BOCC: Ex District Attorney to Be Sued,
OEM Empire Building Expense Shot Down, New Human Services Director Hired

by George Gramlich, News and Commentary
The November 11, 2024 regular meeting of the Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) started at 9 a.m. in their regally appointed den in the Annex across from the courthouse. All three County Commissioners were present: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin Day.
In Commissioner Items, Epp said he is working on the budget, “whittling it down as much as possible”. (See below for comments regarding the huge deficit and optional county spending.) He said the budget must be approved at the December 11 BOCC meeting.
Canda then dropped a bombshell saying that Fremont County and Chaffee County are suing the fired and disbarred ex 11th Judicial District Attorney, Linda Stanley, to attempt to recoup money she used from her DA budget to defend herself in the complaint that eventually caused her demise. (He elaborated on this later in the meeting, but the following is the sum of both comments.) The two counties contend that Stanley, using some of the 11th Judicial District DA budget money to defend herself personally in the legal matter, was wrong. Canda said he was asked to see if Custer County would join the lawsuit. (It has not been filed yet.) The Fremont County Attorney is doing the lawsuit and absorbing all the costs. If they succeed in getting some compensation from Stanley, the money would first go to cover the Fremont Attorney’s costs and if there is any left over, it would go to the counties participating in the lawsuit. The Commissioners agreed to join the lawsuit. (The Sentinel will keep you posted on this.)
In New Business, the Commissioners approved the Accounts Payable disbursement of $92, 075. They left out an invoice from the Sheriff’s Office for $3,075 that they said needed additional documentation.
The next Agenda Item was a request by our Office of Emergency Management Director, Robyn Knappe, to buy a “dump trailer” so some citizens who are mitigating their private property can move logs from the mitigation to the proposed
Veterans Firewood Bank. This trailer would cost $14, 085. Also, it could be used by these private citizens to move slash to the landfill. This is part of Ms. Knappe’s county mitigation effort. She has previously requested that the county spend $100k ($50k in county tax money and $50k in “grants”) to buy a humongous woodchipper that PRIVATE landowners could use to chip their slash when they are mitigating. This would take work away from our local companies that do mitigation. (This would also involve a county employee in driving the chipper to their properties and running it. All told, Knappe is proposing to spend over $120k in taxpayers’ money to help a few landowners mitigate their PRIVATE property. Plus there will be increased insurance and maintenance costs. Warning, the Following Is a Taxpayer’s Rant: This is a conservative, Republican county. With a ton of retirees on fixed incomes. We want SMALL, EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT. We do NOT WANT BIGGER GOVERNMENT, MORE SPENDING AND THUS MORE TAXES. We do NOT WANT TO PROVIDE MORE SERVICES BECAUSE THEY COST MONEY. OUR MONEY. Inflation is killing us. Tax and fee increases are killing us. This mitigation expense, for landowners that in all reality are probably fairly well-to-do, will do NOTHING to help the county considering the immense size of the county and the massive wooded areas we have. NOTHING. It is less than a drop in the bucket. It is a typical big government feel-good, waste of our tax money make work project.
Now let’s take a quick look at our county budget for this year. First, our budget is around $9 million with around half or so coming in grants. So, about $4.5 million of that comes from our property taxes and miscellaneous county income (like P&Z building/septic fees, which are DOWN dramatically from last year). Knappe’s mitigation proposal of over $120k is a sizable hunk of our local taxes. For just a few citizens. Doesn’t seem like a wise use of our money. Plus here is where we stand for our 2025 County budget: Epp said it looks like the Commissioners will have to CUT ROAD & BRIDGE’S BUDGET BY AROUND $300K AND POSSIBLY THE SHERIFF’S BUDGET BY $200K! Plus other cuts. Folks, the two most important budget items in the county are R&B and the Sheriff’s Office. We could be cutting about a half a MILLION dollars from the two most important departments. Our PRIORITY SHOULD BE R&B AND THE SO. Period. Not pet projects to benefit a few while our roads need help and the SO needs money to protect us. Ms. Knappe is a nice lady, but she is not working for the state in Denver where there is no real oversight of how one spends tax money. This is Custer County and EVERY TAX DOLLAR IS IMPORTANT. The Commissioners are pinching pennies as our expenses next year are way over our anticipated income. Proposing a $100k chipper and a $14k dump trailer for a few people to cut down trees on their private property is way out of line for this county and totally WRONG considering the massive cuts we are making to essential services. It is FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE. There is only so much money here in Happy Valley, and that must go to what is important and benefits every taxpayer, not just a few. We can’t afford an OEM empire here in Custer County, folks. The Commissioners need to kill these two requests and ask Ms. Knappe to understand that there is a very limited amount of money here to spend in Custer County and that must go to essential services NOT OEM feel-good items. This ain’t Denver. Small government is good government. End of rant.
To their credit, and led by Canda, the Commissioners in a very nice way told Ms. Knappe that we are broke and can’t afford this insanity. Canda made the best comment with, “The People can do it”. (Amen. It is the citizens’ property and not the county’s property.) Epp had a good one too with, “Just because there is money left doesn’t mean we have to spend it”. Epp added, “funds are not good”. (That is, there is NO MONEY!) Thankfully, the Commissioners let this dump trailer request die. (However, the Taj Mahal $100k chipper is still being considered. Commissioners, if you are making massive cuts to essential services like R&B and SO, spending $100k on this is WRONG. Kill it.)
Next was a big hubbub about spending “LATCF” and “ARPA” funds this year so we don’t have to give them back. (The ARPA money was the big grants the feds and state handed out to local governments while they were killing us with jabs and masks during the Covid panic.) It was a little confusing with all the acronyms they were using, but it looked like they had about $700k to allocate and with a series of resolutions they did that. Of note, the airport got $125k and “work force housing”, IT, and the county’s contingency fund all got pretty big bucks.
Epp then went over the BOCC’s 2025 schedule. The Commissioners are moving their meetings from the Annex to All Aboard Westcliffe as having them in the Annex disrupts Finance and Human Resources. This will cost a few thousand to rent the place. The BOCC meetings will be moved to Thursdays in 2025 as All Aboard is booked on Wednesdays.
And that was it for the BOCC meeting, but dear readers, we have a BONUS BOCC meeting to briefly report on: A special BOCC meeting to choose the next Human Services Department Director. This was at 3 p.m. on the same day as the above meeting. After the usual formalities, Epp said that the Commissioners had four applicants for the job, and he liked two of them but “it came down to one for me”. Canda then said the same thing and said, “We have one superstar”. Day agreed in his fashion. They moved to offer the superstar the job at a salary of $80k per year. Human Resources Director, Bob Smith, then called the lucky one and she accepted. Her name is VIcki White.
And that was another joyous day in Happy Valley.