by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
The 2024 Custer County Republican Assembly, sponsored by the Custer County Republican Central Committee (CCRCC) , convened at 1 p.m., Saturday, March 16th at Lange Hall in Westcliffe.
The Assembly was run by the CCRCC’s Chair, Jack Canterbury.
There were 46 elected precinct delegates present and about 15 guests. After some preliminaries, the first item of business was voting for who would run in the primary for County Commissioner in Districts 1 and 2.
In District 1, incumbent Commissioner Lucas Epp received enough votes to be on the primary ballot. Challenger Veronica Nicholson received 12 votes which allowed her to petition on to the primary. The petition deadline is Tuesday, March 19th.
District 2 was a different story. First, a little background: the county voted in Kevin Day for Commissioner four years ago. He was a registered Republican and ran as a Republican. Republicans and a fair amount of unaffiliated voters were behind his victory. After three years as a poorly performing Commissioner, Day, knowing he wouldn’t be nominated to run in the Republican Assembly, switched his voter registration to unaffiliated in December so he could run as unaffiliated. (All you have to do to get on the ballot running as unaffiliated is to get a small number of registered voters to sign a candidate petition.) (So, “Traitor” Day abandoned the people and the party that elected him and is hoping the libs and the moderate unaffiliated will return him to office for more mayhem and disastrous decision making. It’s all about ego; the paycheck, and the power. You wonder why three of them have been recalled in recent years.)
So this left a vacuum for the Republicans in District 2. Fortunately, a well-qualified candidate appeared recently and who is a lifelong Republican and ex-career U.S. Navy veteran Paul Vogelsong. Paul has a long record of accomplishments and has strong management skills. He also has a lot of experience in finance and human resources. Paul has been actively campaigning the last few weeks for the District 2 Commissioner slot and was successful Saturday with a strong favorable delegate vote that put him on the primary ballot.
Ex-Commissioner Lynn Attebury surprised every-body by putting in a bid for District 2 Commissioner. He received just enough votes to allow him to petition on. Again, March 19th was the deadline for his petition.
The Precinct Committee People, who run each precinct were also con-firmed Saturday. They are: District 1: Ann Barthrop, Linda Pollack; District 2: Harald Frank, Joanie Wilcox, and District 3: Nikita Phillips, Dawn Ramsdell.
Eleven delegates were elected/appointed to the Republican State Assembly. They are: Jack Canterbury, Chuck Steigerwalt, Sandra Attebery, Nancy Drummond, Harald Frank, Aspen Baltzly, Lisa Kidwell, Lisa Frank, Ann Barthrop, Jean Canterbury and Nikita Phillips.
The eleven alternate delegates elected are: Bill Canda, Joanie Wilcox, Lucas Epp, Joanne Canda, Linda Pollack, Stephen Wilcox, David Lutz, Gordan Greer, Mark Graner, Judy Greer and Lynn Attebery.
