How to sign up and testify at CPW Commissioner meetings. Yes, you should. No, you don't need a smartphone or computer.
The people doing Ag in this state need to speak up for each other.
Whether you run cattle on the Western Slope of Colorado or you grow forage on the Plains, there are precious few people in Colorado in Production Ag, while there seems a never-ending list of advocates—paid, volunteer, and sometimes from out of state—who are speaking up in support of things that either have the potential to harm producers or that will most assuredly harm them.
Listen to any CPW commissioners meeting and you’ll have no trouble at all seeing what I mean.
I have heard from people in the past that testifying is a challenge because of jobs, lack of technology, and lack of know how. I understand the constraints and so I made this quick guide to help ease some of those problems, to help you find ways to make speaking up work around the other constraints you have in life.
Testifying at CPW, speaking up for yourself and for your neighbors, needn’t be as complicated as it seems. It needn’t put you a day behind. To give you an example, the last CPW meeting I spoke at, I was speaking into an ordinary flip phone while sitting on the treatment table at the physical therapist’s office.
You can call in from any touch tone phone and get involved. You can call in from the cab of your pickup as you drive around. You can call from your desk. You can get a group together and support each other, each one of you calling in.
You can do this. You should do this.
How?
I see the above as two questions. The first is the simple mechanics. How do I sign up to testify? I’m going to skip the usual methods. I won’t cover signing up to testify in person. I won’t cover how to do it via the web. As far as those methods go, if you know, you know. Also, I will touch on the harder-to-define questions of “what do I say” in the following part.
Here I want to address the people like myself who have a job and who have other commitments such that they can’t sit in front of a laptop for hours at a virtual meeting. Or, and the instructions are the same, those people who want to be involved but may not be as tech-savvy.
As a quick side note, if you are not good with computers, show the below to a friend who is internet-savvy and have them help you sign up.
Unfortunately, CPW commission meetings do not come with as much advance notice as other agencies do. To make sure that you’re signed up and have time to plan, you need to be on the ball. What I do is go to CPW’s website, linked here (you’ll find the meeting calendar about midway down the page), and pick a date from their calendar that I will be able to testify. I then email the admin at dnr_cpwcommission@state.co.us to see when the signup and agenda will be put on their website.
Having done this around the end of November told me to expect the January 8 — 9 meeting to be live on or about Dec 31, 2024. When I checked the same page linked above (you’ll have to scroll up from the calendar), I saw that the January meeting was posted. I circled the part where you click.
If you hit the “View Details” button inside the circled bit above, you’ll get to the meeting details page. The details of when, where, and what type of meeting are in the box on the right below the header. The agenda will be linked below the "Meeting Materials” (also boxed).
Here is another example of how CPW, again unlike many other boards, is different. They have a pretty rigid agenda, and when you go to sign up to comment, you will need to know the particular item you are signing up for.
The screenshots below have examples of what I mean. They were taken from the Jan 8 — 9, 2025 meeting agenda.
If you had general public comment (not related to any one particular issue, you would sign up to offer comment on Agenda Item #12.
If you want to speak up about the recent petition sent to CPW asking for a pause on wolf reintroduction, you would sign up to comment on Agenda Item 13c.
Having found your agenda item, the next step is to go to the sign up form. That can be found here. If you have ever done an online survey, this will look familiar. That is essentially what it is.
I took a screenshot of the part of the form that you will click in to choose your agenda item. In keeping with the screenshots above, I highlighted items 12 and 13.c.
Once you have filled in the form and submitted it, you should get a confirmation email with links to sign in. Scroll down past that to the part with the phone numbers. If you’re going to call in from a touchtone phone, that’s what you need.
I am not testifying at the January meeting, so I didn’t sign up, but I can show you what the email will look like. The screenshot below is from a CDOT meeting I testified at recently. I highlighted the information you’ll need to copy to testify by phone.
If you’re going to log in via Zoom on a computer, you’d use the link up near the top.
I copy the phone number (the one with the 719 exchange in the red box, though the other US numbers work just as well) onto scratchpaper. I then copy the Meeting ID and the Passcode onto that same paper. You will be asked for all 3.
Then I put the agenda item I signed up for along with the approximate time it’s up. Additionally, I write out a couple two agenda items that precede mine and a couple that follow.
This is particularly handy, because if you’re not in front of a computer, you’ll need some way to orient yourself in terms of where the meeting is when you call in. All you will get when listening is audio remember!
I think it is also worth it to send an email to the CPW admin (dnr_cpwcommission@state.co.us) or reply to the Zoom email you get to let him or her know that you’re attending via phone.
When someone attends by phone there is no name, only a phone number visible on their end. An email to give them a heads up will help them know who belongs to which number.
The night prior to the meeting, plug your phone in and get it charged. Nothing is more frustrating than running out of juice!
