by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The November 15, 2023 Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meeting started at 9 a.m. in their gilded throne room across from the courthouse. All three commissioners were present: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp. There was a pretty good crowd of peasants in attendance.
In Commissioner Comments, Canda said Road & Bridge is meeting with the TV station engineers today on the hill where the transmitter is. (This is big progress.)
He also said the Upper Ark Water Conservancy District folks are going to go ahead with raising the level of Lake DeWeese by four feet. They need a bunch of money to do this, but they are comfortable that they can get the moolah.
Epp gave the Finance report. He said the adjusting entires needed to fix the problems that the audit revealed should be done by the end of the week. Finance is still gathering lease information (the lack of which caused the county to fail the audit). Epp reported that the auditor is having a class with finance on tangible and intangible leases.
In New Business, the Public Comment Guidelines agenda item, placed there by Epp ruffled some of the peasant’s feathers. Epp started with, “we have to be open, to be free here” then started listing a whole slew of restrictions of what the peasants can say, do, and the length of time they have to say it. Epp’s proposed guidelines started with the statement that, “these meetings are business meetings”, (whatever that means) and thus the following rules and restrictions apply: You must speak by your seat, you only get five minutes per person for each comment time, the comments must be directed to the commissioners, no questions or comments to other people, you have to avoid “grandstanding” (which should also apply to the commissioners), and on Agenda Items, the board may suspend comments. To finish his First Amendment kill shot, Epp told the peasants there (who took the time to come and participate) that “public comments are a privilege and not a right.”
Day, loving this clamp down on citizen comment (something he has been doing for a long time), said the meetings were out of control. Canda then said, “I agree we need it” but if a commissioner wanted to hear more after the five minutes he can ask for it. (This was absent from Epp’s proposal.) Epp then agreed with Canda on this item. Custer County’s Biggest Free Speech/First Amendment Warriors (REPUBLICAN!) then voted to accept the new rules with the caveat that they can change them later.
In Public Comment, the peasants were not happy campers. Len Arrigo said, “Public Comment is not a privilege, it is a right. We come here on our own time. It is our county. We pay your salaries.” Bill Parker said show me a statute that says we can’t speak. This triggered the county attorney, Dan Slater (a high ranking Colorado democrat operative), “the only people who have an absolute right to speak are the three commissioners…Public Comment is perfectly acceptable but this is a business meeting of the BOCC….There is not a right by law for the public to speak here.”
Three local libs then, of course, fully endorsed Epp’s motion to silence the people. A couple of citizens then knocked the proposal with one lady noting that with the total lack of leadership from the BOCC, citizen input is crucial.
Next up was the issue of the county selling a couple of lots in Silver Cliff to a local couple. This has been going on for a while. Canda is trying to get this done. He goes on a long rant about how long he has known this couple, on and on. Apparently, the couple put a bid in while the county has not requested bids on the properties. After an insane amount of time, it was decided that the county would request bids and the couple can bid on them.
Finally, the hot ticket Agenda Item came up: the Finance Director’s Job Description. (This is high drama, folks. The current Finance Director, Lisa Bivins, was hired as an assistant by the ex-Director, Braden Wilson, about two years ago. Apparently she had no accounting experience and did not have an accounting degree. Nor did Wilson when Day, Flower and Canda hired him. Before Wilson made his suicide mission move to County Manager, he “promoted” Bivins to be the County’s Finance Director. So now we have had two Finance Directors who did not have an accounting degree or real accounting experience. Then the 2022 County Audit came out in August, and for the first time the county had a “qualified item”, which is real bad and causes the state to get involved. The audit also listed a whole bunch of bad things that haven’t been fixed for years. This caused a citizens group to be formed, led by a CPA, who jumped all over this pointing out that having two Finance Directors in a row with no accounting degree and no real accounting experience was a disaster, and this had to be fixed. They came up with a proposed Finance Director Job Description/Requirements proposal that was given to the commissioners. This includes having at least a bachelor’s degree in accounting, and preferably a masters. They had a whole bunch of common-sense requirement also. This caused a huge issue at the BOCC meetings recently as, if this is adopted, the current Director, Bivins, who is clearly not qualified, would have to vacate the position when a new Finance Director is hired. This resulted in a bunch of people coming to the BOCC meetings recently saying she is qualified and should not be taken out. However, the understanding is, and this has not been spoken to enough, is that Bivins would be retained and simply go back to her previous position in Finance, as the assistant.)
