Seems like there is a major riff developing between the volunteer backcountry SAR teams and CPW who is supposed be to proving funding to teams (specifically the Keep Colorado Wild - license plate $$$ that taxes payers individually opt-in on to give money specifically to SAR). They gave It out the first year or so but now it looks like they see it as big $$$ that CPW would like to decide how to spend. Sketchy.
Sounds like CPW is wanting to throw away decades of collaborative work between teams and trying to give away a big chunk of that money, that is supposed to be distributed to volunteer teams to pay for things like gas, and equipment to government contractors. They put out an RFP Looking for a 3rd party contractor to coordinate all this free volunteer labor.
With SAR being under the authority of the Sheriff, it seems like some of the SOs are split.
If you are on a Colorado SAR team, are you aware of these recent changes? Does it seem like CPW is fairly sharing funds? What’s your team’s take on all this? Why do you think they aren’t engaging directly with volunteers and instead just tell us what they think is best for us?