it wouldn't stink to high heaven.  

AP: When did that start?  

MV: Um, about two weeks ago. I water my grass. I flush my toilet, but I take a shower at my mom's. She lives in Grenada. My kids shower in Grenada.  

AP: That's 10 miles away. Even if the abandonment process goes according to plan, it's still impossible to predict what is going to happen to Hartman.  

KM: What do you mean? It looks like the process is pretty clear now.  

AP: Maybe on paper. But what happens to Hartman has always been up to the people of Hartman. That's the harsh reality. Because everyone wants it to be someone else's fault. When I was done talking to Velma and Dawn and Mark outside the Holly meeting center, I got back in my car and I drove home. They drove back to Hartman.  

AP: What's it like?  

DR: I know if I'm out working and I fall down, someone will stop and help me and vice versa. I would stop and help anyone that fell down.  

AP: Yeah. 

DR: Even if we have a little bit of history and not seeing eye to eye. I would still help anyone that needs help. We like quiet, simple lives. Does that make sense? I can walk a half a mile out of town and hear nothing. Silence. I can see the moon in the stars. I like that. I've got a little fireplace that I light a little fire, and it's almost like camping. But I can step inside when I need to after I put my fire out. I can roast marshmallow with my grandkids and make s’mores, and it doesn't bother anybody.  

KM: Big thanks to Amanda for this great reporting and thanks to all those listening. Head on over to courthousenews.com for more stories like this from across the country and around the globe. Planning any road trips this summer? Check out Sidebar’s back catalog to find the perfect story to listen to. I recommend listening to our recent episode exploring the legal systems from across the pond, or maybe our one from 2024 looking into the artwork on display in the halls of justice. The Sidebar team will be taking a summer hiatus and will be back in your podcast feed in August. See you then. 

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