Republican Commissioner Candidate Forum
The Difference Could Not Have Been More Striking

by George Gramlich,
News/Commentary

Night and Day. That’s how one Commissioner candidate looked versus the other three at the September 19, 2020, Custer County Republican Central Committee’s (CCRCC) Commissioner Candidate Forum. We’ll get to the dark/light theme in a minute.
It was a packed house at the event with no social distancing observed at all. (Will somebody tell me exactly what has changed as Commissioner Flower and Printz would have called the Federal Health Nazi authorities on this just a few weeks ago?)
The candidates were incumbent Commissioner Tom Flower,
versus his write-in opponent Lucas Epp in District 3. District 2’s open slot is contested by Republican Primary winner, Kevin Day against recent write-in candidate, Republican Lynn Attebery.
CCRCC’s Vice Chair Andrew Zeller was the moderator. Each candidate got a two-minute introduction time and then the questions were either read from written questions submitted or they could be verbally presented.
So, before we get into some of the details and quotes from the forum, let’s just touch on the “Darkness” versus the “Light” allusion previously mentioned. It has become increasingly apparent over the last three years that Commissioner Flower has turned out to be quite the arrogant bully in his position as County Commissioner Chairman, often coupling up with outgoing lefty Commissioner Jay Printz in blind siding Commissioner Bill Canda on a variety of issues as reported often in the Sentinel. Many times, obviously rehearsed rhetoric and motions were presented by Commissioners Flower and Printz, typically in a rude, derogatory and demeaning way, to defeat a position or action proposed or backed by Commissioner Canda. (Note: There might be some SERIOUS Open Meetings/Sunshine Law violations between Flower and Printz as many actions appear to be decided in advance. We would like to see an investigation into this.) It is often so bad it looks infantile. Whether it is a sense of inferiority or just a severe character flaw, this type of conduct and attitude for a County Commissioner, especially in Custer County, is totally uncalled for. Plus, Flower’s obvious contempt for the voters with his famous “It’s a privilege for the citizens to talk at Commissioner meetings” (Quote from memory, but close enough.)
This attitude was in full display at the forum as Mr. Flower’s condescending tone of voice talked “down” to the audience while the other three candidates, in a completely neighborly way, talked “to” the audience. By the applause and spontaneous comments from the attending citizens , it was clear that they, collectively, noticed this almost hostile attitude by Flower, and did not like it.
So let’s roll through some of the more interesting questions posed by the citizens.
One of the first questions was “What would you have done differently knowing what you know now?” with regards to the China virus actions taken by our local Board of Health. (Note: I wrote these quotes or paraphrases down as I watched the video. Some are not exact but close enough. No way was I going to listen to that again.) Epp, Day and Attebery all said they would not have been as strict considering the almost complete lack of cases in the county which got a lot of agreeing nods from the gallery.
Commissioner Flower tried to defend his totalitarian actions during the last five months by stating “ I will abide by the rules… issued by the state as we are a part of the state government.” In other words, whatever King Polis and the socialist hipsters in Denver say, without any statutory authority, is what he would do. Note, folks, that there were many counties in Colorado that completely ignored these unconstitutional dictates from Denver. The people who made those decisions were County Commissioners. No different than Flower, but apparently, they had enough common sense not to destroy their own counties.
A gentlemen then brought up Flower’s infamous statement, it is a “privilege to speak” (that is, it is a “privilege” for a citizen to speak at a Commissioner meeting) which came out of Flower’s mouth this year when confronting a voter at a meeting. Flower did the morning glory verbal dance about this (I think “can’t remember” was mentioned) ending up with he is glad to talk to all “civil people”.
A following question concerned the controversy swirling around the proposal by Flower and Printz a few weeks ago of the BOCC turning over control of Custer County’s Board of Health (BoH) to unelected people who would be accountable to NO ONE! This was brought up by ONE person at a BOCC meeting who is not even a registered voter in this county plus she has an agenda behind this that I think we do not want to see in Custer. (GG: Read August 28th BOCC at sdc.sentinel.com – she was obviously the introducer via phone but Ms. LaSage did all the talking AT the meeting.) This unelected Board would replace the current BoH board, which is solely comprised of the County Commissioners, with some citizens that the Commissioners would initially appoint then, after that, the non-elected board would appoint their replacements or additions with NO accountability to the public.
Flower and Printz were all over this insane idea as it would allow them to escape accountability for their actions and have somebody else take the fall when foreseeable bad things would happen. Way to stand up, boys!
Well, apparently there was a tsunami of opposition to this proposal by the citizens of Custer County and at the last meeting they changed the proposal to that of having an “Advisory Committee” instead of a new BoH Board. The point here is their first reaction was to flee from the gunfire, and not run to it. That is not leadership.
