by George Gramlich, News and Commentary

The February 13, 2025 Custer County Board of County Com-missioners’ (BOCC) meeting took place at the All Aboard Westcliffe meeting room and started at 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were in attendance: Chair Bill Canda and members Lucas Epp and Paul Vogelsong.
In Commissioner Comments, Epp mentioned a bunch of meetings he attended since the last BOCC gabfest: CCI (a lobbying group for counties who are a member), a wages workshop with Human Resources, a Public Health meeting to talk about the impact of grants disappearing, met with CDOT on the courthouse sidewalk project and with Redmonds Consulting re: audit strategy. Epp noted as part of the courthouse sidewalk project, a new county employee parking lot will be built which would help with citizen parking next to the courthouse.
In New Business, the monthly Accounts Payable amount ($291k for January) was approved.
Resolution 25-03, Moving $146k
from the Tourism Fund to the Tourism Board was approved.
Next up was Resolution 25-04, approving $5,560 to the Airport from the Capital Improvement fund was ok’d. This was for the three airport gate upgrades.
Vernon Yoder’s Short Term Rental (STR) application was then approved.
The Horton STR application was recommended to be not approved by the Planning Commission, but the Commissioners approved it anyway. Some of the issues surrounding the application was that there were too many STR’s already in the area, the septic size and the shared driveway access.
Planning & Zoning then brought up a Moratorium of new Short Term Rentals. There are currently 51 authorized STR’s in the county and P&Z said they would like to have a temporary halt for new ones so they can address some issues that have arisen in reviewing the applications. Also, the State is going to be issuing new rules on STR’s and P&Z wants these to be included. This would require changes to the Zoning Resolution. County Attorney Dan Slater spoke up saying the Commissioners would need a Resolution for this. It was decided that this would be an Agenda Item at the next meeting.
Next was Ratification of the County’s Tax Reports item. Vernon Roth, our new Finance Director, led the discussion. It turns out that there are several online fed reports portals which require a sign in that not only includes the county’s EIN number but also the personal social security number of the person signing in. Plus, the portal will only allow certain people to sign in, that is, the ones certified to do so. Roth and Epp both stated it was wrong for the feds to require an employee’s SS number to sign in to make a report. This discussion went on for a bit. It was finally decided that the fed FIRE IRS system, which only allows two users, would be used by the Finance Director and a Commissioner.
The next Agenda Item was the hot button subject of the meeting: hiring an interim County Attorney to replace our current attorney, Dan Slater. (Background: Last year there was a personnel problem with Slater and a county employee in Human Services (HS). Slater was the attorney for Human Services. (HS has a separate contract just with Slater.) This caused a big stir and the Commissioners a few months ago decided to get rid of Slater and get a new County Attorney. During this mayhem, Slater resigned from the HS attorney’s position. But he still is the County Attorney. Late last year, Canda said he found an attorney that would do the job, a Rachel Maxam. She has family here in the valley but her practice is in Denver. Canda got a proposed contract from Maxam that was discussed at a recent board meeting but it was rejected. Canda is back here at this meeting with a new proposal from Maxam.)
Canda said he had a new contract proposal from Maxam that got rid of the monthly stipend and the new billing rate is $100 per hour. He then made a motion to hire Maxam and Epp seconded to start the debate. Then there is a discussion on billing time and whether this is an interim hire or permanent. Epp said it was an interim hire as the County’s RFP for a new attorney is still active. Canda then gave a brief speech on Maxam’s merits. Epp then talked a bit and basically said he would like to keep Slater. They reviewed Maxam’s five-page contract proposal in some detail. Vogelsong said a few things but looked non-committal.
This went on and on until Slater piped up and asked if he could say something. He started out apologizing for his upcoming speech being perhaps a little emotional. Slater said, “I remain unclear why we need a change.” He said the Department of Human Services “issue was resolved” by them getting another attorney. Slater then commented that the only negative thing said about him was the “Custer County Republicans have complained that I have the wrong letter “D”.” (That is, Slater is a Democrat. Apparently from his website, a pretty influential one statewide.) Slater said that was “the only complaint.”
He then listed all the areas of law that he was proficient in and all of them were needed for the job. (It was quite an impressive list.) He said he had county/municipal work for “a quarter of a century.” (We have been watching Slater for years now. He is a very, very good county attorney. He knows his stuff. The only issue (other than the HS one) was his handling of the County Manager debacle where he apparently didn’t advise the BOCC properly on the statutory requirements to establish the position and hire somebody for it. Other than that, the guy has been great.)
Slater continued his defense: “The other attorney has only been practicing for ten years and she has no experience in any of these areas.” He added, “The agreement does not cover litigation.” (That is, Maxam’s proposed contract excludes litigation which Slater does.) He then noted, “We have seven lawsuits just in Planning & Zoning. What are you going to do with that?”
Slater went on with his impassioned defense (it was pretty good), Maxam “has no experience. I charge the county less than half what I charge somebody who walks in my door.”
Epp finally spoke up, “We have enough issues we are trying to fix…Dan moved out of the DHS issues well. I am losing my patience with looking for an interim. Dan has made some good points.” Epp continued, “I don’t want to go backwards in getting things fixed.” Epp said he liked the fact that Slater was a “D” as it helped Epp make “bipartisan decisions.”
Canda then said, “I was the guy who brought Dan in here. Didn’t care about his “D”.” Canda then got to the heart of his wanting to can Slater, “You made a mistake that any corporation would move that person out of the organization.” (That is, the HS personnel issue.)
James Gilbert, our favorite local democrat mover and shaker, then went full Karen victim card stating, “This is a purge by the Republican Central Committee through their agent here.” (That is, Canda, as a Republican, is only wanting to get rid of Slater because he is a democrat. Gilbert somehow forgets that Canda said he was the one who brought Slater on board. But we love the word Gilbert used to describe Canda’s actions, “purge”. Very McCarthy-ish. Possibly also linking Canda’s moves with Trump’s “purging” of the federal (ie, democrat) workforce. We love Gilbert, he always provides a comic interlude in the meetings.)
Epp then had enough, he said, “I retract my second.” (You need a second on a motion to discuss it.) Everybody looked at Vogelsong who has been quiet during this ordeal to see if he would second the motion. Not a peep out of the old Vogelmeister.
So the discussion ended. Looks like Epp and Vogelsong want to keep Slater. Will Canda bring it up again? Will the BOCC end the RFP for an new County Attorney and vote to keep Slater? (Right now he has been fired but is staying on until the County finds a replacement.)
So it goes in Happy Valley….
Stay tuned, fellow peasants, for the next episode of Happy Valley.