PERMFILE70660

• Permit No: M1993023
• IBM Index Class Name: Permit File
• Doc Name: IN RE PETITION OF MOFFAT CNTY FOR DECLARATORY ORDER
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

noted above, the definitions of terms used in the Act are ignored
under the Society's interpretation of the Act. Additionally,
Section 108 of the Act sets forth the duties of the Society in
carrying out the provisions of the Act. Those duties are limited
to preparing, expanding and maintaining the State Register,
notifying agencies of additions and deletions to the State
Register, preparing rules and procedures, and assisting state
agencies in "reviewing activities, programs, projects,
undertakings, and all other agency action for adequacy in
addressing the preservation of oronerties in the State Register."
§108(3).
The focus of the Act as a whole is upon the creation and use
of the State Register for the protection of certain historically
significant property. Other than the unfortunate use of the phrase
"historical significance" in Section 104(2)(a), (a section which
sets out the procedure for the Society's review and comment), the
Act does not even hint that it may apply to properties which are
not listed or nominated for inclusion in the State Register. To
attach such weight to one isolated phrase, while ignoring the
purpose of the Act, is simply erroneous. Public Utilities v.
Stanton Transaortation, supra. An ambiguous statute must be
interpreted to further its purposes. Perlmutter v. Blessing, 734
P.2d 616 (1987). A reading of the entire statute indicates that
the purpose of the Act is the creation and maintenance of the State
Register, with limited protections for those properties listed or
nominated for inclusion in the State Register.
3. Avoidance of absurd or unfair results. In construing an
ambiguous statute, one must avoid a construction which produces an
absurd or unreasonable result. City and County of Denver v.
Holmes, 156 Colo. 586, 400 P.2d 901 (1965). The interpretation
given the Act by the Society and the Board does create an absurd
and unreasonable result.
"Agency" as defined in Section 102(2) of the Act, includes
twenty (20) principal departments of the State of Colorado. Those
principal departments collectively oversee hundreds of sub-
agencies, such as this Board. The State Historical Society is an
educational agency with neither the skills nor the resources to
review every action of every agency throughout the State of
Colorado. The Society could not begin to review each decision of
every agency to determine whether properties of potential historic
significance will be affected. The more logical interpretation of
the Act merely assigns the Society the duty of keeping the State
Register up to date and available for review by all state agencies.
The Society's review and comment duties are only triggered after a
state agency determines, from reviewing the State Register, that an
action will affect a listed property.
The Society does not apply its own interpretation of the Act