Canda lead the charge of proposing the new job description. He went on and on how we need a qualified accountant to lead the department. On and on. He talked about how the mighty commissioners finally will separate Human Resources (HR) from the Finance Department as soon as they hire a HR head. Canda then knocked the county’s new accounting system (CIC) that our all knowing ex Finance Director bought which is super expensive, unresponsive, unreliable, and a total lemon. Finally, he moved to accept the job description.
Epp was next. He noted a whole bunch of bad things about the CIC system, saying, “We are at risk” with this system. Because we are probably going to get a new system, Epp concluded, “This is driving us towards needing this person (ie, a new, qualified Finance Director).”
Day, again, like the County Manager debacle, was on the wrong side of the issue. He knocked the process that took place to get the job description, as the county hasn’t posted for the position yet. (Day: you need a job description first, sir.) He asked, “If we approve this document, what does it do to any existing employees?” Epp replied, “Things just keep going on.” (Day knows exactly what is happening but is trying to do his martyr thing. Bivins is going back to the assistant job. Nobody is getting fired and we are finally getting a qualified Finance Director.)
Canda then said he had talked to her (Bivins) and “she is looking forward to working with somebody like this.” This caused Day to get a bit huffy as he said he had talked to Bivins and “she loves her job and wants to keep that job.” Day then said, falsely falling on his sword, that, “If we approve this document, I want to make sure we aren’t doing away with any existing employees. If it is, I will not support it.” (Total cow poopy. Day knows nobody is gonna get fired. This was flat out grandstanding. Bottom line: Day actually wants to keep Bivins in the job. As you will see, he later votes to NOT accept the job description!)
Public Comment on this Item was next. Len Arrigo, a CPA with extensive experience in private and public accounting (and architect of the Finance Director Job Description), said that the proposed job description requires the person to be a CPA and that is wrong and will narrow the potential candidate field dramatically.
He said there really is no difference in private and public accounting. Thus, the job description’s requirement that the candidate have public accounting experience should go. After some discussion, Epp and Canda agreed.
Citizen Carol Vayhinger then made her case to keep Bivins in the job, saying, “She needs the opportunity to compete. You can’t treat your employees like that.” Jimmy “The Plumber” McMahon retorted that the commissioners are “going down the right path” and “The position needs a very talented individual.”
Another citizen spoke up and said, “I think we need to go ahead with this, and it will take some time to get the right person. So we don’t wind up getting sued. I thank you for what you are doing.”
Day again tries to kill the whole process by saying “Are we putting the cart before the horse” implying by not yet voting to actually hire a new Finance Director, this process of developing a job description is wrong. (Again, Day wants to kill this whole thing and keep Bivins in there.)
This goes on for a bit. Finally they vote. Canda and Epp vote to accept the job description and Day voted no.
Canda then brought up the “Employee Counsel investigation” ordered by the ex-Finance Director, Braden Wilson, into a “personnel issue” in the Sheriff’s Office. Wilson did this on his own and only told Day about it. Canda says the investigators aren’t done and they are asking for more money, like $2k more. He said we already spent, “$4k or something.” When asked what the investigation is about, Canda said he didn’t know but it wasn’t an investigation of the Sheriff’s Office, it was a personnel issue. Canda said, “Somebody spent money and the commissioners didn’t know about it.” He said he is going find out what this is all about.
Later on, Canda brought up the proposed county mil levy reduction. He said he is going to meet with Bivins and our Assessor to get the ball rolling. He is looking for a only a 5% overall increase in the tax burden.
In the final Public Comment, former OEM Director, Cindy Howard Zoomed in saying she greatly appreciated the work of the concerned citizens, the “public group”, did here with regards to getting a new Finance Director. She said if it wasn’t for this group “we wouldn’t be looking at some of these things.” She noted that, “There is a persistent and complacent culture in this county that has to change.” (Kevin Day please note. Cindy has been inside the beast and knows the deal.)
The final Public Comment was by citizen Bill Parker, knocking Day for trying to kill the hiring of a new Finance Director. Parker can’t understand “why Day is reluctant to get this done.” (Parker knows, but he was just being polite.)
And that was that. Another episode of The Happy Valley Drama in the can. Stay tuned.
(Editor/GG: Small cor-rection on last week’s BOCC article: We said citizens Joy Anderson was an “architect.” She used to be but retired and handed in her license. We should have said, “retired architect.” )
