Category Archives: 2025

2025, Uncategorized

School Board’s Press for Accurate Hiring Information Comes to a Head

 

School Board’s Press for Accurate Hiring Information Comes to a Head

by Laura  Vass,
News and Commentary

The Special Meeting

On April 16th, The Custer County School Board held a Special Meeting to determine a course of action concerning recent hires based on the recommendation of the Superintendent. According to CRS 22-32-109.8 (6.5) at least one of the new hires may not be eligible for school employment in the state of Colorado. The agenda called for the board to consider the following actions:

Consider placing Superintendent Thom Peck on paid administrative leave, consider placing High School Principal Aundrea McCormick on paid administrative leave, and if approved, to hire temporary replacements for the three positions those actions would leave open; Superintendent, HS Principal, and Athletic Director. Continue reading School Board’s Press for Accurate Hiring Information Comes to a Head →

2025, Uncategorized

COL (R) Michael Foster Named 2025 Ranger Hall of Fame Inductee

COL (R) Michael Foster Named 2025 Ranger Hall of Fame Inductee

—WESTCLIFFE, Colorado

by SDC Sentinel Staff
May 2, 2025

COL Michael Foster. Purple Heart and Outgoing Change of Command Ceremony, 1st Ranger Battalion, July 2012, Savannah, Georgia. Photo courtesy of the Foster Family

Following a distinguished Army career, local Army Ranger COL (R) Michael Foster has been selected for the 2025 Ranger Hall of Fame. Formed in 1992, the Ranger Hall of Fame (HOF) serves the exclusive purpose of honoring and preserving the contributions of America’s most extra-ordinary Rangers. Members of the Ranger HOF include noble warriors like Ranger and Medal of Honor recipient COL Ralph Puckett, General Stanley McChrystal, and General Colin Powell as well as honorary inductee President Abraham Lincoln.  1

Westcliffe’s COL Michael Foster will join their ranks with his induction into the storied Ranger Hall of Fame on Wednesday,
June 25, 2025.    “This honor reflects years of sacrifice, hard work, and an unwavering commitment to the Ranger Creed.
[Hall of Fame] inductees represent the very best of the Ranger spirit, exemplifying unparalleled leadership, dedication, and valor throughout their careers, ” stated a post from the US Army
Airborne Ranger Brigade.  2    Continue reading COL (R) Michael Foster Named 2025 Ranger Hall of Fame Inductee →

2025, BOCC, Uncategorized

April 24 BOCC:Tons of Policies, Silver Cliff Gets Some Free Land, RMWSD Donation Confusion

BOCC: Tons of Policies, Silver Cliff Gets Some Free Land, Round
Mountain Donation Confusion

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The April 24, 2025 Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) regular meeting was held at the All Aboard Westcliffe meeting room and started at 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were present: Chair Bill Canda and members Lucas Epp and Paul Vogelsong.
Not too much in Commissioner Items. Epp said the ARPA and LATCF yearly grant fund reports were done and submitted. Canda said the Commissioners had a “good” meeting with our local dems. (The local Polis, Biden, AOC, Pelosi loving Custer County democrat party asked our Commissioners to show up at a “round table” so they could question them about what is going to happen to Happy Valley when the fed and state grant money disappears, and the children will be starving.)
In New Business, Accounts Payable was up first. Epp gave the run down. (Epp does good with this. He reviews, during his presentation, all AP items over $5k. Very informative. Of note, interim County Attorney Dan Slater got a $6.8k check and they finally paid for the infamous Rolls Royce level chipper with a $98k check.) The total AP for the last two weeks was $372k.
Next was a proposal to approve a proclamation for Family Crisis Services to proclaim April Sexual Assault Awareness month. Family Crisis Services does a lot of good stuff including safe houses for abuse victims, therapy and counseling. Last year they served 274 clients. The proclamation was approved.
The Mayor of the Town of Silver Cliff, Buck Wenzel was next at the royal table. He said the County and Silver Cliff had an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) regarding a piece of land the county owns but Silver Cliff uses and maintains. It has signs on it and it is a trail head. Buck wanted the BOCC to deed the piece over to Silver Cliff to make things simpler. This was approved.
Human Services was next with nine policies that the state requires and the County hadn’t adopted them. This was supposed to have been done in 2022 but it wasn’t. The Commissioners approved all the policies.
Next up was Human Resources Director, Bob Smith, with the newly revised Records Retention Policy for the County. Bob has sent it around to the various department heads for review and made some changes based on that input. The Commissioners approved it.
The final New Business Agenda Item was about setting up a procedure so people could donate money to help the Round Mountain Water and Sanitation District pay for the construction of their new waste treatment system. (Remember the County donated $40k recently.) Canda led the discussion. He wanted to set up an account item at the Treasurer’s Office to take the donations which would allow the donations to be tax deductible. It was asked why can’t Round Mountain do it and Canda said that under their statutory regulations, they were not allowed to do that. County Attorney Slater said that was wrong and Round Mountain, like a bunch of other local entities, by statute can accept donations and have them be tax deductible. This went on for a bit. Finally, Canda said he would go over and talk to Round Mountain to find out one way or the other.
No fireworks. Of note, however, Chair Canda is letting people, one person in particular, interrupt the Commissioners discussion of items instead of waiting for the Public Comment interlude at the end of each Commissioner discussion. Very disruptive and rude.

