BOCC: County Records Retention
Policy Proposal, Citizen Wants
State to Audit County

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The April 10, 2025 Custer County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting was held at the Wetmore Community Center and started at 9 a.m. All three mighty Commissioners were present: Chair Bill Canda and members Lucas Epp and Paul Vogelsong.
In Commissioner Items, Epp said he attended a Upper Arkansas Area Council of Governments (UAACOG) meeting the day before. The UAACOG board appointed a new Executive Director, Dave Paul. Epp commented that he had asked Vernon Roth, head our county IT department to send out an RFP for “IT services”. (The contents of which was not defined.) Vogelsong said he was looking into options for the water treatment plant. (No further info was provided.) Canda said TV Channel 11 on the County’s broadcasting hill has been going in and out. Epp said each time the repair crew comes up it costs a lot of money. Canda replied that that was the deal the county signed many, many moons ago. Canda also mentioned that local realtor, Bob Senderhauf, is working on a “fundraiser” deal that would help the county with the Round Mountain Water donation last week and also help Round Mtn.
In New Business, the first item up was Accounts Payable. The total for the last two weeks was $310k. Large ticket items were Redlands Accounting, the District Attorney budget, and self-insurance funds.
Later on, Bob Smith, our Director of Human Services said he was putting out a request for proposal (RFP) for workman’s compensation insurance for the county. The County is currently using CTSI and he wants to see what else is out there.
Resolution 25-22 was next. This was for $24.2k for training and equipment for the Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer (RSO). This was approved. Next was Resolution 25-23 to allocate $1,300 that was donated for the County’s Dive Team. Resolution 25-26 gave our Veterans Service Office $500 for a cell phone. Resolution 25-28 moved $120k from the General Fund to the Self Insurance Fund.
Bob Smith then led the discussion of Resolution 25-29 proposing a County Records Retention Policy. Smith, at the request of the Office of Emergency Management, was asked to produce a policy as OEM was going to be audited by the state concerning certain grants and OEM needed a Records Retention Policy for the County for the audit. The County currently does not have one. Smith put a draft together based on Fremont County’s policy and presented it to the BOCC and the County Clerk. This was done in a rush due to the late request by OEM. (Which has happened before with OEM.)
It sounded like the Commissioners had just gotten the draft (which was LONG) very recently. Smith said they needed to adopt it or OEM might be in trouble with the upcoming state audit.
Canda said they needed time to review it as some of the items in there do not jive with what the County has. County Clerk Kelley Camper said there were flat out errors in the section on the County Clerk & Recorders and they should be corrected. After a lot of back and forth, it was decided that the proposed policy should be given to all the department heads for review and the BOCC will take it up in the April 24 BOCC meeting.
Canda asked Smith what exactly was the issue with the rush job re the OEM grants. Smith did not know. It appeared that the actual audit is around May 1st, so the BOCC has some time.
In Public Comments, Epp said he had received two emails from citizens that they had requested be read at the meeting. The first one was from local Len Arrigo concerning retaining the County’s financial records. He requested that all these records from January 1, 2011 to the present be retained. He also said he had requested that the State of Colorado come down here and audit the County’s financial records.
The other email was from local Joy Anderson. She said she had several Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) that have not been fulfilled and she wants the information. These papers are about the old justice center land deal.
And that was that. Another episode of Happy Valley “in the can”.