by George Gramlich
Pretty mundane stuff at this one. The Custer County Board of County Commissioners’ April 6, 2021 meeting started at 9 a.m. with Chair Bill Canda and member Tom Flower present in the throne room and member Kevin Day participating via Zoom (as he is finishing up his isolation after testing positive for the red bug.) County Attorney Clint Smith and County Clerk Kelley Camper were also present.
In Staff Reports, Road & Bridge reported that they got the broken trash compactor fixed after a lot of work. They also said that the recent gravel they are using from the gravel pit has a bit too much clay in it and it becomes a mess when wet. So they had to buy some “naturals” gravel mix from Beach Concrete and that works well. The price is cheaper than producing their own gravel so they want to buy this stuff going forward for a while.
Jackie Hobby from Planning & Zoning was on the hot seat next. She asked that Justin Giroux be approved as an alternate on the Planning Commission. That was ok’d. Jackie then reported that between January and March of this year there was a total of 72 structure building permits issued which was a ton more than the same time last year. She also has sent out 15 violation letters during that time period. She asked the musketeers to raise some of the permit fees due to an increase in paperwork and the fact the Custer’s fees are a fraction of our surrounding counties.
Next up was Vic Barnes, Chair of the Planning & Commission Board. Vic reviewed a whole bunch of changes to the county’s Planning Resolution concerning Short Term Rentals (STR’s) that the musketeers had given him recently. They went over this in detail.
The discussion swayed into how much growth and development people want in the county. Flower said that most people like the county the way it is and are not really pro growth. Flower then went on to describe various methods and strategies that the county could use to slow growth or even halt it in several areas. Examples given were increased fees, stricter zoning regulations and a moratorium on new subdivisions. When that was over, they decided to have another public meeting on STR’s to go over the proposed changes.
Using Zoom to broadcast the BOCC’s meetings was the next agenda item. Specifically, Canda wanted to discuss the problem with people using Zoom commenting during the meeting via Zoom. He said there has been a few times when the commenters were way out of line with their comments, e.g., being overly aggressive and rude. (Guess who?) Also, they wouldn’t wait for the comment period and just interrupt. Another factor was that some of these people weren’t even residents of the county and that has a bearing on the weight of their comments. This was discussed for a bit and the conclusion was that if things got out of hand, Canda or the IT running the Zoom would just cut that person off (like they did to Jordy “Red Bug” Hedberg at the last Board of Health meeting.)
The discussion also talked about continuing to use Zoom/YouTube. All agreed it was a big plus for transparency and allowed a lot more people to view the meetings as most folks just can’t make the meetings during the day or even at night. It is very convenient to be able to view them when one has time. (Using Zoom since the red bug hit has increased community participation in the BOCC meetings dramatically which is a very good thing for a healthy community.) They finished with a vote to continue using Zoom.
Three people commenting via Zoom said they appreciate the musketeers using Zoom and it “helps transparency”. One guy even said, “It is a job to be involved.” (Commissioners: keep Zoom and Youtube going. Open government is good government.)
Meeting adjourned.