A moment of silence was held to honor veterans on this Pearl Harbor Day.
CONSENT AGENDA: BOCC minutes for 11/16/16 and 11/22/16 and mylars/CDS vouchers approved.
EXTENSION OFFICE:Sheila Kelley, CSU Extension agent thanked county for their support of 4H activities and introduced Jacob Krause, Hayley Sigmon and Courtney Montgomery who all qualified for national 4H competitions. All three 4Hers spoke to the audience and then presented Christmas wreaths to all the commissioners as well as donated $300 to ECCO in the names of the commissioners.
DEPARTMENT HEADS:Ed Ehmann, county manager, spoke about the ongoing progress regarding contacting stakeholders for water study.
PUBLIC COMMENT:Victoria Thalimer - thanked commissioners for their service. Concerns about county - 1) asking for at least one BOCC meeting per month be held in the evening so citizens may more fully participate, and 2) also concerned about proposed high density development vs. county resources.
Mark Wells - re: Coyote Meadow rezone - asked to postpone 2 agenda items related to this rezone due to attorney being out of state.
Marlene Groves - advocated recognition of bloodhound, Radar, who resides in Elbert County (awarded the #1 canine search and rescue dog in the country).
NEW BUSINESS:-Approved resolution setting annual salary of district attorney for 18th judicial district (amount of salary not provided to public).
-Approved resolution concerning full-time positions in DA's office (no details provided to public).
-Coyote Meadow rezone application - in response to Mark Wells' comments above asking for this issue to be delayed due to non-availability of attorney and other confusion surrounding this issue, continuance granted to 12/21/16. Outside counsel, Josh Marx, approved for consultation..
-Approval of 11/18/15, 4/13/16, 4/18/16 and 7/12/16 minutes:
Public comment - Rick Brown questioned why the clerk is not doing his statutory job of preparing minutes to "record them promptly." Suggested that the county is trying to whitewash the minutes and rush them through before the expiration of the only 2 commissioners who can vote on the minutes. If the county clerk cannot do his job, the county should revert back to the previous practice of having a clerk to the board perform this task.
MINUTES ALL PASSED.
-Assessor's office: Mike Arkana reported on changes in valuation; positive increase of $38,000 overall.
Board went into executive session to discuss proposed acquisition of real property.
-Motion made to authorize county manager to proceed with steps to purchase of property at 440 Comanche St., Kiowa. (currently vacant Bank of the West). Rick Pettit and Dallas Schroeder spoke to the county's need for more room for offices/space. Ed Ehmann stated that the county has $500,000 from bond proceeds available in county funds to make this purchase (no actual building price provided to public). Additional costs for renovation have not been identified, per Commissioner Ross, and he therefore was not comfortable approving this purchase and would like the next board to make this real estate decision. Commissioner Willcox agreed to purchase because there is a 60 day clause to back out of the agreement for any reason. Motion passed.
Meeting adjourned, followed by a work study session for presentation of conceptual plan by Independence developer.
-Jill Duvall
