Image
Image Link 01/17/2016

Who and What to Believe? How to Choose?


Try as he might, Elbert County Commissioner Robert Rowland failed to convince this reader that the county has put together a team that has turned this county around. He bemoans his perceived relegation to minority voting status among the three-person commission and so he will throw in the towel and not run for a second term. Good on him. (See http://elbertcountynews.net/stories/Rowland-wont-seek-re-election,204028?)

During the course of his tenure, what can Rowland point to as “accomplishments” by the county? He continually uses that word in his comments to the press and on social media and always with disparaging and divisive language about his opponents. If you have legitimate accomplishments to crow about, why do you feel the need to disparage your opponents? The accomplishments should stand on their own merit. Let’s hear about these many accomplishments, commissioner!

Rowland never gets around to enumerating what these accomplishments are. The only thing specifically mentioned by him in three years is the county budget. Anyone looking at those numbers over the past three years cannot come away with a sense of “accomplishment”. The same auditor for the past three years has reported a continuing decline in the county’s net status. County assets continue to depreciate with no reinvestment (think roads and buildings). If pressed, Rowland will state that it is “a great step of progress that at least the budgets and the audits are being done on time now”. He fails to mention that the public was only made aware that the county was violating statutory budget laws by his leftist, destructive, opponents in the liberal media, namely the Elbert County News, which he uses to post his own comments. Rowland is right about one thing. Many devoted county employees have worked for years doing the best they could with no financial support from current and past commissions.

Former county commissioner Kurt Schlegel, who imposed dire financial restrictions on other elected officials for four years, resulting in massive personnel losses (his stated goal), recently returned to the scene of his crimes, proclaiming he was returning to save the county. Now employed by the firm he hired to destroy county bookkeeping when he was in office (Community Resource Services, Inc.), he claims to represent “several developers” who have interest in providing commercial, residential and infrastructure developments in the county. Admonishing current commissioners for the chaos that occurred at the Nov 18 commissioner board meeting, he said developers are having second thoughts about coming to the county. Priceless, coming from King Chaos himself who said he didn’t need an audit of county finances in order to determine what he needed in “his” county budget.

Too bad he didn’t bother attending the auditor’s presentation earlier this year when it was explained that reputable developers study a county’s audit reports when deciding where to take their business. They want to see appropriate debt revenue and expenditure ratios. Elbert County is moving in the wrong direction. With a proven bad business record in Elbert County, Schlegel continues to advance cronyism and control by a select few, to the exclusion of public and employee opinion. Non-like-minded employees he fired or bullied out, resulting in more lawsuits and payouts by tax payers. (See JKurt’s resume here: http://www.crsofcolorado.com/bio-kurt.php).

Placeholder Picture

Instead of improving the financial status of the county and improving services to the taxpaying residents, elected self-proclaimed conservatives continue to fritter away the county’s future. Commissioner Rowland, for all of his talk of progress, took $1000 from every citizen in the county ($24,000+) to pay for attorneys' fees in his failed attempt to squirm out of the court’s imposition of a $1000 personal fine for breaking state campaign finance laws. And beginning in 2017, we are going to pay for the 30% pay increase the commissioners approved for all officials elected in 2016 or later. Forget about Elbert County “accomplishing” the 3% emergency reserve fund mandated by TABOR in the state constitution.

We see that developers are not coming to Elbert County of their own accord. Personally, I’m good with that. Most of my friends (of all political persuasions) in rural Elbert County want it to remain rural. We came for elbow room and to escape places like Aurora, expanding Parker, and squeezed Castle Rock. Ranchers and farmers in eastern parts of the county joined with western residents to successfully defeat the Ray Wells Super Slab plans in 2006, 2008, and 2010. County residents seem united in limiting growth. It’s annoying to have to continually slap down a few self-proclaimed saviors who know what’s best for all of us.

I thank the “leftist destructive activists”, as Rowland likes to call them, who accurately call out the errant behavior of the elected who continue to plunge the county deeper in debt, break their sworn oath to uphold the laws of the State of Colorado, defy the laws, misrepresent the truth to the courts, and refuse to take personal responsibility. These are not the actions of a true conservative. Rowland has fooled no one; he has only deceived his supporters.

Most likely, with county demographics unchanged, voters will elect similar ideologues in 2016 who speak the same conservative message, but who instead act otherwise. It remains a smart vote if you are against growth and development. Admittedly, it’s hard to know the candidates running for election, but not impossible. Laziness and apathy on the part of candidates and electors must be denied. One just has to decide their desired result and then vote accordingly. The trick is determining who speaks with forked tongue.

So, with the New Year upon us, I appreciate this beautiful county I choose to call home. I did not choose to build a new home. I chose to recycle and reuse what was already here. Many have come and gone from Elbert County precisely because they missed the city and its amenities. That cycle will likely continue. While I would feel better knowing my county government was respectful of the law and that it was operating in a fiscally responsible fashion, I also appreciate that this bad behavior keeps the developers out, impeding growth. And I am in favor of that. (The only caution is that folks like Schlegel must be closely watched and thankfully the Elbert County “liberal, leftist, destructive activists” are keeping tabs on his maneuvers.

Thus, the dilemma; allow the corruption and ineptness to continue, or get involved and fight it? Sleepy country living or uncontrolled growth? It’s a tough call. No, I don’t think smart growth exists. I haven’t seen it.