BOCC: New Attorney Approved for DHS
County Courthouse Taj Mahal Project Rises from the Dead

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The December 26, 2024 Custer County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting started at around 9 a.m. and was held at the commissioners meeting room in the “Annex” building across from the court house. All three commissioners were present: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin Day.
There were no Commissioner Items comments of importance.
The first item up was approval of last month’s Accounts Payable. The amount was $232,372.59. This was approved.
Next was the Agenda Item to approve all the various board members for our myriad of boards around the county. Epp made the suggestion that instead of laboriously going through each one that the commissioners approve all of them in one big majestic gesture. The commissioners spent some time looking at their computers going over the various proposed board members and finally gave their approval.
The Department of Human Services’ (DHS) new Attorney Agreement was next.(Remember, last month the BOCC fired our current County Attorney Dan Slater who also did the DHS legal beagle stuff. He is still on board for the county’s regular legal work as they haven’t found a replacement, but DHS did find a replacement for theirs.) Laura Lockhart, DHS Director, said she found an attorney in Salida, Julie Katz, who does this work (child welfare/child support, etc.). Katz is willing to work at a lower rate ($110 per hour) than our current attorney Slater. The commissioners approved the hiring of Katz.
Next was the Lease Contract with All Aboard Westcliffe to use their meeting room in 2025 to hold their BOCC and Board of Health (BOH) meetings there on Thursdays (plus any other special
meetings). The cost was initially stated in the discussion as $3,570 for all the meetings for the year but Epp later said it was around $5k for the year. The agreement states that the BOCC must clean the place, including the bathrooms, after each meeting. (We are anxiously waiting to see which commissioner will humbly, and with dignity, clean the bathrooms. Toilet brush mandatory, commissioners….) Epp said the BOCC will be holding three or four regular meetings each month and generally skipping the first week. The agreement was approved.
The Inter-Governmental Agreement between the Custer County Sheriff and the Town of Westcliffe was the next Agenda Item. This was the same deal as last year and all three commissioners voted to approve it.
Resolution 24-30, Receipt of Monetary Donations, was the next subject. Vernon Roth, Interim Finance Director, read off all the money donated to the county in 2024 and where it was designated to go. This was approved.
The $6k left in the Fed ARPA grant from the glorious COVID reign of terror was next. This was allocated to “training” in 2025.
In Public Comment, Citizen Joy
Anderson brought up the Justice
Center project and asked what the status was. Canda explained that the project is now only about building a new “Justice Center” and not also a new jail. (Basically a Taj Mahal courthouse with all kinds of fancy, expensive add ons. And, it has to be built to Colorado State specifications so it will cost a fortune. Note that, according to Canda, the state is MANDATING Custer County build one, to the STATE’S specs, but we have to pay for it.)
Canda said that the BOCC is “firing up” the committee again in January and is looking for members. Joy said she is interested in being on the committee. (Joy will keep a watch over it for us tax paying serfs.) Joy also asked Canda if this would effort be brought to the public for vote and Canda said yes. (Remember the last time this came to a vote, it was shot down big time. The eventual cost to us, with the bond that we had to get to finance the monstrosity was over $30 MILLION dollars! Which is flat out insane for a little county like us. We’re gonna need Elon Musk here to review this for us when it is time…)
The BOCC drama will be continued next week….