BOCC: OEM Keeps Pushing for a Taj Mahal, Copper Gulch Road a “Train Wreck”, Finance Progress

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The March 13, 2024 Custer County Board of County
Commissioners (BOCC) meeting was another romp down the bureaucrat drainage ditch lasting four hours and fifteen minutes. The meeting started at 9 a.m. in the Commissioners building next to the Courthouse. All three Commissioners were in attendance: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp.
In Commissioner Items, Epp reported that the company hired to clean the mold in the courthouse basement finished the task and it appears that the leak from the roof is fixed. Epp said he is getting bids to fix the roof. (This has been going on for a decade….)
Staff Reports were next. Road & Bridge said that Copper Gulch Road is a “train wreck” and they are working on it. Excessive speed is blamed for a lot of the damage. R&B plans on doing a lot of work out there this summer.
Human Resources’ new Director, Bob Smith, said he was visiting
the various departments and reviewing some current operations and procedures documents. He gave a packet to each Com-missioner with HR’s proposed “Mission Statement” and wants comments from them.
Planning & Zoning was next.
Director Dorothy Carsten noted that the office issued 14 various zoning permits in February with 28 issued year-to-date. She said the office took in $53k in income so far this year. She told the Commissioners that the moratorium on creating new subdivisions was expiring in July.
Landfill reported that the state is about to give approval to the County’s 30-year landfill plan.
For the Finance Department, the consultant that the County hired to fix the audit issues and a host of other problems, Lisa Hemann of Redlands Accounting, gave a presentation on her progress so far. Lisa spent a few minutes on her background (a CPA since 2005 with a ton of audit experience). She said she spent four days on site two weeks ago and is preparing a report to give the Commissioners. Ms. Hemann said there was a handbook (the “green book”) that spelled out how to run a small government accounting operation. (By the looks of things, nobody in the County has ever seen it.) It
covers leadership, hiring qualified people, enacting internal control
policies and leading by example. (NONE of which the County had been doing in Finance. NONE.) She noted that “risk assessment” is a key leadership trait. She then spent some time noting the various issues that she had discovered including communications to monitoring of policies and procedures. She noted various problems with the CIC accounting system re: wrong line items and lack of training.
Ms. Hemann went on to state that she could help with writing internal control policies and procedures including one for purchasing. She added that she would assist in the 2023 audit and our monthly closing and reconciliation process. During questions by the Commissioners, Ms. Hemann said we need to focus in the next month on the 2023 audit to make sure we get it submitted in time. Epp stated that Ms. Hemann’s work will be broken down into “phases” and that each phase will be a separate contract.
In Public Discussion, citizen Cindy
Howard said that the Finance
Department might need more staff and that a certain statutory filing (budget amendments) had not been done in a few years and that has to be looked into.
IT Director Vernon Roth then gave his report. He said that he finished installing new anti virus software and that it scans all incoming emails. He stated that he had been working long hours on the Finance issues and noted that he had been receiving good “support” from the CIC company.
Robyn Knappe, Office of Emergency Management, was next in the hot seat. She talked about grants, grants, grants for this, grants for that. Then more grants, grants, grants. She said the Commissioners had to install “whistle blower” mailboxes in every county building as that was a law. (Better install big ones, boys.) She then turned to the subject she has brought up several times: OEM needs its own building. (For some unexplained reason, in a prior meeting she said she needed a building to put all of OEM’s stuff in. But stuff was not defined.) Knappe said she could probably snag a ONE MILLION DOLLAR grant for her Taj Mahal, but the Commissioners would have to cough up $250,000 in matching funds! (So now we are at $1.250 MILLION before we even get to the starting line. The County’s whole annual budget is only around $9 million.) She said she wants a 50 by 100 foot addition added to the Search and Rescue building. (5,000 square feet!) When questioned on the cost, Knappe said she got ONE estimate from a contractor a year ago. (She had NO engineering drawings, sketches or renderings of what this palace would look like. If you don’t have drawings etc., you don’t have an estimate. Plus one estimate is a joke. And this lady is going to run big emergencies in the county?)
This outrageous waste of money was met with skepticism by Epp and
Canda. Epp said we “don’t want another building now” and in
emergencies Wet Mountain Fire has that big room (that has worked
beautifully during our last two big fires). Epp noted that a new building would be a lot more maintenance and operating expense. Undeterred, Knappe kept pushing the proposal saying, let me apply for the grant and if we get it we can decide then to go forward or not. (Insanity. This is the last thing the county needs. A classic case of “empire building”. We just got the biggest property tax increase in memory, and she wants to drop at least $1.250 MILLION on a huge structure for no serious reason. Where is the cost/benefit study? Where are the plans? Where is the operating and maintenance cost estimates? How many MORE people will she hire to fill the Taj up? Good grief! Knappe: This ain’t Denver or Boulder. We want SMALL and EFFICIENT local government. If we want to spend more money it should be on the Sheriff’s Office and Road & Bridge, NOT on bureaucrat office space.)
Canda jumped in on this insane waste of money saying Wet Mountain Fire ran the big fires out of their building and that went fine. Canda noted, “Until we get straightened out, we should wait on this one.” Canda continued with, “We can’t do this until we get our finances straightened out. We are under a microscope. We need a
business case for this.” Epp added, “We have a lot of taxpayer funded buildings that are not used a lot.”
Day finally piped in , “If we don’t get the DOLA grant would this impact anything in the future?” Knappe kept pushing, “We could hire a contractor to do a facilities study, or a study among agencies to look at the space needs.” This went on and on. Finally, things wound down without the Commissioners giving their ok to proceed. (Thank goodness.)
In New Business, it was revealed that the Commissioners had interviewed three candidates for the BOCC Administrative Assistant/Public Information Officer’s job. They all liked “Candidate C” for the job. They finally voted to offer the job to C.
Next was Resolution 24-04, Prioritizing Resources. This is the illegal alien non-sanctuary resolution. They want to say they don’t want any illegals here, but they have to couch that intent (so our local white lib snowflakes don’t go berserk,) saying we don’t have the resources to support illegals attempting to live off the
community. Epp made a motion to “table” this item until the end of the month (March 27th). He said they were too “busy” now. (That ain’t the reason, but maybe we will find out. The county attorney was supposed to draft the resolution based on what Fremont County did.) Canda concurred and they all voted to table it.
This “tabling” did have one small plus. In Public Comment after the vote, James “Dr. Doom” Gilbert, our local democrat big wig, was upset saying he waited four hours to comment, and he was a bit miffed as he wanted to make some comments (on the possible illegal alien invasion of Happy Valley). Thankfully, we were spared. (Hopefully, Gilbert and the other pro invasion dems in the county will open their homes up to the illegals and mitigate their white guilt. They got a ton of money. We, as a county, don’t have the money or the infrastructure.)
And that was that. Folks, let the Commissioners know where you stand on this non-sanctuary resolution. It could be a big deal as there is no end in sight re: the MILLIONS of illegals entering the country thanks to Biden and the dem politicians.