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Summary BOCC Meeting- Feb 08, 2017

Call to Order at 9:00
Invocation and Pledge

Chris Richardson, Danny Willcox, Grant Thayer in attendance.

CONSENT AGENDA:
Agenda passes

STAFF REPORTS:
CDS and Planning – Kyle Fenner: How CDS works. Planning meeting on 21st is a pivotal meeting regarding county plan. CDS reports to BOCC for about a year now. Understaffed in early 2016. Staffing has helped, and it has helped the backlog of things in CDS. Acquiring Baseline Engineering helped a lot as well. The phones used to be contracted out and was expensive. Building fees were finally updated from 2005 to bring them to current valuations. Land use applications doubled thanks to staffing. Digital plan review has helped to keep permits and applications available. Town of Limon loaned their building inspector when a new inspector quit after 10 days due to another job offer in Aurora. New certifications were needed, specifically for electrical and plumbing. Has 4 page document with steps of land use application process. Will provide to commissioners and website. Will be providing a monthly report regarding open applications and hearings going forward.

Rick Petit, Treasurer: 6 month disbursement report. Will be published in Ranchland News as per law. July 1-December 31, 2016.

County Assessors Office – Billie Mills and Michael Akana: CDOE process presentation is becoming Board of Equalization Procedure (BOEP): Billie passed out a diagram regarding appeals process for assessments. Chris Richardson asks how many appeals come through. A couple hundred per year, not sure how many went to court. They ebb and flow because assessments are changed every other year, so they are higher in the years of the change.

Ed Ehrmann, County Manager: Update on revised water study. Staff h.as received a revised contract and working with vendor to change of scope. WAC is collecting additional data to help water study. Public outreach meeting week of Feb 22th. The contract has been more involved than Ed anticipated. We are on time and budget from original figures. Also update on deputy that was injured by driver. Charges will be filed now that vehicle was found. Lots of public outreach. Grass fire over the weekend due to dry conditions, multiple agencies involved. The use of a drone seized from drug money was a big help in determining structure location during the fire and will be helpful in the future in these situations. RFPs are out right now: Recycled asphalt (60k tons) to rebuild gravel areas on sides of roads, Audit is ongoing and interviewing staff and has been smooth transition from previous auditor, payroll services entered into contract with new vendor and will provide savings over previous vendor.

PUBLIC COMMENT:– new giant countdown clock to make sure comments adhere to 3 minutes.

Victoria Thalimer: Emails sent to commissioners have not had a reply in over a week. BOCC meetings published to calendar for Feb, and having one meeting per month in the evening. It shouldn't be difficult to send a quick reply. Also that replies have been received to citizens reporting on Independence, and have been added to the application file, which should be growing. The developer is allowed to make many presentations of unlimited length, but citizens are not allowed to speak at all. Brought hard copies for commissioners and for the record. Commissioner response: Town Hall Meeting is being held in the evenings, and BOCC is a working meeting and that's why the Town Hall meeting is being done so that the two way communication can happen. Please come during office hours to discuss anything. They've done that town hall because they understand that public comment is as good as “talking to a wall” Commissioner Richardson. They will reply and send on to CDS, but they have been flooded with emails regarding Independence. For public comment to be meaningful, it should be made at the time of application. Grant Thayer.

Marlene Groves: Thanks for the efforts on the grass fire. Thanks for providing agendas, et al since the change to new commissioners. She has received replies to emails. And hopes things will continue to develop well.

ACTION ITEMS:
Rick Petit, Treasurer: Gallagher Amendment presentation. Residential taxes would pay 45% of taxes in Colorado starting in 1982, so taxes have been decreasing to meet that. Residential is 66% of tax base, 1982 res at 21%, most other things were 29%. Since then, the residential has dropped to 7.96% since 2004. Other classes at 29%. Tabor amendment noted that rate cannot be increased without a vote of the people. Proposed rate for 2017 is 6.56 which results in an 18% decrease in residential property tax revenue. Residential is 66% of tax base, 12% state assessed, 8% commercial, 4.5% vacant land, ag is 6.5%. A few other small amounts. Depending on location, it will have different effects. NW county might see an increase to their fire protection, while quiet parts of the county may see the opposite, as an example. The state has mentioned they would be putting together a committee to determine the impact statewide.

