BOCC: Ex District Attorney to Be Sued,
OEM Empire Building Expense Shot Down, New Human Services Director Hired

by George Gramlich, News and Commentary
The November 11, 2024 regular meeting of the Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) started at 9 a.m. in their regally appointed den in the Annex across from the courthouse. All three County Commissioners were present: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin Day.
In Commissioner Items, Epp said he is working on the budget, “whittling it down as much as possible”. (See below for comments regarding the huge deficit and optional county spending.) He said the budget must be approved at the December 11 BOCC meeting.
Canda then dropped a bombshell saying that Fremont County and Chaffee County are suing the fired and disbarred ex 11th Judicial District Attorney, Linda Stanley, to attempt to recoup money she used from her DA budget to defend herself in the complaint that eventually caused her demise. (He elaborated on this later in the meeting, but the following is the sum of both comments.) The two counties contend that Stanley, using some of the 11th Judicial District DA budget money to defend herself personally in the legal matter, was wrong. Canda said he was asked to see if Custer County would join the lawsuit. (It has not been filed yet.) The Fremont County Attorney is doing the lawsuit and absorbing all the costs. If they succeed in getting some compensation from Stanley, the money would first go to cover the Fremont Attorney’s costs and if there is any left over, it would go to the counties participating in the lawsuit. The Commissioners agreed to join the lawsuit. (The Sentinel will keep you posted on this.)
In New Business, the Commissioners approved the Accounts Payable disbursement of $92, 075. They left out an invoice from the Sheriff’s Office for $3,075 that they said needed additional documentation.
The next Agenda Item was a request by our Office of Emergency Management Director, Robyn Knappe, to buy a “dump trailer” so some citizens who are mitigating their private property can move logs from the mitigation to the proposed
Veterans Firewood Bank. This trailer would cost $14, 085. Also, it could be used by these private citizens to move slash to the landfill. This is part of Ms. Knappe’s county mitigation effort. She has previously requested that the county spend $100k ($50k in county tax money and $50k in “grants”) to buy a humongous woodchipper that PRIVATE landowners could use to chip their slash when they are mitigating. This would take work away from our local companies that do mitigation. (This would also involve a county employee in driving the chipper to their properties and running it. All told, Knappe is proposing to spend over $120k in taxpayers’ money to help a few landowners mitigate their PRIVATE property. Plus there will be increased insurance and maintenance costs. Warning, the Following Is a Taxpayer’s Rant: This is a conservative, Republican county. With a ton of retirees on fixed incomes. We want SMALL, EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT. We do NOT WANT BIGGER GOVERNMENT, MORE SPENDING AND THUS MORE TAXES. We do NOT WANT TO PROVIDE MORE SERVICES BECAUSE THEY COST MONEY. OUR MONEY. Inflation is killing us. Tax and fee increases are killing us. This mitigation expense, for landowners that in all reality are probably fairly well-to-do, will do NOTHING to help the county considering the immense size of the county and the massive wooded areas we have. NOTHING. It is less than a drop in the bucket. It is a typical big government feel-good, waste of our tax money make work project.
Now let’s take a quick look at our county budget for this year. First, our budget is around $9 million with around half or so coming in grants. So, about $4.5 million of that comes from our property taxes and miscellaneous county income (like P&Z building/septic fees, which are DOWN dramatically from last year). Knappe’s mitigation proposal of over $120k is a sizable hunk of our local taxes. For just a few citizens. Doesn’t seem like a wise use of our money. Plus here is where we stand for our 2025 County budget: Epp said it looks like the Commissioners will have to CUT ROAD & BRIDGE’S BUDGET BY AROUND $300K AND POSSIBLY THE SHERIFF’S BUDGET BY $200K! Plus other cuts. Folks, the two most important budget items in the county are R&B and the Sheriff’s Office. We could be cutting about a half a MILLION dollars from the two most important departments. Our PRIORITY SHOULD BE R&B AND THE SO. Period. Not pet projects to benefit a few while our roads need help and the SO needs money to protect us. Ms. Knappe is a nice lady, but she is not working for the state in Denver where there is no real oversight of how one spends tax money. This is Custer County and EVERY TAX DOLLAR IS IMPORTANT. The Commissioners are pinching pennies as our expenses next year are way over our anticipated income. Proposing a $100k chipper and a $14k dump trailer for a few people to cut down trees on their private property is way out of line for this county and totally WRONG considering the massive cuts we are making to essential services. It is FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE. There is only so much money here in Happy Valley, and that must go to what is important and benefits every taxpayer, not just a few. We can’t afford an OEM empire here in Custer County, folks. The Commissioners need to kill these two requests and ask Ms. Knappe to understand that there is a very limited amount of money here to spend in Custer County and that must go to essential services NOT OEM feel-good items. This ain’t Denver. Small government is good government. End of rant.
To their credit, and led by Canda, the Commissioners in a very nice way told Ms. Knappe that we are broke and can’t afford this insanity. Canda made the best comment with, “The People can do it”. (Amen. It is the citizens’ property and not the county’s property.) Epp had a good one too with, “Just because there is money left doesn’t mean we have to spend it”. Epp added, “funds are not good”. (That is, there is NO MONEY!) Thankfully, the Commissioners let this dump trailer request die. (However, the Taj Mahal $100k chipper is still being considered. Commissioners, if you are making massive cuts to essential services like R&B and SO, spending $100k on this is WRONG. Kill it.)
Next was a big hubbub about spending “LATCF” and “ARPA” funds this year so we don’t have to give them back. (The ARPA money was the big grants the feds and state handed out to local governments while they were killing us with jabs and masks during the Covid panic.) It was a little confusing with all the acronyms they were using, but it looked like they had about $700k to allocate and with a series of resolutions they did that. Of note, the airport got $125k and “work force housing”, IT, and the county’s contingency fund all got pretty big bucks.
Epp then went over the BOCC’s 2025 schedule. The Commissioners are moving their meetings from the Annex to All Aboard Westcliffe as having them in the Annex disrupts Finance and Human Resources. This will cost a few thousand to rent the place. The BOCC meetings will be moved to Thursdays in 2025 as All Aboard is booked on Wednesdays.
And that was it for the BOCC meeting, but dear readers, we have a BONUS BOCC meeting to briefly report on: A special BOCC meeting to choose the next Human Services Department Director. This was at 3 p.m. on the same day as the above meeting. After the usual formalities, Epp said that the Commissioners had four applicants for the job, and he liked two of them but “it came down to one for me”. Canda then said the same thing and said, “We have one superstar”. Day agreed in his fashion. They moved to offer the superstar the job at a salary of $80k per year. Human Resources Director, Bob Smith, then called the lucky one and she accepted. Her name is VIcki White.
And that was another joyous day in Happy Valley.

