News and Commentary
The 10.3.23 BOCC:
The October 3, 2023 meeting of the Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) started at 1 p.m. in their royal throne room. All three commissioners were present: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp.
In Commissioner Comments, Canda gave an update on our local “rabbit ears” two TV channels that broadcast from a local mountain to the peasants in Happy Valley. He said he met with chief engineers of both stations and that there is no written contract between them and the county and also there is no law forcing them to maintain broadcast translators for us. Canda says they are both looking around for used equipment that they would give us or we would have to buy our own. He is scheduling a meeting with the stations general managers to further explore options.
Canda is also going to schedule a meeting with a property tax expert and our assessor to discuss options and strategies on reducing our property tax mill levies due to the astronomical increase in property valuations.
Len Arrigo was first up in Public Comments. He wanted to know what controls were in place to monitor out-of-cycle (OOC) checks as it appears Finance cut a check for the fired County Manager for $30k (severance pay per contract which Day had inserted into the contract) and it was not reviewed or ok’d by a commissioner. He said he is going to do a CORA request to get a copy of the check.
In New Business, Day introduced a resolution to release the audio of the BOCC Executive Session (ES) on August 31, 2023 where the commissioners discussed the few resumes that were submitted for the County Manager position. (Remember Day restricted the resume submission period to only five days to minimize anybody decent submitting a resume so News and Commentary
The 10.3.23 BOCC:
The October 3, 2023 meeting of the Custer County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) started at 1 p.m. in their royal throne room. All three commissioners were present: Chair Kevin Day and members Bill Canda and Lucas Epp.
In Commissioner Comments, Canda gave an update on our local “rabbit ears” two TV channels that broadcast from a local mountain to the peasants in Happy Valley. He said he met with chief engineers of both stations and that there is no written contract between them and the county and also there is no law forcing them to maintain broadcast translators for us. Canda says they are both looking around for used equipment that they would give us or we would have to buy our own. He is scheduling a meeting with the stations general managers to further explore options.
Canda is also going to schedule a meeting with a property tax expert and our assessor to discuss options and strategies on reducing our property tax mill levies due to the astronomical increase in property valuations.
Len Arrigo was first up in Public Comments. He wanted to know what controls were in place to monitor out-of-cycle (OOC) checks as it appears Finance cut a check for the fired County Manager for $30k (severance pay per contract which Day had inserted into the contract) and it was not reviewed or ok’d by a commissioner. He said he is going to do a CORA request to get a copy of the check.
In New Business, Day introduced a resolution to release the audio of the BOCC Executive Session (ES) on August 31, 2023 where the commissioners discussed the few resumes that were submitted for the County Manager position. (Remember Day restricted the resume submission period to only five days to minimize anybody decent submitting a resume so  the job. Even with his weak resume.) Day said that since the meeting discussed resumes from people who were not a “finalist”, then the law says the recording can’t get released. (Remember, Day and Flower only chose Wilson as the only finalist so no other resumes could be released. Canda wanted “Candidate G” as a finalist but Day and Flower shot it down.)
After much commissioner and County Attorney gabbing, citizen Nadine Peterson spoke up and suggested that the BOCC have the meeting transcribed and leave out any resume info. Citizen Bill Parker then spoke up against the three minute time limit Day is imposing on us citizens’ comments.
Canda then spoke up and said this was the first time he saw a three minute time limit on the Agenda itself and said, “Kevin, you put that there. We didn’t vote on it. The people have a right to make their case, especially for a small county like us.” He also said we should release a copy today of the blood money check that Wilson got. Later on, citizen Steven Wilcox said the commissioner should vote on having a three minute comment limit and he wants that on as an agenda item for the next meeting.
There then was a big discussion on the controls and protocols for OCC checks with citizens demanding answers from Day. Epp said he would look into that and Canda noted that it was his understanding that big OOC checks needed approval.
And that was that.

The 10.4.23 BOCC:
The October 4th BOCC meeting started at 9 a.m. in their throne room. In Commissioner Items, Canda continued the local TV transmitting issue stating that a new VFR translator costs around $13k and we would need two of them. He is going to meet with the two TV station chief engineers about them installing and maintaining them. Continue reading BOCC Double Header Oct 3 & 4 →