2025, BOCC, Uncategorized

April 17 BOCC: Grant Money, Coroner wants a Cooler, Tourism Director Wants Pay

BOCC: Grant Money Drying Up,
Coroner Wants a Cooler,
Tourism Volunteer Director Now Wants Pay

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The April 17, 2025 Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) regular meeting was held at the historic All Aboard Westcliffe meeting room and started at 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were present: Chair Bill Canda and members Lucas Epp and Paul Vogelsong.
In Commissioner Items, Epp foreshadowed the coming dramatic drop in grant money coming to the County in announcing that the (total waste of money) courthouse sidewalk “improvement” project funding “may be pulled back” as the Colorado Democrats Colorado budget is ONE BILLION DOLLARS over budget and they are cutting a ton of things to save the money for their welfare state bribes.
Canda spoke about local realtor Bob Senderhauf’s effort to raise money to help Round Mountain Water & Sanitation District’s wastewater treatment project. Bob is opening donation accounts in both local banks and is encouraging various groups and entities to cough up some moolah to help out.
Interim County Attorney Dan Slater said he had settled two Planning & Zoning lawsuits against local property owners without going to court. There are still a bunch of lawsuits pending.
Epp talked about the new state Fire Resiliency Board and how each county, by law, is supposed to have a comprehensive plan in place this summer. This would affect home construction (it would be a form of building code for new home and business construction) and as we don’t have a building code in Happy Valley this will be a problem.
Elected Official Reports
First up was Custer County Sheriff Rich Smith. He had two main issues to bring to the Board. First, he is selling two Dodge Durango police vehicles and he figures he can get about $20k each at auction for them. However, the City of Walsenburg is starting up a brand new police department and they are desperate for vehicles and they offered $26k for each one. Rich wanted to know if he could sell them to Walsenburg without going through an auction. It was decided later in the meeting that County Attorney Slater would draw up a contract to sell the two vehicles to Walsenburg.
The second item concerned the new jail standards the libs in Denver are issuing which will dramatically drive up the cost to house inmates. Rich said this is going to raise our cost big time. He is also looking at a grant to get closed circuit security cameras installed at the courthouse.
The written Treasurer’s report was briefly reviewed. No biggies there.
Coroner Brad Baltzly gave his office’s report. Brad said he wants to get a 20-foot metal shipping container and put a cooling system in it to store the deceased when it is not possible to immediately bring the bodies to a funeral home or to an autopsy. He said it would take about $6k to do the job.
Other Reports
The Veteran’s Service Office report was given by the Director, Dominic Edginton. He said he had 47 scheduled visits last month and 32 walk ins. Plus he filed 19 new claims last month. Dominic noted that since he took over, he has filed 437 claims for our veterans and has gotten over $3 million in compensation for them. He said there are 581 Custer County veterans registered in the VA system, plus there are a bunch more not registered.
Bob Smith gave the Human Resources report. He said the RFP for county insurance is out and he is talking to five brokers about it. Also, there are three open county positions currently posted.
Finance Director Vernon Roth delivered the Finance report. Vernon said they are working on a bunch of procedures while he and Redlands Accounting continue to work on various issues like grant management and audit data. He stated that CORA open records requests consume too much of his time and he would like to see some changes there. County Attorney Slater is working on revising the County’s CORA policy. Epp noted that an RFP for a new County auditor is going out August 1st.
Epp then reviewed the Information Technology (IT) written report noting the IT employee John Mapes is doing a great job. Epp stated that they will be issuing an RFP for “contract services” to help in the IT Department. (IT is severely understaffed considering the amount of work in the county now.)
