Board of County
Commissioners (BOCC)
—January 8, 2020
WESTCLIFFE, Colo.
by Jackie (Muddy) Bubis
The meeting started with the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, and roll call. Introductions of the public followed.
Chairman Flower opened the first meeting of 2020 with prayer.
After a vote, Mr. Flower will continue on as Chairman and Mr. Canda as Vice-Chairman. Mr. Flower expressed that he thought it would be “fun and interesting” to have the other two Board members chair a meeting during the year.
Commissioner Items
Commissioner Printz wished everyone a Happy New Year. He attended the Ambulance/EMS committee meeting and reported that the clinic now believes that, since Heart of the Rockies doesn’t want the ambulance service, the ambulance should be its own standalone taxing district. This item will be discussed at the clinic board meeting on the 30th. The question arose whether the clinic should set that district up or if the BOCC should be doing that. Mr. Flower expressed his hesitance at the clinic setting it up because the AMR option will likely never be considered. Mr. Printz again stated that he believes that AMR is the way to go. Attorney Smith believes that EMS should just become a department of the county, like Road & Bridge, with its own mil levy.
The Board decided to have a workshop on January 13th at 1 p.m. to address the issue prior to the next BOCC meeting and prior to the clinic board meeting. Another tidbit of information: Heart of the Rockies will not be replacing Lisa Drew as administrator when she leaves in March. Instead they will hire a lower level manager.
Commissioner Canda met with the Carmel group to discuss fiber optics. He also asked to put together a letter of support for the Scenic Byways group.
Commissioner Flower stated that the new conference table should be done and in place on Friday. He asked Mr. Printz to make sure that employee evaluations are done for the custodian and maintenance man. He reported that the skid steer has arrived at the landfill.
Attorney Items
Mr. Smith has been working on Resolution 20-20 to accept the Cuerno Verde roads. This will be on the agenda for the 15th. This resolution does not add any new roads to county maintenance but simply makes official the roads that have been accepted in the past. Mr. Hyde is working on similar lists for other subdivisions.
New Business
The Board ratified Mr. Flower’s signature on the VSO report that needed to be sent in.
The Board worked through the entire agenda for the first meeting of the year:
2020 holiday calendar
2020 meeting calendar
2020 county appointments
2020 regional appointments
2020 county department points of contact.
The Board voted to award the Wet Mountain Tribune the official publications for 2020 as they were the low bidder. The Board, however, did not go with the low bidder for the trash disposal contract because Oak Disposal did not
provide a complete bid. That contract went to P Bar O Disposal.
Lists of appointments, etc. can be found on the Sentinel website (www.sangredecristosentinel.com) and will later be on the Commissioners official page, (http://custercountygov.com Commissior page.
UPDATE
The Board held a workshop on January 13th to discuss the ongoing EMS issues. The consensus from the three commissioners (though, of course, no decisions were made) was that the best plan for the county was to contract with AMR for ambulance services.
Attorney Smith suggested that there is a breach of the 1989 contract for service because the service plan has changed without approval by the Board.
Note: When the clinic changed its status to a rural health clinic, the 24/7 emergency nature of the care given at the clinic ended. No longer were ambulances able to stop at the clinic to allow for stabilization by higher level medical personnel. This will be the topic is on the agenda for the 15th.