Board of County Commissioners of Lincoln County  

Agenda for September 30, 2008

 

 

9:00 Call to order and Pledge of Allegiance

 

9:00 Public Health Director Tonda Scott to present the school contract for signature and to discuss public awareness of rabies

 

9:30 County Assessor Estelle Thaller to present the audit report and to discuss an abatement requested for the Limon Hospitality Motel

 

2:00 Joe Linnebur to discuss the letter he received concerning the control of noxious weeds on his property

 

 

1.      Approve additional expense vouchers if necessary

2.      Approve the minutes from the September 29th meeting

3.      Cancel County General check #9532 written on September 10, 2008 to the Colorado Coroners Association for $25 and #9545 written on September 10, 2008 to LaJunta Inn & Suites for $79.90 since the Coroners Conference was cancelled

4.      Review the September report from the Sheriff

5.      Review a letter from the County Attorney to Computer & Network Solutions, LLC concerning computer systems in the County Sheriff’s office

6.      Review information from the County Coroner concerning cell phone plans through Verizon Wireless

7.      Review a letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service concerning the county’s request for a black-footed ferret survey waiver in order to develop a proposed prairie dog control and containment program

8.      County Commissioners’ reports

9.      County Administrator’s report

10.  County Attorney’s report

11.  Old business

12.  New business

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Board of Lincoln County Commissioners met at 9:00 a.m. on September 30, 2008.  The following attended:  Chairman Ted Lyons, Commissioners Steve Burgess and Gary Beedy, County Administrator Roxie Devers and Clerk to the Board Corinne M. Lengel.  County Attorney Stan Kimble was present in the afternoon, as was Kay Christie with The Limon Leader and Eastern Colorado Plainsman.

 

Chairman Lyons called the meeting to order and led the Pledge of Allegiance, and then Mr. Burgess said he would like to address an issue that arose in the previous day’s meeting prior to having their discussion with Public Health Director Tonda Scott. 

 

According to the September 5, 2007 commissioner meeting minutes, the County Coroner was only allowed to pay one deputy the full $50.00 for each death call that they responded to.  If more than one deputy responded to the call, they would split the $50.00 accordingly.  Therefore, the Board refused to pay Zane Nestor and Chiara Jameson $50.00 each for the same call that they responded to on September 18, 2008.  Ms. Devers will send a copy of the minutes to Ms. Nestor explaining the reason for the change.

 

The Board then asked Ms. Scott about bills totaling approximately $3,000 that they approved at the previous meeting, and she explained that they were for a blood-lead analyzer and its components.  LCDC is one of the entities requiring a blood-lead analysis for Medicaid recipients, especially since blood-lead can cause serious neurological problems and possible mental retardation.  Ms. Scott added that they would like to start billing Medicaid for at least a portion of the testing.

 

Ms. Scott said she had finally received the School Nurse Service Contract back, so Mr. Beedy made a motion to sign the contract, Mr. Burgess seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.

 

Ms. Scott then presented a Rabies Information Sheet, a Public Notice-Findings and Order of Rabies Vaccination Continuation adopted by Prowers County, and general information regarding the disease.  She said there have been two cases where rabies was recently found in skunks in the town of Limon. 

 

The Board informed Ms. Scott that they had discussed it at their previous meeting and, since there is not an Animal Control agent in the county, they did not feel they could adopt a resolution requiring mandatory vaccinations.  Mr. Burgess suggested a rabies awareness campaign in the newspapers, and added that the Board would certainly recommend that vaccinations be given to pets. 

 

Ms. Scott also said that local law enforcement officials would need to be aware of the problem, especially if a human was bitten by a rabid animal, thus, they had held a meeting with several different agencies.  She did admit that since they had already submitted the two skunks for testing, they would have to wait until the disease was suspected in a different type of animal before they could send it in, but added that local officials would need to be sure and take care of the quarantine process if something should happen.

 

Mr. Lyons said they would deal with it if it became an issue.

 

Ms. Scott also informed the Board that she may need to hire part-time help to take care of some of her non-nursing duties, as there are getting to be quite a few of them.  She said she would certainly look at the budget first and would come and talk to them again, but that the ESF8 tabletop exercise is becoming quite a project and has become time-consuming because of revisions that need to be made to it.

 

County Assessor Estelle Thaller and Renita Thelen then met with the Board to present the audit report and discuss an abatement requested for the Limon Hospitality Motel.  Ms. Thaller said there were no problems with the 2008 audit, but did comment that the same company would not be doing the audit next year.