No big news in the written Human Services and Road & Bridge reports.
The Planning & Zoning Report was written. All types of permits are up dramatically from last year, showing good growth in the housing market. Total income for P&Z, YTD was $117k.
The written Landfill report noted that in the first quarter 4,816 cubic yards of trash was delivered to the landfill via waste collection companies and 2,837 bags of trash were brought to the landfill.
The Recycling written report stated that they made a total of 23 bales of all materials in March with 15 being just cardboard.
In New Business, our Tourism Board Director, Deb Adams, had a proposal for the BOCC. Adams first spent a fair amount of time reviewing the things she has done with the Tourism Board since she became the Director a few years ago. (She has done a good job.) (The Tourism Board Director and all the Board members are volunteers. It has always been that way.) Adams then segued into what she was really there for: she wants to get paid for the job now. Adams argued than since she puts a lot of time into the volunteer job that she should now get paid. She wants her new job to be called the “Destination Management Director” and she would become a county employee. (It sounded like it would initially be a part-time position but that was unclear. The issue of county benefits, insurance, retirement, were not discussed.) Canda said she needed to produce a job description, and this might be a new County “department”. Epp stated the job would have to be posted for competition. The discussion ended with agreement
that Adams will produce a job description and no decisions on actually doing this were made.
(Well, it is always the money. Remember Adams ran for County Commissioner a while back looking for that county job and was beaten badly by Canda. So, no county paycheck there. We don’t like this new paid position proposal for a variety of reasons. First, it is a volunteer position like the dozens of other volunteer boards in the county. Just because one is doing a good job in those positions doesn’t justify that position getting paid. It is a volunteer position for a reason. Second, this would set a bad precedent for other boards: If Adams can get paid why can’t I? Third, it is unnecessary. Things are going fine with the current setup. She has a whole board of people helping so no need to spend a ton of time personally. (Delegation is the word here.) It is her call on how much time she spends on the job. If it is too much for now, cut back and have others help you. Why do we now have to pay for it out of tax money? It is a VOLUNTEER position. She has plenty of resources available.
Fourth: The last thing the County needs now is to add more “optional” employees. The County is going to be in a ton of trouble in the near future as the fed and state grant money dries up (and these fund over half of the County’s budget). And we should be looking at downsizing County government, not growing it. Fifth: The three conservative, small government, Republican County Commissioners ran on being FISCAL CONSERVATIVES. Which means SMALLER GOVERNMENT, not growing it. Remember all governments tend to grow like a cancer eating up our tax money and sending us taxpayers to the poor house. Governments grow incrementally and then all of a sudden. Each new proposed job must be totally analyzed to see the impact on the county’s future financial liability. There is absolutely no need to create a new paid government job when it is currently being well handled on a volunteer basis. It is a total waste of money.
Commissioners: You were elected to be fiscal conservatives. And this is an easy one. Do what you were elected to do. NO GO on this. You should be REDUCING the County government’s financial footprint, NOT INCREASING it. And no offense against Adams looking for a county paycheck. I guess it is human nature, and the County is the biggest fat cat in Happy Valley. But Adams signed on knowing it was a volunteer job. No need to change that. There are plenty of true volunteers willing to fill that position.)

2025, Uncategorized

New Fun Kingdom For Kids Opens in Florence

GOKIDZ OPENS!

