by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The December 6, 2022 Custer County Board of County
Commissioners was one for the record books. The three mighty County Commissioners decided to hold two meetings in one so this thing started at 9:00 a.m. and lasted till early evening. EIGHT HOURS! All three musketeers were at their thrones: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and “Traitor” Tom Flower (“TT”).
After the usual blathering about all the important county business the muskies did since the last talkfest, County Attorney Clint Smith announced that the county jail will be closing (insane state liberal mandates, staffing issues, EMS not providing services to the SO anymore and other things) and since it is the muskies responsibility (the county owns and budgets for the jail but the Sheriff runs it) they are going to have to get in gear and make a deal with Fremont County to house our few inmates. Smith says they need to do an Intergovernmental agreement with Fremont County. He said he will have something for the muskies to look at at the next meeting. (Note the SO has been working on this for awhile.)
In Staff Reports, the Veterans Service Office said they have plenty of canned food for distribution. Road & Bridge said they have algae in their fuel tanks which is causing machinery breakdowns but they have a contractor coming in to clean the tanks of the pesky bugs.
Planning & Zoning noted that things are slowing down a bit. In November, they did ten inspection reviews and issued 21 violation reviews. Most types of permits are down from last year. The P&Z honcho, Dorothy Carsten, made a play to hire a full time Code Enforcement/Compliance Inspector as she said the new job could easily pay for itself by fining our residents for violations. (And keep us peasants in line and making it more expensive to live here. This sounds like a VERY BAD idea for a little county like ours. We don’t like people snooping around our properties with the inspector needing to FINE US so he can keep his job.)
The Airport crew reported the new fuel tank is done and the state is coming out in January to calibrate it. Landfill said they are already using the new state approved trench.
“Traitor” Tom then brings up the federal fairy dust LATCF grant of $414,804 which the county recently got. This is just the first half of the LATCF manna. The second half comes next year. (You wonder why the country is literally bankrupt?) What has the muskies salivating is that there are no strings on this coin and they can treat it just like General Fund money. The question before the all powerful muskies now is how are they going to divvy up this windfall. (Picture if you will, three jackals circling around a dead water buffalo….)
“TT” opens up the feeding frenzy saying he has a document with his suggestions on it that he sent to the other muskies. He said he wants to put some money into Workforce Housing. He then went full Flower Power Hour mode and talked and talked and talked. He got the County Finance guy, Braden Wilson, to chime in about how the county can make money off of Workforce Housing by getting rent from the units. [I see, the county now is going to start building low income rental units, get good tenants, keep up the property, collect the rents, etc. They can’t keep the courthouse roof from leaking. This is called socialism and they should not be going there. Instead of raising the cost of building here in Happy Valley (which they just recently did by massively increasing all kinds of building and inspection fees) they should be lowering it. Free market solutions work, gov “solutions” don’t. Look at the last boondoggle with Charles Bogle’s Economic Development Corp. project to build a bunch of ugly and useless internet towers around the county. How much money did we waste on that fantasy which is now a dead horse.)
When the Flower Power Hour ends, Canda suggested allocating some money to four departments/entities: $50k for recycling, $75k to the VSO, $75k to the airport and $25k for IT. The rest he suggested be kept for grant matching. This starts a NEVER ENDING talkfest between the muskies (while they munch on the poor buffalo), Wilson and even County Clerk Kelley Camper. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…
Finally, Canda makes a motion to increase the Airport manna from $75k to $125k and this passes. The muskies then vote on the whole package with Canda and Traitor Tom voting “aye” and for some reason Day voting “nay”. This triggered micro-manager freak Traitor Tom who starts demanding detailed reporting from the entities over how they spent this gravy. This, of course, goes along for way too long.
The Airport proposed “fuel farm” subject was next. The fuel farm is really just another tank for “Jet A” fuel. The muskies like this and throw $175k at it.
Next up is the carpet replacement for some areas of the courthouse building including the court-house itself. Wilson said the quote was for $11k. It took the Mensa muskies and Wilson some-thing like TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES to describe every little carpet piece, which rooms, and where o’ where will the $11k come from. (Efficient County management at its finest.)
