☀️How Montezuma County Residents Feel About Solar ☀️

From September-November of 2025, Open Answer Mobilize canvassers surveyed over 500 Montezuma county residents about their feelings on utility-scale solar. From June of 2025-November 2025, the county had in place a moratorium on new solar projects built in the county. Our mobilizers not only surveyed residents, they also turned out 19 people for a public hearing on a Tuesday morning. After 14 of our supporters spoke, the county commissioners decided to lift the moratorium and allow for new solar projects to come into the county which would boost the local economy and provide more reliable energy for a region in need. 

When our team presented the Montezuma County Commissioners with our findings, they found it hard to believe that 75.80% of Montezuma County residents surveyed expressed strong or lean support for solar projects in their community. They raised concerns that the high support scores were skewed by disproportionate responses from Cortez, the largest city in the county. They assumed the even more rural population would be against solar and were not well represented in our data. As always at Open Answer Mobilize, we worked hard to obtain a representative sample of the county but further narrowed our focus outside of Cortez after this conversation. In doing so, we found support for solar actually jumped to 80% when looking at responses from zip codes outside of Cortez. 

At Open Answer Mobilize, we know we can’t make assumptions about the communities our partners want to reach before we hear from them directly, and nowhere is that more clear than in rural areas. 

News Coverage:

Montezuma County rejects moratorium, paves way for solar energy- The Journal

Commission approves new regulations for large-scale solar and alternative energy- KSJD

Montezuma County residents petition to end solar moratorium- The Journal