Board of County
Commissioners (BOCC)
—October 18, 2017
WETMORE, CO
by Jackie Bubis
The meeting started at 9 a.m. with the Pledge of Allegiance and Roll Call. County Attorney Smith was not in attendance. Introductions of the public in attendance followed.
Commissioner Items
Commissioner Hood reported that the Tourism Board will be hosting local organizations who want to get events on the calendar. That meeting will be at Tony’s Pizza on November 14th. She also emailed Bill Nobles and reported that the application deadline for the Custer County agent position is December 7th. She spoke about the four-day budget hearing process and stated that the Board did a really good job trying to approve all the budgets. She did mention that one elected official was a no-show. (Note: that elected official that she was chastising was Kit Shy, who only had one mandatory thing on his budget – his roughly $2K/year salary.
Commissioner Printz reported his frustration with the airport hangar that still is not repaired. He stated he will go to ACE today to approve the bid on the construction materials. He also talked about a Custer County Kids council meeting that he attended.
Commissioner Kattnig stated it had been a busy ten days. He commended the Saddle Club for withdrawing their budget request. He attended the 4H awards banquet and the Action 22 legislative meeting. He again reported that South Hardscrabble will remain closed.
Administrative Assistant Items
Brenda Gaide got a call from Amber with CDOT who wants a meeting between the CDOT bigwigs and the Board. It will be December 14th at 10 a.m.
Mr. Kattnig added that he would be going to a CDOT planning meeting on the 30th and urged his fellow commissioners to join him. He stated that there was severe road damage from trucks to South Highway 69 to Gardner.
Ms. Gaide continued with her report and stated that the conversion of the budget from Lotus to Excel was almost finished.
Old Business
The Underfunded Courthouse Grant has been extended. The Board is asking that the scope of work for the remaining $126K be changed to a plan for a 15K square foot courthouse building. Once the grant contract is signed, the design will likely be issued within four months.
Custer County Search and Rescue’s (SAR) Larry
Weber brought a RETAC grant to be signed. The grant request is for $2,500 for Wilderness First Aid training. The Board signed the request. Weber also reported that SAR is always looking for volunteers – here he made a joke about wanting volunteers under age 60. They are especially looking for technical climbers to volunteer. (See their website (http://custersar.org/) for more information.) He also told the Board about a brand new truck the organization acquired with donations and grants. This truck will pull the command vehicle nicely. Weber also asked the Board for help with laying gravel in the parking lot to assist with landing helicopters. Mr. Kattnig recognized Wetmore citizen Ruth Roper for her work with SAR.
The RETAC grant application was signed.
The $1,200 that had been sitting in an old account (money from an old program for helping with housing) was donated to the Custer County Affordable Housing group. There was no mention of using this $1,200 in place of part of that group’s grant request.
Public Comment
Sheriff Byerly thanked Beth Archuletta for helping with keeping his 14 AED’s up to date and procuring new batteries and pads. He also said that he’d found a Homeland Security grant (no local match) that he would be applying for to cover the $27K in fencing needs at the Sheriff’s office. He asked about Centurylink updates from the Board. They had none.
A citizen asked for an update on the Wetmore Community Center (WCC)building. After Chairman Kattnig mocked the question, Mr. Printz stated that the building is completed and paid in full. At this point, a member of the WCC board took exception with the Board for not informing them at the last meeting in Wetmore, when they reported things still not complete, that the contract had been closed and paid. He felt that this was a lie of omission. The discussion got heated. (Audio on Sentinel’s YouTube page or goto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgC5eKhVHkc.) Mr. Printz took exception with the citizen’s remarks. When the citizen stated that “they” were responsible for the building, both Printz and Hood quickly jumped in to say that the building is the county’s responsibility. (Note, the Wetmore Community Center by-laws
state that the center will be governed by a board of Wetmore area residents to serve as administrators on behalf of the Custer County Commissioners. ) The WCC board members stated that calls had been made to Mr. Printz regarding these issues. Mr. Printz denied getting any calls.
Another citizen spoke up with her gratitude that the footbridge, washed out by recent flooding had been fixed. The cost and work was done by Alden Grey and other Wetmore residents. Mr. Kattnig spoke up and said that he had looked for funds to do this repair and was unable to find any. He joked that he thought he might have to pay for it himself. (Note: the topic never came up in any public meeting.)
The meeting was adjourned at 10 a.m.