Bank of West Property Update, Ed Ehmann: Staff has received a draft contract for the purchase. All the inspections will be noted in the 30 day period of the contract. $496k purchase, 10,000 sq ft building. Feb 22nd meeting will have contract presented. The monies were from bond refinance. Grant notes that we shouldn't be putting any monies towards things like inspections until contract, even during the due diligence portion of the contract. Willcox wants to be assured that the county has an “out” in the contract, and Ed says there is. July 1, 2017 would be the optimistic move in date.

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Marlene Groves: Public comment regarding what the building will be used for. She believes they are just looking at buildings that are available, instead of building one. Planning should have been done first to determine needs instead of putting this due diligence into effect.

New Voting Equipment contracted, Dallas Schroeder: Current voting systems are 10 years old, end of life per contract. Testing and diagnostics showed that 8 machines had to be removed from use due to age. Would like a Universal Voting System which is accepted through the state, and would help in situations like 2013 when Elbert County lost Elections Manager and no one else new the system, and no other counties could provide help because of the uniqueness of our system. New technology, new lease. The vendor will upgrade equipment on new contract as time goes on to keep system current. 8 year contract includes training, prep, etc. Slightly more than we pay now, but will relieve a lot of current issues. Would like to have this executed before end of February. Move to approve the execution of the contact, passed.

County Manager Policy, Ed Ehmann: Commissioners have policy before them. Equipment upgrades and other things are in the policy. Chris Richardson has some wording issue changes. Would make changes and represent to board for approval.

Marlene Groves: Public comment regarding what the building will be used for. She believes they are just looking at buildings that are available, instead of building one. Planning should have been done first to determine needs instead of putting this due diligence into effect.

Elbert County Finance Department Policies and Procedures, Ed Ehmann: Revision to current refinance policies, rewording, etc. to current policy. Staff tries to update these documents annually. New sections for purchase agreements, and Sale of assets. Danny Willcox: Credit card forms need to be added to the policy. Will likely be up for approval at Feb 22nd meeting.

Appointment Policy: For boards, commissions, etc. Working on ironing out some of the policies to appointment. Trying to avoid appointments from becoming political, conflicts of interest, term limits. In the past, the policies have been ignored, so they will be adhered to going forward. May or June this should be completed.

Heritage Trail, Whitaker Circle, and Kensington Circle Two Year Warranty Acceptance, Ed Ehmann: Has to do with county roads. Developer transfer to county after 2 years and is a policy if the developer does not follow through. These roads have met the acceptance criteria. Grant Thayer motioned for acceptance, will become resolution later in the year, when the developer must come back to do the transfer. Motion passes.

Action Items
Approval of Jan 25, 2017 BOCC Meeting Minutes: One small change to coroner's office. Otherwise, approved. Passed
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Resolution Regarding RETAC and HHS Director appointments: Regional Trauma Advisory Council. Cleaning up appointments counselor. Going on into June/July. Danny Willcox, Carolyn Doan(?), Chief Doohan(?) from Rattlesnake Fire.

10 minute break: 10:53am
Readjourn at: 11:12am

Grant Thayer read the rules regarding application attach to a rule or regulation. Regarding front row attendees wearing their Stop Over development t-shirts, specifically regarding Victoria Thalimer's comments.

Land Use
Public Hearing of Ardrey SUR Application, Baseline Engineering: Applicant would like to expand the existing facility. Adding 3 new underground tanks into it's current single above ground tank. It's a temp storage facility for septic services (currently Honeybee Septic) to dump, where another vendor (Macdonald Farms) picks up material for processing. First tank installation will require all infrastructure be completed. Second and third tanks will be added when needed. Approval called for SUR. Grant motions, Chris seconds. With conditions as presented. Motion passes.
Close hearing.

Board planning
Tentative Agenda for the Feb 22, 2017 BOCC meeting. Quail Hills Amendment. Oil Well MOU. Ed Ehmann's previous items from his agenda items at this meeting.

Land Use might need to move to another time of the meeting as brought up by Kyle Fenner in regards to Victoria Thalimer's comments.

Adjournment at 11:50am.

-Todd