BOCC: Secret Session Audio Tape Released Due to Citizen Pressure

Here’s How Day and Flower Tried to Snooker Us

by George Gramlich,
Sangre de Cristo Sentinel
News and Commentary

Man, oh man, that secret Executive Session (ES) that the Custer County Board of County Commissioner’s (BOCC) Kevin Day and Tom Flower had on August 16, 2023, was supposedly just about “legal advice” on the “process for contract negotiations” concerning the employment con-tract for the proposed County Manager (CM) position, turned into something else — which was way wrong. Instead of just “legal advice” for the “process for contract negotiations”, the secret session discussed a whole hoard of things other than that single subject. When you read the transcript of the meeting  (coming next week) it will give some insight on Day’s and Flower’s “management” skills and “leadership” qualities. (That is, two clowns lost in Clown World.) In addition, Day and Flower talked about how to suppress citizen’s input and comments and personally attacked a citizen. Folks, this tape is an eye opener into tyrannical and corrupt government. So, let’s see what we have.

But how do we know what went on in that ES? We know what went on because of the demands of a group of motivated citizens who attend the BOCC meetings and smelled a rat regarding the process Day and Flower used to push a County Manager position on us. They wanted that audio recording of that August 16th Executive Session (ES) made public. What else happened was  a change of who is a county commissioner due to the recall (Lucas Epp replaced the recalled Tom Flower) gave the citizens the deciding vote in the BOCC releasing the tape. (Day fought tooth and nail to keep it a secret. When you read/hear it, you will see why.)

Due to the pressure from the citizens and Epp’s vote to release, we have the tape. (These citizens did what most of the county refuses to do: engage our local politicians and keep them on track and honest. God bless them.)

The following description and quotes of the ES are based on listening to the audio recording. It is very poor quality in parts so some words may be incorrect. We are having the recording professionally transcribed and that will be printed in next week’s Sentinel.

What you hear on the tape is Day frantically pushing to get the whole contract negotiation process and the hiring of Wilson done in that one meeting as the Flower official recall results were days away (the unofficial Recall results were out August 7th and it wasn’t looking good for Flower Boy) and if Flower was recalled, the new BOCC would probably never finish the process.  (That’s why Day put in an unprecedented Severance Pay provision for ($45K) that the CM would get even if he worked only one day.)

Commissioner Bill Canda refused to attend the ES on August 16th as he believed that  Day and Flower did not properly follow the Colorado statutory provisions required to create a CM position and that the whole process was totally improper because Day and Flower had pre-chosen Wilson for the job and that was unethical.

So, what happened in that ES and the open meeting?  Here are some important items that occurred:

What the recording revealed:

1. The ES was supposed to be about getting “legal advice” from the County Attorney, Dan Slater, about the process for the contract negotiations Day and Flower should be taking in negotiating the contract with Wilson. But it turned into a lot more which was outside of the stated reason for the ES and thus illegal.

2. County Attorney Slater was inconsistent during most of the meeting.

3. Flower, even after being told by Slater that the actual negotiations with Wilson must be in a public, desperately wanted to do them in secret to keep the public in the dark. In the end, due to Slater, they did the fake “negotiations” in the public exposing the farce again to the citizens.

4. The whole ES discussion was a total clown show with Flower using curse words to describe the citizens in the meeting and Day pushing the absolutely crazy proposition to hire Wilson first and THEN negotiate a contract. This was beyond the realm of stupidity. Remember Flower called the citizens in the gallery at a big BOCC CM meeting a few months ago, “ya, ya’s”? Well, now he refers to the citizens that attended this meeting Bill’s “Billy Goats.” (Nice way to refer to the citizens who pay his salary and to show disrespect for your fellow commissioner.)

5. Slater, who constructed the proposed contract, used a sample employment contract from the national county manager association. Do you think that the sample contract might be a little biased towards the employee? Nah, no way. In the rush job to get this done, Slater did not get a good sample of other counties’ actual contracts but went with one that was surely pro employee and anti-county. (So we are paying him to side with an employee over the county’s interests?)

6. Day pushed this through with the abhorrent severance pay provision. Flower gleefully went along but it was Day’s baby. (Wilson grabbed the money ($57k for five days work) the second he got terminated ALL DUE TO DAY’S INSISTENCE ON THE SEVERANCE PAY CLAUSE BEING IN THE CONTRACT.)
7. Flower’s unbelievable arrogance: The management analysis team that Canda put together plus literally hundreds of retired or active big time business owners and small, medium, and large business executives live in this county. They actually KNOW how to run a business and especially an office type business. Flower has NO experience in that and had caused an incredible amount of damage in his six-year reign. Day has no business management experience AT ALL. In spite of that, here’s what Flower said, “Nobody down there has the expertise, knowledge, and insight that the three commissioners have. They can run their pie hole all they want. They don’t know.”

8. Our County Attorney, Dan Slater, who made up the employment contract (and we paid him for it) actually says about his proposed contract THAT HE MODIFIED, “And it may be poorly written. That’s a reality.” (Unbelievable.)

9. At one point, Flower asked Day, “How do you feel about postponing it all? Give them what they want?” Day, apparently started literally crying and said, “If that’s the case, I just spent two months fighting for something I know needs to happen and then I see [it] not happening.” (Day seems to think he knows it all and the dozens of citizens who said let’s slow this thing down on this are wrong.)

10. Day and Flower go way off base near the end complaining about the citizens actually being allowed to speak at the meetings. Flower blames Day for this. Day and Flower spend some time on how to muzzle the peasants once they get back into the public session. This is not seeking legal advice from Slater and NOT part of the reason for the ES. They are making decisions in an ES which is illegal.

11. Cat out of the Bag: Day saying that “Braden will probably take whatever we want for him.” (Does that sound like the whole thing has been set up?)

12. With regards to public contract “negotiations” that were going to happen after the ES, Flower says this about the citizens at the meeting, “Yeah. I say the public doesn’t have anything to say about it.” (Nice.)

Bottom line, the tape shows that Day and Flower have NO respect for the citizens who voted them in. Somehow, as soon as they got elected, these two clowns turned into Super Mario managers with no need for advice or consultation before they make big time structural changes to our county government. We didn’t see this in Day when he was running for office. But, as we have seen over and over again, the man has become a huge disappointment.

Canda was right. The county needs management and leadership training. Starting with Day.

So, most of the ES was NOT about getting legal advice about the “process for contract negotiations” thus violating the Open Meetings law. This is wrong and unethical and probably illegal. We have enough of these ES’s. As citizen Matt Miles has said repeatedly in the meetings, “the public’s business should be done in public.” We need to make that happen.