by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The March 27, 2025 Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) regular meeting started at 9 a.m. at the All Aboard Westcliffe meeting room. All three Commissioners were present: Chair Bill Canda and members Lucas Epp and Paul Vogelsong.
In Commissioner Items, Epp said he attended a Colorado Wildfire Fire Protection Plan meeting where the attendees reviewed maps and zones in Custer County. County Interim Attorney Dan Slater said another ex county employee is suing the County. He doesn’t think this lawsuit “has a lot of merit”.
In New Business, Accounts Payable was first up. Epp led the discussion noting that this AP (which covers just the first two weeks of March) was high due to a lot of normal, annual expenses that come in around this time. Epp reviewed all the expense items greater than $5k. The total of $567k was approved.
Next was the announcement that the annual Towns of Westcliffe and Silver Cliff Clean Up day will be May 10th. Residents of the two towns can put out items on the curb to be taken away. No batteries, tires or household trash. No appliances that use freon. All county residents can bring their electronic items
to the Dome in Silver Cliff to
be recycled.
Eight County Resolutions were next. These supplemental resolutions were to approve money to pay for expenses that were above the budgeted amounts. The Commissioners
Health Insurance got $13.6k. The VSO got $6k for training. The VSO got another $20.8k for the new assistant. Road & Bridge received $66k for the newly acquired used roller/compactor. $49.5k was allocated for the infamous chipper.
The County Clerk got $69k for recording services and the airport was on the receiving end of $125k for improvements to the
fuel system there.
The last Agenda Item was a Resolution for a Moratorium on
new Short Term Rental applications and permits. This would last until December 31, 2026. Planning & Zoning needs time to adjust the regulations based on issues that came up in the last few years plus new state laws are coming down. (A new state regulation will control the size of the STR septics and will use the number of beds, instead of bedrooms, as the measurement tool.) The Resolution was approved.
And that was it.

by George Gramlich, News and Commentary

The February 13, 2025 Custer County Board of County Com-missioners’ (BOCC) meeting took place at the All Aboard Westcliffe meeting room and started at 9 a.m. All three Commissioners were in attendance: Chair Bill Canda and members Lucas Epp and Paul Vogelsong.
In Commissioner Comments, Epp mentioned a bunch of meetings he attended since the last BOCC gabfest: CCI (a lobbying group for counties who are a member), a wages workshop with Human Resources, a Public Health meeting to talk about the impact of grants disappearing, met with CDOT on the courthouse sidewalk project and with Redmonds Consulting re: audit strategy. Epp noted as part of the courthouse sidewalk project, a new county employee parking lot will be built which would help with citizen parking next to the courthouse.
In New Business, the monthly Accounts Payable amount ($291k for January) was approved.
Resolution 25-03, Moving $146k
from the Tourism Fund to the Tourism Board was approved.
Next up was Resolution 25-04, approving $5,560 to the Airport from the Capital Improvement fund was ok’d. This was for the three airport gate upgrades.
Vernon Yoder’s Short Term Rental (STR) application was then approved.
The Horton STR application was recommended to be not approved by the Planning Commission, but the Commissioners approved it anyway. Some of the issues surrounding the application was that there were too many STR’s already in the area, the septic size and the shared driveway access. Continue reading BOCC: County Attorney Showdown →