 

As for the property owned by Limon Hospitality, LLC, previously known as the Preferred Motor Inn, they have applied for an abatement of 2006 taxes.  Ms. Thaller explained that not all of the rooms were functional when they purchased the motel in 2005, so she had reduced the value at that time.  Now they are stating that only fifteen rooms were functional at that time, and Ms. Thaller said that is not true; there were only eleven rooms that had actually flooded because the water pipes were frozen and broke when they turned the water on.  She added that they had approved the abatement for the 2007 taxes and that he had not appealed the decision made by the commissioners at the Board of Equalization hearing on July 31, 2008.  The abatement for the 2007 taxes gave him back $2,300, and taking off the eleven non-functional rooms brought him another $5,300.  Ms. Thaller said she would not do anymore than that and asked that the commissioners schedule a hearing.  Ms. Devers said she would check with her to see what would work best.

 

Mr. Burgess made a motion to approve the minutes from the September 29, 2008 meeting, as submitted.  Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.

 

Mr. Beedy then made a motion to cancel County General fund check numbers 9532 and 9545, both written on September 10, 2008.  Check #9532, in the amount of $25.00, was written to the Colorado Coroners Association, and check #9545, in the amount of $79.00, was written to La Junta Inn & Suites.  Both were canceled due to the cancellation of the Coroners Conference.  Mr. Burgess seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.

 

The Board reviewed the September Sheriff’s report, as well as a letter from the County Attorney to Computer & Network Solutions, LLC concerning computer systems at the County Sheriff’s office.

 

Sheriff Nestor was asked to come over to discuss the All Access keyless entry systems and, after some discussion, it was decided that the employee staff entrance and the west entrance of the courthouse would be the only two courthouse entrances where keyless entries would be installed.

 

Mr. Beedy made a motion to approve the proposals from All Access Systems Integrator for keyless entry systems at the employee entrance for $2,978.01 and the west entrance for $2,914.15 at the county courthouse.  Mr. Burgess seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.

 

After discussing the request from the County Coroner for a cell phone for her department, Mr. Burgess made a motion to approve the purchase of a basic, single-line cell phone plan from Verizon Wireless, for use by the Coroner’s office.  The plan will be the $39.99 per month plan with a limit of four hundred and fifty minutes, with no text messaging service or additional options, and will be implemented during the 2009 budget year.  The Board and Ms. Devers will monitor the use of the cell phone, and if there is any abuse detected the service will be immediately discontinued.  Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.

 

The Board reviewed a letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service concerning the county’s request for a black-footed ferret survey waiver in order to develop a proposed prairie dog control and containment program.  All members felt they would like to have some time to look over the documents better before further discussion is held.

 

Mr. Burgess reported that he spoke with Chris Monks yesterday about oiled roads and County Road 2W in District One, as well as the DOLA grant the Board has considered applying for.  Chris didn’t feel that there was really enough area in District One for a $200,000 grant, especially since he doesn’t want to chip seal everywhere.  Chris said he would rather they purchase a new loader, and after speaking with Mr. Burgess, they decided that District Two would like to have District One’s old loader and then District Two could trade theirs off.  Mr. Burgess spoke with Greg Etl who seemed to think a loader would qualify for grant funding.  A new loader is $207,000 right now, but Chris said it could go up about five percent the first of the year; however, he was going to see if they would honor the price if the county committed to the purchase.  Further discussion included the fifty percent match, what would be done with the $100,000 that the county would get from the grant, and what would happen if it turned out that the money was actually needed for roads in District One.

 

Ms. Devers said that she could just add $100,000 to the Revenue side of the budget in case the grant was approved, and offset it by increasing the Equipment line item by $100,000.  If it turns out the money is actually needed for road oil, they can always pull the grant application. 

 

Victim Advocate Juliet Lundy stopped by to inform the Board that she had been shopping for the interview room camera recording equipment and had finally found one for around $1,000 if she pieced it together rather than bought one as a whole unit.  She wanted to let the Board know that she had spoken with Leslie Hansen and was told that the 18th Judicial District may be able to completely fund the purchase.  Since the Social Services Department uses the Resource Center for interviews also, Ms. Devers suggested asking Ms. Barksdale if they could pay for a portion of the system if the 18th Judicial District won’t.

 

Mr. Beedy did not have anything to report, and Mr. Lyons said he had spoken with Scott Ravenkamp.  Ms. Devers had nothing to report, either.

 

Mr. Lyons called for old business and Ms. Devers said she’d gotten the letter from Linda Yoder regarding the waiver for the Edison Drylanders 4-H Club, which the Board reviewed and signed, as well as the lease agreement with the RSVP office that had never actually been signed, even though the Board voted to approve it.

 

Ms. Devers had e-mailed Keenya Sisson with CTSI regarding the CDL physicals and was told that they are only covered once every twenty-four months.

 

Ms. Lengel said she would like to ask if the Board had a plan for the wooden ballot boxes that she had discussed at a previous meeting, as Hugo Town Manager Gary Ensign was interested in four of them.  He would like two to be used during town elections, and then he would put one on display at the depot and one in the museum.  Ms. Lengel said she would like to keep track of them somehow since they will still be county property, so will basically sign them out to county offices or other entities that would like to have them on display.  The Board felt that would be acceptable, and Ms. Lengel will mention it at the next department head meeting, as well.

