We Are So Blessed!
Two BOCC Reports in One Article

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
Our mighty three musketeers, that is our three Custer County Commissioners held two Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meetings last week. One on May 2nd and the other on May3rd. All three muskies were present at both meetings: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Tom Flower. Both meetings started at
9 a.m.
The May 2, 2023
BOCC Meeting:
Staff Reports:
Sheriff Rich Smith was the first victim. Smith reported that the Sheriff’s Office (SO) had a grand total of eight transports to/from the hoosegow in Cañon City. He reported that our Fremont 911 Authority costs will go up around 5% this year.
Smith noted that Calls For Service were down a bit in April. Also, the state did a security checkup on the courthouse and they are looking at recommending some improvements. There was also a mold problem in the SO building and Smith had to hire a mold specialist to fix it to the tune of $4K.
Road & Bridge reported that the gravel crusher contractor finally showed up and is making precious gravel. Also, there were a lot of breakdowns on the county equipment and the “parts are killing us.”
Planning & Zoning stated that permit volume is up a bit this year and they are currently doing nine violation reviews. They also issued four cease and desist orders.
Robin Knappe, Office of Emergency Management (OEM) reported that FEMA approved our Hazard Mitigation Plan update and she is working on some other emergency operations plan that has to get done. Then there was the big grant review talk. She then talked about the FEMA flood mapping group that is working in the county. She said if we don’t get in the FEMA flood program the peasants here won’t be able to get Fed insurance and money in case they are impacted by a flood. (The problem is that there is a HUGE amount of Fed/FEMA baggage/control the feds would have over us poor serfs (like MANDATORY building codes) if we join this control freak program. The muskies, previously noted they wanted no part in this.) After Knappe was done, Flower basically killed it with, “We have taken a stand on that issue.”
New Business:
First up was consideration of hiring a new attorney. (There are two candidates: Dan Slater from Cañon City and Curtis Tomme from Fremont County but he lives just over the border from Custer County.)

Human Resources Braden Wilson led the discussion. Wilson said Slater’s hourly bid was $135 per hour and Tomme’s was $125 per hour. [Strangely, Wilson didn’t mention Tomme’s alternate bid of a fixed price (I think it was only $2,500 per month) for UNLIMITED hours. What happened to that?]
All three muskies blathered about how close the “scores” were between the two but Slater came up on top. Canda said Slater had a lot of municipal experience while Tomme had none. (Tomme was a criminal prosecutor and defense attorney.) They all voted for Slater. (See some interesting information about this below.)
And that was that.
(Editor/GG: Both lawyers looking for this job are good. Slater has a lot of municipal experience which is a plus. But maybe you didn’t know this about Slater: he is one of the TOP democrat operatives in the state. And I mean top. Which means he leans extreme left politically. —Look at the insane laws the dems passed this year!— He will be advising the muskies on various issues some of which are political —2nd Amendment, Red Flag laws, zoning, housing, etc.—plus he will be sitting in on their frequent Executive Sessions where the dirty laundry is aired. All three muskies are “republicans” with Flower proudly wearing his RINO badge. Plus this is a heavy republican county.
Here is a quote from Slater’s law firm’s website (danslaterlaw.com) to give you a taste:
“Dan has served as a leader throughout Southern Colorado. He currently serves as First Vice Chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, following a term of service from 2003-2005 as Secretary of the State Party, one of the first non-metro individuals elected to serve as an officer for the Colorado Democrats in several years. In his capacity as First Vice Chair, Dan serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee, as well as the Association of State Democratic Chairs. In 2000, Dan received the prestigious “Rising Star” award from the Colorado Democratic Party. In 2002, Dan served as the Democratic nominee for the Colorado General Assembly in Senate District 2, a sprawling nine-county district larger than the State of Maryland. Prior to running for office, Dan served as the Chair of the Fremont County Democratic Party. Dan served as a Delegate to the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles as well as the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Dan was instrumental in bringing the 2004 State Democratic Convention and Assembly to Pueblo, bringing a huge economic boost and high profile to Southern Colorado; he also served as the state liaison to the Greeley 2006 State Assembly and chaired the CDP’s 2006, 2008 and 2010 Site Selection Committees.
Dan was an integral part of the efforts to bring the 2008 Democratic National Convention to Denver, Colorado. He served as the Vice Chair of the Denver 2008 Host Committee, and was a founding member of the Host Committee. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Host Committee. He was a “super-delegate” to the 2008 National Convention, and was among the first super-delegates to publicly endorse then-Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. During the primary season in 2008, Dan served as the campaign’s Colorado representative in charge of the delegate selection process.”
On the other hand, Curtis Tomme is a Christian conservative who was very active in the republican party in Texas even being the Republican County Chair in a major Texas county. We’ll see how this goes.)

The May 3, BOCC Meeting:
Staff Reports:
Human Services reported that their office is very cold in the morning (like 64 degrees) and they have to wear coats till it warms up later. Also there are two water leaks from the ceiling and they are using garbage cans to catch the water before it damages their files and equipment.
New Business:
Planning & Zoning’s Dorothy Carsten requested a part time employee for the summer as they get “swamped” sometimes. This was ok’d. She also said the Jeep Liberty vehicle they are using is not reliable and she would like get a better vehicle (used). This triggered the muskies as they didn’t budget for it. They suggested using the VSO pickup which is not currently used or sharing the new Public Health truck that is not being used much. It was finally decided that she could use the VSO truck and the muskies would contact Public Health about setting up a sharing option with P&Z.
Next up was meeting scheduling for the new county attorney, Dan Slater. It was noted that he is the Town of Silver Cliff attorney and Silver Cliff has their monthly meeting on the first Tuesday every month starting at 5 p.m. The muskies said that this might create a problem for Slater if he has to go to a morning muskie meeting that day. So after a lengthy discussion, they decided to hold all (or most) BOCC meetings in the afternoon going forward to accommodate poor Slater.
Somehow, during this discussion a miracle happened. The muskies were worried if they have their meetings in the afternoon they might have to meet into dinner time and that is bad. So the MENSA candidates pondered on how possibly could they shorten the meetings. One of them (I can’t remember which one) suggested that instead of having each department head come in to give an oral report that the heads submit a written report the week before. If the muskies had any questions they could resolve it by email or invite the head to the meeting. This would dramatically cut down the meeting time as most of the reports are just run of the mill stuff.
(Note the Sentinel has been asking the muskies to do just this FOR YEARS. It is what ANY business guy would do.) After a long discussion, they agreed to have the first meeting of the month on the first Tuesday of the month at 1 p.m. and the second meeting at
9 a.m. on the first Wednesday of the month.
Hallelujah!
(One caveat: These staff reports need to be posted on the BOCC website in a place just for them. They are public records and the public needs easy access to them. Transparency needed here muskies.)
And the mighty muskies rode off into the sunset…..