The approval of the 2023 County Budget was next. (The muskies just finished a bunch of budget workshops where they decided what they wanted to do and how much they wanted to spend. This vote was supposed to just ok those numbers but guess what happened?)
Traitor Tom opened with “I got a problem with this budget.” He said most of his “problem” is with the Public Health Department and he doesn’t like people there “getting $7k raises” while “other people are getting almost nothing.” TT noted that the administrative assistant there, with the proposed $7k raise for that position, will be getting around $70k per year and that ain’t right compared to other county employees. He said “I am not anti Health Department or anti Cliff Brown.” (Brown wanted 10% raises for his crew. The Covid period was very high stress and they did good under a ton of pressure. Plus, the raises would come out of grant money they got and wouldn’t cost the county a dime. The muskies agreed to this at the budget hearing. “TT” changed his mind for some reason….)
Traitor Tom then GOES THERE and says, “I think we are getting played” by the Health Department. (That is precious coming from our very own Machiavellian Prince.) He said the administrator is the grant person there and somehow that’s bad. (With regards to the raises for Public Health, the policy there is if the grant manna goes away, all the raises go away too. It almost seems TT is mad cause the administrator would be making more than poor TT….)
Canda, who is the muskie contact person for the Health Department, defends the raises and says they are doing a great job. It turns out that the Health Department’s budget is around $500k with the county only chipping in around $100k and the rest coming from grants that the Department obtained. Day and TT then go at it again.
TT then attacked Brown again saying when Brown started in 2019 his salary was $55k and now three years later his salary is up $30k and that ain’t right. Canda responded with he asked about all the other local counties Public Health Director’s salaries and the lowest was $100k so we have a bargain right here. TT goes blah, blah, blah for a LONG TIME and then he suggests the muskies limit all salary increases to 6% this year. (This is after they agreed on the figures in the budget meetings.) After a few minutes he withdrew that suggestion.
Day then said he accepts what happened at the workshop but he “shares the angst.” He added that, “I don’t like it but I will go with what we decided in the budget workshop.” (Remember this statement folks.)
TT, the human talking machine, continued with, “We are being manipulated” by the Health Department. “Other administrative assistants are getting $40 to $45k” and “the optics are terrible.” Then more blah, blah, blah. “I think they schemed us. They are writing grants to get jobs.” (That’s called being smart. But, of course, the muskies grant money is somehow different.) TT won’t stop, “I won’t feel comfortable supporting this budget over these raises.
I feel like I am screaming in the dark.” (Close your eyes folks and picture that optic.) “I might be pissing in the wind.” (No comment.) And then more on and on.
Wilson piped up with the obvious: we need a salary structure for next year. (DUH!) Ms. Camper then said, “when this gets out, there will be some mad people.” She then went on to make a good case comparing salaries and work loads and that her admin gets $28k and the Public Health would be getting $70k and “that’s not fair.” This of course sets TT off on what the muskies need to do going forward. On and on.
Day, out of nowhere, then completely reverses his prior stand that he would abide with what the muskies decided in the budget hearings and proposes a 5% cap on raises for this year except for the Sheriff’s Office. Day has changed his mind and is now supporting TT’s position. (The SO got a big salary structure raise in the budget hearings as it was absolutely needed to recruit and keep deputies. They are way below their needed staffing levels.)
The Mensa muskies then reviewed the budget worksheet that Wilson had given them trying to determine how many county employees would be affected by this cap. It was unclear from the brainiacs how many but it looked like there were five in Public Health, one in the Assessors Office and maybe one in HR/Finance.
Then there was this really strange SILENCE for a few minutes. Day and TT are rocking their throne chairs and Canda is looking out the window. For the first time in YEARS there is peace in the throne room. Sort of. (Believe me, none of them were praying.) Finally TT and Canda say they have no more to say. (Glory be.) A motion is made to limit raises to 5% or the flat rate Cost of Living Adjustment ($2250) that the employees are getting. Day and TT vote “aye” and Canda voted “nay”. It passed.
Finally, a motion is made to approve the 2023 County Budget. All three muskies vote “aye”.
There is peace in Happy Valley again.