DENVER—The organizer of Initiative 75, the grassroots anti-fracking measure, announced Monday that he has folded the statewide campaign after failing to collect enough signatures.
In a letter to the Pagosa Daily Post, lead organizer Cliff Willmeng said supporters made “heroic efforts” to place Initiative 75 on the Nov. 4 ballot, but were not on pace to gather the requisite 86,105 valid signatures needed by the Aug. 4 deadline.
Initiatives generally need about 125,000 signatures to clear the petition hurdle, given that many signatures are inevitably found to be invalid by the Secretary of State’s office.
“With just 9 weeks to get 125,000 signatures — and lacking hundreds of thousands in funding — we knew we faced an uphill battle for 2014,” said Willmeng in the post. “We took a tally this week and now know that we’re going to be well short of where we need to be. Disappointing, yes. But we have just started the fight for our Colorado communities.”
Willmeng vowed to resume the anti-fracking fight in 2016 with more money and better preparation. His group, the Colorado Community Rights Network, had only raised about $5,000 and was relying on an army of anti-fracking volunteers to circulate petitions. Read more »