by Fred Hernandez
Hear ye, hear ye! This is a heads up for all parents of kids between the ages of one and 17: there is a new place in the City of Florence where the kids can safely enjoy hours of good, clean fun and healthy, physical activity in an ultra clean environment.
GOKIDZ officially opened its magic doors on Wednesday, April 23rd. Their hours and days of operation are seven days a week, Monday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oh my, what great joy for all the children who visit this magical place called GOKIDZ. The young ones can climb up ladders or stairs and slide down into pools of colorful plastic balls, crawl in and out of tunnels, swings of all types and many attractions to ride on, climb or bounce on. Truly a joyful place that guarantees hours of safe fun for the young ones and the adults who accompany them. The very reasonable price of $20 per child for three hours of fun includes one adult. The adult can join the child and go through all the attractions or may prefer to sit in the dining area which offers delicious pizzas, sodas and other snacks.
Florence Mayor Steve Wolfe was at the GOKIDZ indoor playground Monday, the 21st of April during the unofficial dry run opening of the newest business in the city. The mayor welcomes GOKIDZ as a wonderful addition to the commercial area on Church Avenue and congratulated business owner Henry Usmin and his family for the innovative concept that will surely delight all parents and children who will enjoy this facility for many years to come. The mayor also said that Florence is a kid friendly city and welcomes everyone to come visit soon. GOKIDZ is located at 111 Church Avenue in the City of Florence. Call 719-372-1647 for more information.

2025, BOCC, Uncategorized

BOCC April 10- County Records Retention Policy Proposal, Citizen Wants State to Audit County

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. Continue reading BOCC April 10- County Records Retention Policy Proposal, Citizen Wants State to Audit County →

2025, Uncategorized

Oak Creek Grade Fire Department Congratulates Six New Firefighters

 

New Firefighters, Chip Doxzon, Assistant Chief Rick Madrigal, Tony Edwards, Briana Waggoner, Tyler Waggoner, Board President Bob Vanatta. Not pictured: Jerry Madrigal.

In a joint training exercise with Wet Mountain Fire Protection District in Westcliffe on March 28th and 29th, the Oak Creek Grade Volunteer Fire Department was able to certify six new firefighters, and recertify one firefighter. After many hours of study online and in-person, the new firefighters were able to participate in live training on the finer points of controlling a fire.
Oak Creek Grade Fire Department is located approximately 18 miles south of Cañon City, on Oak Creek Grade, encompassing the area from the Stultz Trailhead to the Custer County line. Informally in existence for many years, the department called itself a Brigade where residents came together to assist in fighting fires as a community. In 2018, the department formally incorporated and is striving for professional status today.
Assistant Chief, Rick Madrigal, one of the newly certified members, proudly stated, “I’m really excited about the direction our
department is on and the success we have made.”
“We are grateful to Wet Mountain for allowing us to certify with them”, Rick added.
OCGVFD Board President, Bob Vanatta, has years of experience as a first responder in medical and fire, and was able to recertify for the department. “I have been with the department for about 1-1/2 years and have seen a great change in the attitude of the department. Rick’s team accepted the challenge and did a great job. Assistant Chief Rick Madrigal did an excellent job spearheading the effort”.
If you are in need of assistance in the Oak Creek Grade Fire Department community, call 911. For further information, check out our website, http://oakcreekgradefirebrigade.com/, or call Rick at
719-557-2925.

2025, Uncategorized

Discover the Wild West Era at Beckwith Ranch

Press Release
The Friends of Beckwith Ranch
Discover the Wild West Era through Informative Displays, Presentations, Artifacts, Demos and Exhibits at Historic Beckwith Ranch weekends in April from 12 pm – 3 pm (except closed for Easter Sunday). The Mansion, Bunkhouse, Black-smith Shop, Tack Barn, and Horse and Dairy Barns will be open, weather permitting. There is something new and different every day.
The Historic Beckwith Ranch is located 6 miles north of Westcliffe, CO on Highway 69 North. The Ranching Heritage Center has 10 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and is owned and preserved by Friends of Beckwith Ranch, Inc. as a 501(c)3 non-profit.
Throughout the month, great live presentations by Colorado historians will be offered in the mansion ball room including:
• Carl Wulsten meets Elton Beckwiih, portrayed by Dr. Gary Mohr and Courtney Miller
• Mountain Man Meek, David and Beverly Meek portray their still famous relatives, Joe & Virginia Meek
• Dick Jones presents his new book “Walking the Same Ground”
• Courtney Miller presents his new book “The Beckwith Dynasty” Proceeds go to Beckwith Ranch
• Julie VanLaanen, with Filter Press, Presents “The Women of the Colorado Gold Rush”
• Goodnight meets Beckwith, portrayed by Gary Ziegler and Courtney Miller;
• Roping Clinic by local Rodeo star, Creed Ingram. Creed will demonstrate and teach roping techniques
• Ken Butler will be providing Blacksmith Demos in the Blacksmith Shop
For times and dates go to www.beckwithranch.com .
Explore the fascinating stories of the Wild West Era on Displays featuring “The Beckwith Story”, “The Kennicott’s Story”, “The Rustlers”, “Mining”, and “Cattle Ranching”. Admire our new collection of period clothing. We will have authentic artifacts from the era displayed throughout. And the “Discovery Room” will have interactive exhibits for the young and young at heart including games played during that era like Triangle Peg, Jacks, Jack Straw, Checkers, and many more.
Admission fee for the event is $5/person for those older than 12. Note: Beckwith Ranch Members bring your Membership card and get in free. Learn more at www.beckwithranch.com