The day of the meeting, call about 15 minutes prior to the agenda item you wish to speak on. Wait your turn. When called your phone will remind you but just in case:
—Hit *6 to unnmute
—Hit *9 to “raise your hand” (get the admin’s attention.
Then say your piece. In the third and last part below, I’ll cover some tips on how you can make the actual testimony easier (both to do and also ON you).
Now the harder, at least less-tangible, “how?”, what do I say?
I understand completely if the idea of speaking in front of a board makes you even a little bit nervous. I was my first few times. I still am here and there and I’ve been speaking up in front of boards, legislators, etc. for years now.
Remove some pressure from yourself and just accept the idea that you will flub. You will make a mistake. You’ll stumble in your wording, something. I do. I still do. If it helps, remind yourself that simply by signing up to speak you are doing something, and that something is a whole lot more than nothing.
That out of the way, let me offer you some helpful ideas about testifying to minimize mistakes and to give yourself the best chance of delivering something with impact.
I have had people tell me that the hardest thing to do is to come up with something to say. As with the above, I sympathize. I am tempted to give you a script here, but the problem with scripts is that the people who hear them over and over and over, well, they tune them out.
Wouldn’t you?
What I’ll do instead is give you some things you should consider mentioning or weaving into your own words, a framework on which to hang your own personal testimony.
Start with your name and where you are from.
“Good afternoon [morning, day], my name is [give your name]. I am a resident of [where you live, be as specific as you’d like, I often just say Logan County for myself]” Here I think it’s also appropriate to give some biographical detail, perhaps something like “I am a lifelong rancher…” “I am a lifelong resident of …”
“I wanted to call in and give you my thoughts on [the topic you are testifying about]”
“I am for [or against] ….” It is also appropriate here to give some biographical detail if you didn’t above. “As a member of a family that has raised cattle on this land for 3 generations, I am calling today to speak against … “
Once you have established who you are and your position, think up the various reasons you feel the way you do and share them. The below are some examples, though not an exhaustive list.
“I have a big family and we rely on beef as a good source of protein. We are also on a budget. I am concerned about the increased pressure on those that supply us beef driving up prices for my family at a time when we’re already struggling.”
“I am concerned with what I read in the news about how you are handling wolf reintroduction. I don’t think it is helping anyone: ranchers, cattle, or even the wolves themselves. Dropping new wolves with strange wolves in unknown territory is setting them up to fail. Biologists introduced wolves in Yellowstone using a carefully drawn out plan, but here in Colorado it seems much more haphazard.”
“The Colorado plan has been shown to be expensive and harmful to everyone in this state, and this includes wolves.”
“There is nothing at all wrong with taking a pause so that we can make sure we do this right”
“It’s time to slow down and execute this reintroduction more carefully.”
“I am concerned about the definitions you have released re. depredation. It seems that the rules allow for so much flexibility that they are virtually unenforceable"
“Oregon’s definition of chronic depredation is 2 kills in 9 months. Your definition has it as 3 in 30 days. That seems excessive.”
On to more general tips. The list below is, again, not exhaustive, but a series of things I’ve found to be helpful in my own testimony over the years. In no particular order:
Prepare. After you sign up, sit down and write out your testimony. You know you will be time-limited so be concise. I’ve found that one typewritten page is about 3 minutes (that’s a common time limit).
Practice. This is public speaking and thus it’s like that class you had in high school. Just like then, it’s a good idea now to practice your speech. You needn’t do it in front of a mirror (you won’t be standing in public), but read through it a time or two. When you’re nervous you want that muscle memory to kick in.
Think through your words carefully. Emotion, strong words, are like seasoning. A little salt on steak makes it taste better. Too much salt and not even the best steak in the world is palatable. If you are emotionally moved, let them hear that, but don’t let it dominate what you say. If you are angry, let them hear that, but don’t let it dominate what you say.
Tell the commission things that they don’t know. You know Ag, not everyone (especially with Polis at the helm) on the CPW board does. Look at your testimony as a chance to inform them about the unique challenges and problems you face. Look at it as a way to inform them of why this or that plan of theirs either will or won’t work.
Use your circle of friends for support. If you are the kind that takes strength from friends, get a group of friends together to testify and sit around the table with your phones.
Speaking of friends, contact someone you know and tell them to join you in speaking up. Share information on how. Share information on the problems you face.
As you wait your turn, listen to other people. This will give you two things. One, it will give you ideas. It will give you things you can repeat. Two, it gives you something to say if you think your words are not good enough. You can always get on when it’s your turn and say something akin to “I want to echo what Jane Smith said earlier ….” and end it there. Many is the time that I have said, “Others that spoke before me said it better than I could so what I would like to do is to say I agree with them and that I hope you hear what they and I are saying.”
I hope that this guide was helpful. If you have questions, please message me through here or social media. To the extent that I can, I am happy to help. If I can’t, I might know someone who can.