BOCC: Fleet Management Presentation, Employee Bonuses,
BOCC Meeting Location Change

George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The November 20, 2024 Custer County Board of County Commissioners’ (BOCC) regular meeting was held in their royally appointed quarters in the Annex across from the courthouse.
It started around 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were present: Bill Canda, Lucas Epp and Kevin Day.
In Commissioner Items, Epp said the Commissioners had to sign the 2025 budget in their December 11 meeting coming up. Day said he had received a letter from the County’s insurance carrier, CTSI, warning against “mass changes” in personnel when the new board convenes in January. (That, folks, was a little strange. There is one new Commissioner coming on board in January.) Epp noted that the Board has received three applications for the Director of Human Services (DHS) Director’s opening coming up in January. Epp wants to speed up the interview/hiring
process so the newly hired Director
has a chance to train with the
retiring one.
In New Business, the first item up was a presentation by a company
called “Enterprise Fleet Management”. They manage the purchase of fleet vehicles for various government entities and private companies. This was Day’s item. The Enterprise guy gave a decent Zoom talk which went on for a bit. The Commissioners will give him the VIN’s of all our fleet vehicles and he will get back to them with a
proposed plan.
Next up was approving the Upper Ark Weed Management Area Agreement. This passed.
The annual “Dedicated Service Awards for the County Employees” bonus was next. This is a year-end bonus of around $120 gross to each county employee. (Elected officials are not included.) Epp said we have “money in the salary lines” to do this. He also said the county “should be $200k to $300k under budget for the year”. (Commissioners, give that money to Road & Bridge. They need more help and equipment.) The bonus passed.
As a comment, Day said if somebody needed to see the County’s 2025 budget, one must go to the county website and then to the HR/Finance page. It is on a tab there.

Elected Official reports were next. The Sheriff’s Office report was first up. It was written and was not read at the meeting so we don’t know what was in it. After the Commissioners spent a few minutes scanning it on heir computers, Epp stated that he was working with our IT guy Vernon Roth to get the written reports online so us peasants can see what is going on. He said hopefully in January this will be working. (Thank you Mr. Epp and Mr. Roth for doing this.)
The Treasurer’s written report was accepted.
Coroner Brad Baltzly gave his report in person. He said they had 20 deaths YTD including one from Sawatch County (a hiker died in their county but the body was pulled out to Custer so we got stuck with it). Baltzly said suicides were “way up” (the county had seven) and about 40% of our total deaths are suicides. There were no homicides this year. He noted that in 2023 the county only had 13 deaths. (re homicides: Custer County Sheriff Rich Smith has put together a top notch team of very qualified counselors to respond to suicide calls. The timing is good. Our suicide rate, per capita, is very, very high.)
Department Reports

Human Resources was a written report. It was accepted.
Our Veteran Services Office Director, Dominic Edginton, was there to give his report. He had 61 scheduled appointments last month with around 65 walk-ins. He went through his claim numbers and compensation gained which were impressive. At the end he mentioned that he was Vice President of the Colorado Veteran Service Officers organization, but now, since the President stepped down, he became the big Chief. He made a couple of comments that there were going to be some changes in the organization in terms of performance and responsibility. (Go git’m Dominic!)
Road & Bridge gave their report. He needed the Commissioners to ok the water lease with the Upper Ark Water District (they get their road water from them). It was $9,500. The same as last year. It passed. He also needs the Commissioners to approve
the cost to replace the R&B’s fuel
station. That cost was $80k for the work and equipment and another $12k to do a new concrete pad. That passed.
Human Services, Landfill and Recycling reports were all written and accepted. Planning & Zoning was also written but Epp made the comment, from the report, that all receipts (building permits, etc.) were down dramatically from last time, around $200k worth. (The building boom is over folks. We better start tightening our budgets.)
The Airport report was written. Canda said the new AvJet fuel tank is here but not installed yet. He also noted the $450k game fence project had started. (That is being paid by a private company with no cost to the county.
Information Technology’s report was written. It was noted that there are two finalists for the vacant IT assistant position.
The Office of Emergency Management and the Extension Office reports were both written and accepted.
In Additional Items, Epp said the BOCC were moving their meetings down to the All Aboard Westcliffe building in Westcliffe to avoid using their current room as the Annex is HR and Finance’s current home and the BOCC meetings are very disruptive to their operations. The time frame is open.

And that was it. Another day in Happy Valley.