2025

Sludge Be Gone? Good News On Sludge Drama

Sludge Be Gone?
Good News On Sludge Drama
Looks Like a Deal Is Near

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The Round Mountain Water & Sanitation District’s (Round Mtn) epic quest to install a groundbreaking new technology (Electrical Coagulation) system to treat its waste water has had its twists and turns over the last few years and the recent drama has been no exception.
(Round Mtn needs a new waste treatment system. Using standard current technologies to do this would be in excess of $14 million dollars. They have nowhere near this money. Round Mtn’s District Manager, Dave Schneider, discovered and has been pushing for years now to use a new methodology, electrical coagulation (EC) , to do this as it can be installed for around $5 million. It is simple, cost effective and unbelievably efficient. It truly is the wave of the future after battling with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) for years, CDPHE finally approved a full blown “pilot test” for the system. The kicker is that they have given Round Mtn only 180 days to do it. In order to use the new system, the accumulated sludge in the existing lagoon sediment ponds must be taken out for the new system to work. That sediment sludge needs to go somewhere. Round Mtn has proposed dispersing it on a ranch on the Valley floor (the Johnson Ranch) as “fertilizer”. This is a common practice around the country, however, there have been many people and groups opposing this saying it is unsafe.)
The company that Round Mountain contracted with, Denali Water Solutions, to suck up the sludge and apply it to the local ranch recently sent an email to our Planning & Zoning Department notifying them of the project. Denali considered the sludge dispersal a standard agricultural fertilizer application and thus needed no special permission to do it. News leaked out and there was an outcry from ranchers and other inhabitants of the Valley, and all over the county, that the application was dangerous and could contaminate the water system in the Valley including the streams draining the water. Critics alleged that the “forever chemicals” (aka PFAS chemicals) in the sludge would permanently damage the land.
Responding to the controversy, the Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) scheduled a “town hall” meeting where Round Mtn and Denali would give their spiel, and the citizens could comment and ask questions. This took place at the Lutheran Church’s Lange Hall, Thursday, March 27, 2025. About 110 people showed up.