(Note: the advisory board was approved by motion and vote on September 17th with Mary Ellen LaSage (a Medical Reserve Corps member, which leans seriously left) as interim chair and she was given authority to name the members and develop the structure. The members have already been decided but the names would not be released. So the actual BoH Director has NO say in choosing these people. Printz and Flower let ONE non-resident, who nobody knows. appoint all these people to these very important positions. Insanity.)
With regards to the question, Flower said after initially pushing the abdication of duty, he changed his mind to the “Advisory Committee”. Note folks, that we have a brand new County Health Director, Dr. Cliff Brown, and this is really his call, not theirs. If he feels he wants or needs advice, let him ask for it. This just undermines his authority. Jeepers, he just got here, give the guy a chance. The other three candidates were totally against replacing the current Board of Health with unelected officials.
Another question was, “What is the most important thing needed in the county” or “What thing in the county needs the most help?” Lucas Epp responded about the quantity of people moving in and how the county would accommodate those newcomers while Candidate Kevin Day said we needed to get the local economy going again. Lynn Attebery said we need to beef up our law enforcement to handle a bunch more people. Flower said we needed more revenue.
Next up was a question, “Was the masking and shut down a violation of our Constitutional rights?” Attebery confirmed that many of the actions taken were not constitutional and that other counties’ commissioners stood up to the state and said NO. Epp also noted that it was time to stand up against illegal mandates and Day said it was time to make a stand.
Then Flower said, yeah, maybe there were some unconstitutional actions taken but justified this by stating this FLAT OUT LIE; “I don’t think anybody in this county
was forced to do anything by the BoH.” The audience loudly groaned at this one. “Oh really, Tommy!” Did we not see the BoH power crazed bureaucrats harassing dozens of businesses all over the county threatening to shut them down if they did not comply? Did we not see Printz have a complete, and I mean epic, juvenile meltdown at a local coffee shop over someone not having a mask on? We could go on for hours but the point here is this, Flower just told a huge lie right to the citizens sitting in front of him and to the county at large without “skipping a beat”. Time for a change, folks. We can disagree on policy etc. but not outright
lying. Flower’s audacity continued by then stating, “I understand the rules of the BoH, but maybe you (i.e., the citizens) don’t…” Geez, I guess us poor peasants just need to be ruled. We are way too dumb to understand tyranny.
One citizen then asked, “Do you support building codes and Dark Skies?” All said no but Attebery commented that eventually either due to banking pressure or state mandate that building codes will be here.
Another question was raised about the new BoH Advisory Committee and the fact that the BoH Board hasn’t given the newly hired BoH Director any time to get settled and come up with suggestions. Epp suggested the Advisory Committee idea was a bad idea at this time and the BoH should let the new Director have some time to orient. Epp said the concept of the Advisory Committee “scares him” as the people on that committee might have a completely different agenda than the Director.
Flower seemed to get a little “hot” at this question and in a snappy tone said, “If you can’t get your mind out of that, you should stay out of politics.” Nice.
The next question was “When would you bring back in-person citizen attendance at the BOCC meetings?” as Printz and Flower have banned us citizens from attending the meetings and instead use some hokey semi-working zoom and phone-in process that is a nightmare. All three non-incumbent candidates said “immediately” with Epp noting that if it is OK to sit in a cramped plane with 300 people for hours and hours, it is OK for the people to attend the BOCC meetings. There was no answer from Flower.
There then was a question on our Sheriff’s Office Deputies’ salary structure and how it was so low that new deputies stay here for a while, often as their first job, and then leave for places with much better pay. Day, Attebery and Epp said we need to look hard at the overall county budget and find some money while Flower said we needed more revenue (i.e., new taxes.)
The most remarkable statements made during the short closing comments by the candidates came from Commissioner Flower who unabashedly pushed for a dramatic increase in “revenue”, that is taxes, to get things done. Mr. Small Government himself said, “ We are out of money to do anything more than we are doing now” and that instead of organically growing our tax base and thus getting more tax revenue through the existing tax structure, he wants more taxes.
Mr. Flower ended his solo performance with a couple of uplifting and inspiring quotes which we are sure will go down in Custer County history:
“We are not going to keep up in the county if we do not increase the revenue stream.” That is, we need more taxes to feed the
bureaucrat beast.
And speaking again to the peasants in the audience, Flower stated, “You don’t know about this stuff.” Yes, Tom we are dumb kulaks who need to be ruled. We
understand your perspective.
And then Flower delivers his grand finale, possibly alluding to a local conservative newspaper that he so ‘admires’ and reads regularly, “All you want to know about is the stuff you read in the paper.” (Thank goodness the “paper” prints the truth about what is going on.)
Night and Day, folks. Let’s bring the sunlight back to the BOCC this November. We are going to need real leadership going
forward and we have the
candidates to do it. Get rid of the swamp. Let our elected citizens govern us, not rule us.
Vote for Kevin Day or write-in candidate Lynn Attebery in District 2, and, most definitely, vote for write-in candidate Lucas Epp in District 3. We can fix this.