BOCC: Muskies Vote to Proceed with
New Justice Center Project Proposal

No Vote Yet on Whether to Put It
on the November Ballot

by George Gramlich,
News and Notations
The Custer County Board of County Commissioners had its July 14, 2021 meeting at the palatial Wetmore Community Center. It started at 9 a.m. All three musketeer commissioners were present: Chair Bill Canda and muskies Tom Flower and Kevin Day.
The meeting started with Commissioner Items where they dazzle us with all the good things they have done since the last meeting.
Day was up first with some possible bad news. The Florence Fire Protection District has decided not to include Wetmore (which is in Custer County) in their proposed new ambulance special district. This leaves the Wetmore folks exposed a bit but our own EMS crew has been servicing the area, However, it is a long haul. Day said the Florence people are open to a deal with Custer County over the area via a Memorandum of Understanding or some other approach. He also noted the Penrose EMS had stopped operating as of July 1st as they didn’t have enough people to run it. (Wetmore EMS coverage has been an on again/off again struggle for years now.)
Next it was Flower’s turn. He said the water court judge has ruled that the Upper Ark Water Mitigation plan can move forward as the litigation is over or nearly over. He then regaled the audience with how he is fixing the sprayer in the kitchen sink of the Wetmore Community Center.
Canda then noted that he is still working on getting a maintenance contract set up so the county can have a fix-it guy on hand when things break or need maintenance.
Under Public Comment, Canda said the county’s roads are, overall, in good shape and Oak Creek Grade is doing real well with the magnesium chloride stuff on it.
New Business was next. The first item was the Special Use Permit (SUP) for Twila and Darell Geroux to build a RV/boat/vehicle storage building on their property. (The property borders the Town of Westcliffe and the town has been downright hostile towards their proposal.) Flower says the parcel is in Zone 4 so it is not on the valley floor. He then did a great job on defending the Geroux’s as some people have been criticizing them about this. Flower said the Geroux family has been here forever and holds dear our agricultural and cultural values. He says they will take great care of the parcel. (We concur. Twila and Darell are the BEST.)
There then came up a question about their SUP as it contains language that apparently requires them to be “Dark Skies” compliant with their building and grounds. There are no Dark Skies lighting rules outside of the Towns of Westcliffe and Silver Cliff (and it doesn’t seem to be enforced too well there anyway) so somebody said that this was not right. County Attorney Clint “North Star” Smith, who is also the president of the local Dark Skies organization, piped up. Speaking as president of Dark Skies, he says they have no jurisdiction over county land and the SUP should be changed to suggesting that the project be Dark Skies compliant. This discussion goes on forever. Finally they agree on changing the language and the SUP is approved by unanimous vote by the muskies. Canda finishes this up with a defense of how the county does SUPs with Planning & Zonings director, the regal Jackie Hobby, chiming in with support.
The big magilla was next: the proposed New Justice Center Ballot initiative. Canda explains that the discussion today was about whether to proceed with the effort to put it on the ballot. It is not about putting it on the ballot now. Ann Barthorp, a member of the New Justice Center Committee (NJCC) was asked to speak. She talked about how the committee is proposing to us peasants, the ways we would pay for this. She said they looked at three approaches: sales tax only, property tax (mil levy) increase or a combination of the two. For some technical reason, the combo option is illegal so that is out. She said they decided to go with a sales tax increase only. Ann said that with all the new people moving in and the internet sales tax now pouring money into the county, it is the best and fairest way to go. Piper Sandler, the big bond broker company the NJCC is using as an advisor, said a 2% sales tax increase for 25 years would do it. (The current projected cost is around $18.7 million dollars. See below for more on that.) Ann then read a list of what is going to be in the building. The NJCC says they anticipate getting several million dollars in grants, however, they can’t apply for grants, until, and if, the ballot measure is approved by the voters. (We’re talking this November if it gets on.) She says they are working on the ballot wording now. The muskies then discussed when to put the ballot wording on the agenda. It looks like it will be July 30th.
There than was a big discussion over the proposed sales tax increase and the current towns and county sales tax rates. Flower asks Ann if they have an estimate of the annual sales tax revenues in the future. No answer.
It was then brought up that the current county’s total sales tax rate is 4.9% (state is 2.9 and county is 2.0). A 2.0% increase would bring the county to 6.9%. Both Westcliffe and Silver Cliff current sales tax rates are 7.9% with the proposed increase bringing it to 9.9% (which would be one of the highest rates in the state). Citizen Peggi Collins then Zoomed in over the internet and said Cañon City’s tax rate is 8.4% and that people might tend to go down the hill to shop if the town’s rates went to 9.9%. Canda responded to this with meanderings on “we have to educate the voters”.
Citizen Chris Bryson then spoke about some of issues with the jail saying the problems have been lack of staff issues and not structural problems.
Flower then brought up a good point. He asked, has the NJCC estimated the maintenance cost for the new building? (Note: the county will still be using the old building so our maintenance footprint will increase dramatically.) No real answers on this one. Canda jumps on stating that the $18.7 million cost does not include furniture and such and somehow, they are going to “budget” for that. (This is not a trivial expense. Where will that money come from?) Flower then whines that people are complaining to him that the muskies are going to raise their taxes. He says not true, the people will decide at the ballot if they want higher taxes.
Meeting adjourned.
(Editor/GG: The NJCC gave the newspapers a presentation several months ago on the project, with the cost and the possible revenue increase proposals. They had pared the project down to $18.7 million but it was unclear at the presentation what cost figures and revenue projections were used. Also, the sales tax increase proposed in that presentation was 2.9% not 2.0%, which was probably a deal killer. After this July 14, 2021 BOCC meeting, I sent an email to the commissioners and Ann Barthrop about these numbers. Sheriff Byerly, who is on the NJCC committee, was gracious enough to respond via email. Here are some of Sheriff’s Byerly’s comments:
“The 18.7 million dollar figure we are basing the construction costs from was for current construction costs projected for the spring of 2022. The 2019 projected cost was 17.2 million and always has been. This is why we are basing a 2% sales tax to cover the cost of the project and some operational and maintenance costs as well. If the commissioners decide to go with a 25-year schedule, then we will have to find grant funding to make up for about 800 thousand to build but if we go with a 30-year schedule, then it will generate approximately 1.1 million in operations and maintenance funding.”
“As we have said in all the forums as well as public meetings, we believe it is very realistic that we will secure two million in grants. That is being conservative because we don’t want to state it as fact, because grant funding is dependent on securing funding for the project. As you may know, we have to be able to guarantee we can pay for the project, prior to applying for grant funds. Our goal is to try and secure 4 million in grant funding which would then reduce the schedule to around 20 years, depending on the timing of those grants and some other low to zero interest loans to pay off the bonds early and lower the payment which would in turn shorten the payoff schedule. That is the goal and we have a couple of folks who have worked to research and investigate those funding alternatives when and if the funding is passed.”)