BOCC Chair Bill Canda prepped the peasants with the agenda and how it was going to go down. This took a bit. First up was Round Mtn’s District Manager, Dave Schneider.
Dave gave an excellent, fairly in-depth review of how Round Mtn got here, going over the entire history of the waste treatment system. Bottom line is that the State of Colorado (CDPHE) has told Round Mountain that the current system is out of compliance, and they need to put a new one in ASAP or they will be having big problems with the Colorado Deep State.
Luke Bond, from Denali, then gave a presentation on Denali and what they do. And what they want to do with the lagoon sludge. It was detailed and presented professionally. Bond stated repeatedly that this use of sludge for fertilizer is common, and they have done this in Colorado.
Bond alleged that the contaminants in the sludge are way below any safety standards levels and is completely safe to apply on hay/pasture fields.
The citizens who spoke thought otherwise. They cited a multitude of safety concerns including runoff, “forever chemicals”/PFAS contamination of the soil, property values, the smell, and “100 year floods”. They cited news reports of this process causing harm in various spots across the country. There were concerns that the small amount of acreage (approximately 80 acres) is not enough for the 1,200,000 estimated gallons of sludge that is needed to be applied. There were also questions whether the PFAS sludge test samples were correctly done or current.
Dave Nequette, a local retired water well driller, made an excellent proposal. Dave said the ground beneath the county’s landfill is a perfect place to dump the sludge due to its volcanic ash nature which makes it virtually impermeable. All that would be needed is some new pits to dump the sludge into.
Other citizens asked why not ship it out-of-county to some place approved to take it. Bond and Schneider said the cost would be prohibitive (The estimated cost to transport the sludge and apply it locally is around $300k. Schneider figures it would cost another $600k up to $1 million to ship it out-of-county.)
All the citizens said they didn’t want it here, save one. There was unanimous opposition to the idea except for one lone soul, our very own James Gilbert, who at the end of the comments section, said humans have been using human waste for fertilizer forever implying that this local application was ok.
And that was the end of Public Comment. BOCC Commissioner Lucas Epp said the landfill option is a no-go as our permit doesn’t allow biosolids. He noted other Colorado landfills do have permission to accept biosolids.
Canda then did a wrap up. There were no decisions made. Round Mtn did not commit to any course of action. The meeting took over 3 hours. There were around 25 people there at the end.
Time is an issue here. CDPHE gave Round Mtn only 180 days to construct and implement the entire huge pilot system and the clock is running. If Round Mtn can’t put this new system in, it will be in big, big trouble with the state and it will impact the growth of the two towns it serves. And very possibly their pocketbooks, not in a trivial way.
So what to do? We talked with Commissioner Canda the day after, and he is interested in asking CDPHE to modify our landfill permit to allow biosolids deposits. However, knowing the glacial pace of CDPHE, any possible positive decision could be too late. Canda will be pursuing this option hoping the emergency status of the project might get them to expedite things.
We also corresponded with Commissioner Epp. He said he is asking our landfill people to contact CDPHE to “see what kind of time frame and requirements would take place (to put) dried biosolids in the landfill”. He also thought the out-of-county sludge trucking price might be “over priced”. He asked Schneider to get firm trucking prices for hauling the sludge out of the county.
We then contacted Dave Schneider. Dave said the county landfill option “is off the table” as the landfill’s permit doesn’t allow it. Getting that changed would probably take too long. Dave said he is actively looking at various options to haul the sludge out-of-county but it is complex. (Dave noted it would take 200 trips with 6,000 gallon tanker trucks to haul the sludge.) If all out-of-county options fail, Dave said the only alternative would be in-county with the Johnson Ranch still being a possibility. Dave concurred that CDPHE might grant Round Mtn an additional six months to complete the project but the odds of that are unknown.
Update: The Sentinel received notice from Commissioner Epp that the BOCC would be holding an emergency meeting Thursday, April 3rd at 1 p.m. to consider helping Round Mtn in their effort to have the sludge moved out of the county.
We then called Dave Schneider to see what was up. Dave said that Round Mtn was very close to a “deal” with Denali on hauling the sludge to an out-of-county site. He couldn’t commit to any real details at the time but indicated that Denali made a big concession on the option of hauling the sludge out of the county. Dave also indicated that it was more than the $300k that Round Mtn had contracted to do it in-county but was very, very reasonable.
He also confirmed that the BOCC will be having a meeting Thursday to discuss helping pay Round Mtn with the increased cost.
So things are looking good. Denali made big time concession to make this happen. This is good for Denali from a public relations viewpoint and considering they are a big company with a ton of money, it is not a big bite. And kudos to the Commissioners attempting to remedy a poten-tially ugly end result. (Note: We have been told that Towns of Westcliffe and Silver Cliff have not offered to help with the dollars. Funny —it is their sewage.)
And thanks to the citizens who showed up at the BOCC ‘sludge meeting’ to protest the application of the sludge on hallowed Happy Valley ground. This citizen pressure was probably the primary reason why Denali came to the table with a great offer to haul the sludge out-of-county. Don’t forget too, that Dave Schneider help orchestrate this deal.
BREAKING:
Dave Schneider just sent us an update on press day:
“The amended quote details from Denali are still being negotiated into a contract amendment with them. I can report that RMWSD has requested $40,000 from the Custer County Commissioners to help defray the additional trucking costs needed to export the sludge to an approved land application site located in another county. RMWSD and its constituents will bear the remainder of the additional shipping costs. The finalization of the Denali Contract is contingent upon the County Commissioners approval of our request at their meeting at 1 p.m. on Thursday the 3rd and full contract details will be available at the RMWSD board’s emergency meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. on Friday the 4th.”
Let’s hope this deal comes through. We will keep you posted.