 

Ms. Devers said there had been a minor issue with all of the dumpsters at the fairgrounds being full of trash recently, so the town of Hugo had to dump them.  They would like more compensation if it is going to become a habit.  Since the Board felt other residents must be dumping their trash in the county dumpsters, they decided to have Mike Mosher put four of them away so that they were out of site of the public.

 

Mr. Kimble reported on the letter he’d written regarding the computer lease at the sheriff’s office, the lease agreement with Rains’ for the county-owned property, and the fact that he had done some research in state statute of actions a county could take regarding soil erosion.  He couldn’t find anything that would require a county to act on it, but did say that the responsibility may lie with a soil conservation district if the property in question is a part of that district.  The property was found to be in the High Plains Soil Conservation District, and Mr. Beedy commented that normally the district will do surveying and offer a cost-share program, but don’t generally require that a property owner take action against soil erosion.  Mr. Lyons placed a phone call to Greg King at the ASCS office, but he was unavailable.

 

Mr. Kimble also said he’d also done further research into implementing a rodent or pest control act, but commented that other counties are having the same problems.  He suggested completing an Option letter for control, and said he would be happy to draft one.  He added that since there are issues in other counties, they may be able to work together to come up with a common ordinance.

 

Mr. Kimble had nothing else to report, and when Mr. Lyons called for new business, Ms. Devers presented the results of the landfill survey.

 

At 2:00 p.m., Joe Linnebur met with the Board to discuss the letter he received concerning the control of noxious weeds on his property.  Weed Control Coordinator Wayne Shade was also present for the discussion.  Mr. Linnebur was upset about the letter he received, stating that he knew he had a problem with weeds, but that this was the first time he had been informed that the county felt he had a problem.  He asked if spraying was the only way to control the weeds, or if he had other options when Mr. Lyons told him that he needed to give the Board his plan for taking care of them, adding that being an organic farmer did not exclude him from having to at least attempt to control the infestation.

 

Mr. Linnebur said he did not know what he was going to do and would have to do some research, as he would need to map out all of the places where there were weeds.  He asked for more time, since he did not believe he could come up with a plan for all of his property in the period of time allotted for in the letter, and added that he would also need to consult with his brothers since they are all joint owners in the property.  When Mr. Lyons asked when he might be able to come up with a plan, Mr. Linnebur said it would probably be later in November, since he is in the field right now.

 

Wayne Shade commented that spraying needed to be done this time of year, and Mr. Beedy agreed that the best time to control Canadian thistle is in the fall or spring.  He added that although Round-up burns it back, something stronger such as Tordon or 24-D is what is actually needed to kill the roots.  Although mowing will prevent the thistle from going to seed, it will not kill it.

 

Mr. Linnebur explained that he could not sell his crops as organic if they have been sprayed, and he has also had some problems with obtaining crop insurance.  His yields are low, but he can’t afford to buy the chemicals because he doesn’t have the crop insurance to back it up. 

 

Mr. Lyons told him he can’t expect his neighbors to deal with his weeds getting into their fields either, but Mr. Linnebur said that his neighbors have weeds too.  Mr. Lyons informed him that the difference is that they at least make an attempt to control their weeds by spraying.

 

Mr. Beedy commented that the county has made huge progress with the weed control program, but that noxious weeds will never be eradicated; they can only hope to be controlled.

 

Mr. Linnebur repeated that he knew there was a problem and that he doesn’t want to suppress it; he wants to kill it.  If he had insurance to match his costs he would certainly buy the chemicals and take care of the problem.

 

Mr. Kimble explained the county’s process and Mr. Burgess asked Mr. Linnebur how long he thought it would take for him to come up with a plan.  He wasn’t sure, so Mr. Lyons asked if he felt that by the end of the year would give him enough time.  Mr. Linnebur again said he would have to do some research and speak with his brothers, but felt that it may be feasible. 

 

Mr. Lyons told Mr. Linnebur to be back after the first of the year with an action plan for weed control from spring through fall of 2009, and if the Board approved of the plan, it would give him time to get it in place before spring.  He added that the plan would need to be for multiple years, not just 2009, and that it would need to address spread and what would be done to keep the weeds from going to seed.  The decision was made that Joe Linnebur would meet with the Board again on the afternoon of January 13, 2009, with an action plan for controlling weeds on their property.

 

Once Mr. Linnebur had gone, Mr. Kimble suggested sending a letter to each of the Linneburs, adding that the Board would need to create a plan of what they felt Linneburs plan should include.  Mr. Kimble offered to compose the letter, but said he would have the Board approve it at the meeting on October 8.

With no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned until 9:00 a.m. on October 8, 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_______________________________________             ________________________________

                Corinne M. Lengel, Clerk to the Board                                          Ted Lyons, Chairman