BOCC: Channel 13 on Air! UAACOG Grant Madness, New Assessor Software, Executive Session on the Hacking Scandal

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The August 29, 2024 Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meeting was held at their royal digs across from the county court-house. It started at 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were in attendance: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin  Day.
In Commissioner Items, Epp noted that our auditor, Sam DiNardo, has draft copies of the 2023 audit and will be at the Commissioner’s throne room that afternoon. Epp also said he had talked to the engineering firm (that is paving over what is left of the Town of Westcliffe’s natural grass and dirt) and asked them to do an “assessment” on the courthouse roof which needs repair. (I am sure they will recommend a two-foot layer of concrete as a roof. It’s the “Westcliffe Way”.)
Canda said Channel 13 was finally broadcasting from our sacred TV mountain. It will be another four or five weeks for Channel 11 to start as they are waiting for a new antennae.
Day reported that the Upper Arkansas Area Council of Governments (UAACOG) (a “non-profit”, based in Cañon City, that disperses grants to area governments with money
they get from the state and the feds. It is a bureaucrat run grant machine.) Day says they need a full-time grant writer and that is going to cost the local counties to cough up some more bucks to them. Currently, Custer County is paying them $6k a year to be a member. If UAACOG gets a grant to hire the grant writer (you can’t make this corrupt gov’t stuff up, folks,) then Custer’s dues for next year would be $7k. If they don’t get a grant, our share for the grant writer would be either $11/12k or $21k, depending on various factors. Epp said we get over “$100k in benefits” (that is our tax money going from UAACOG to Custer County in various grants for mostly non-important projects) and that he was cool with a $11k/12k increase but the $21k was too much. The other “fiscal conservative” Republican Commissioners discussed this for a bit and all agreed they could go $11/12K but no more.
In New Business, the Accounts Payable for the county in August, $480,000 was approved.
Our Assessor, JD Heinrich was up next week. He said his current assessor software, CIC Assessor, is losing market share in Colorado and the support from them is bad.
Also, he is afraid that since they only have a few customers now in Colorado, they might totally drop
support. JD said he has looked at a few other assessor software packages and he likes the Government Software Assurance one. They are cheaper and have better support. He told the Commissioners he wanted to go with them and after a big discussion they agreed. The conversion will start in September. JD says they will be up and running by January or February of 2025. The Commissioners gave their royal blessing to the effort.
Day then said the BOCC had to go into Executive Session (ES) for a “personnel” matter and a “security” issue. The people in the meeting other than the Commissioners were: County Clerk Kelley
Camper, Sheriff Rich Smith, Human Resources Robert Smith and IT Director Vernon Roth. County Attorney Dan Slater was also there. The ES took over two hours. No decision was given to the public after the ES.
Day then adjourned the meeting. (The ES was about the hacking of various county gov’t computers by a county employee and what to do about it. See our front-page article for more details.)
Another day in Happy Valley….