Board of County Commissioners of Lincoln County
Agenda for November 30, 2009
8:00 Call to order and Pledge of Allegiance
9:30 The Citizens Against Railroad Relocation (CARR) Board will meet with the Commissioners to discuss the letter requesting coordination with various state and federal agencies and railroads
1. Approve additional expense vouchers if necessary
2. Approve the minutes from the November 25, 2009 meeting
3. Review a letter from Jo Downey with Council of Governments requesting information on one county project to submit to the Economic Development Administration
4. County Commissioners’ reports
5. County Administrator’s report
6. County Attorney’s report
7. Old business
8. New business
The Board of Lincoln County Commissioners met at 8:00 a.m. on November 30, 2009. The following attended: Chairman Ted Lyons, Commissioners Steve Burgess and Gary Beedy, County Administrator Roxie Devers and Clerk to the Board Corinne M. Lengel. Kay Christie with The Limon Leader and Eastern Colorado Plainsman arrived at 9:30 a.m.
Chairman Lyons called the meeting to order and led the Pledge of Allegiance, and then Mr. Burgess made a motion to approve the November 16, 2009, minutes as submitted. Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.
Jeremiah Higgins stopped in briefly to discuss the 2010 budget request for the Assessor’s office, and also informed the Board that the county’s IT person, Matt Powell, had come out the previous week to fix one of their computers that crashed. Jeremiah said Matt replaced the hard drive and had to do some data recovery, and he only charged $120 and did an excellent job.
The Board reviewed a letter from Jo Downey with Council of Governments, requesting information on one county project to submit to the Economic Development Administration. The Board agreed that there needs to be better housing in the county and that they would like to see more people of retirement age locate here.
The only thing Mr. Beedy had to report was that he spoke with his brother, Steve, who is on the Tourism Board. Steve told him that their board is considering purchasing digital picture frames for the hotels in the area to place on their registration counters. The picture frames will help to promote local attractions.
Mr. Burgess spoke with Chris Monks earlier this morning about having Shideler Electric hook up the electricity to the fuel tanks in Genoa.
Mr. Lyons said he finally got in touch with Bill Richmond, the gentleman who owns the other piece of property that will need to be crossed in order for the county to tie the fairgrounds sewer line into the town’s main line. Mr. Richmond agreed to allow the county an easement for $1,000, although he did request that the manhole on his property be upgraded. Mr. Lyons said they would need to take a look at the manhole and ask Mr. Kimble to draw up the agreements.
Mr. Lyons also checked on the progress of the work on County Road 26 after the commissioner meeting on November 25, stating that the work was almost complete and they were hauling gravel. He also contacted Dale Toft to see if he would be interested in serving on the Fair Board, but Dale hasn’t responded yet. All hospital board members are willing to serve another term. Mr. Beedy said that Steve Beedy is also willing to serve another term on the Tourism Board.
Ms. Devers had nothing to report, nor was there any old business to discuss. As for new business, Ms. Devers said that since job applications for the EPR position were due today, Ken Morrison will check the mail at 10:00 a.m. and bring them by if he picks any up. She also gave the commissioners a letter from Ronny Farmer, requesting that the Board send a letter to Gary Woodward asking to release his auditing work papers from the previous year to Mr. Farmer. Mr. Farmer also had submitted his peer review and letter of comments for the Board to see.
Ms. Devers said that Sheriff Nestor had sent her an e-mail regarding the courthouse security grant. The State Court Administrator’s office informed him that Lincoln County will receive $33,100 for personnel services, but will get nothing in the way of equipment or training. Ms. Devers also said that Terry Baylie with COG had sent the agreement for use of the wheelchair accessible bus.
Mr. Burgess made a motion to sign the Agreement between Lincoln County and Lincoln Community Nursing Home for use of the wheelchair accessible bus, for an annual fee of $700. Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.
Ms. Devers said she’d talked to Chad Horton with RES, who asked if they could come back and request a different amount of tax incentive, since the Board denied their original request. She told him she didn’t believe it would have made any difference if someone from RES had been present when the Board discussed their application, but they could certainly apply again if they wanted to ask for another amount.
At 9:30 a.m., The Citizens Against Railroad Relocation (CARR) board met with the commissioners to discuss the letter requesting coordination with various state and federal agencies and railroads.
The commissioners informed the CARR board that they would be attending an eastern district meeting at their conference the following day, and wondered if it would be beneficial to wait to send the letter to CDOT until after they spoke with Morgan and Washington counties, who have also considered coordination. Becky Thompson felt the commissioners should go ahead and send the letter now, as it may be spring before they actually got anyone to come out for a meeting. Also, each county that wishes to coordinate will have to send their own letter requesting a meeting, even though they can all attend the same meeting. Ms. Devers asked if the letter should specify certain dates, which all agreed that it should, so she said she would correct the letter requesting a meeting on January 28, February 18 or February 25, 2010.
Mr. Burgess made a motion to send a letter to Russell George, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, and others, requesting a coordination meeting on January 28, 2010, February 18, 2010, or February 25, 2010. Mr. Beedy seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.
Travis Taylor wanted to know if the Economic Development Corporation has its own set of bylaws and mission statement, and Mr. Beedy said they have a mission statement, but he wasn’t sure about what guidelines they have. Travis said that he will check into it, but if there is something in the policy that states the county does not support any development that may have a negative economic impact on the area, then they would like to know that, as it will help support their arguments. He added that they need to be adamant about the fact that feasibility studies must be done by an independent third party, because most of the time, studies are already pre-determined and CDOT will try to use their own economic development consulting firms. Even if those firms claim they are independent, they often have done work for CDOT in the past, which is a conflict of interest and should not be allowed.
Ms. Thompson added that their hope is that the economic development policy contains wording to the effect that the county does not support any business entering the county that will be a detriment to any other existing business.
Scott Ravenkamp spoke up, stating that he wanted to know why CDOT is even going forward at all, as they are no longer discussing the passenger line, and he questions why there even needs to be another study done.
Mr. Lyons was concerned that they would attempt to pass legislation that the front-range counties would support, and Scott added that it was possible the state would wind up owning and operating the entire thing, and then the counties would see no revenue at all.
Mr. Lyons commented that it was nice to see a young group of individuals involving themselves in the good of the county, and felt their leadership skills would be an excellent benefit to the CARR organization.
Since no other EPR position applications had come in the mail, a call was placed to Mark Morrison to discuss whether or not to re-advertise for the position, since only two applications were received. The Board agreed to advertise for two more weeks and to include publication in the Ranchland News this time.
A call was then placed to County Attorney Stan Kimble to discuss easement agreements for the fairgrounds sewer line, and Mr. Lyons repeated that he had spoken with the other property owner earlier this morning. Mr. Lyons told Mr. Kimble that the Board would like him to draw up agreements with the two property owners, contingent upon the project’s implementation.
Mr. Kimble said that it would be more suitable to this situation if they sign an agreement for an easement, as well as the actual easement, with each party involved. He asked if a survey would have to be done and Mr. Beedy said the engineer may have some restrictions, and Mr. Kimble said he would see what he could do to avoid having to hire a surveyor. He wanted to know if the engineer would ask for a title commitment and Mr. Burgess said he felt they needed an agreement that just gives the county permission to access the property once the engineer determines where the line will go.
Mr. Kimble said he would stop by the Assessor’s office and Hedlund Abstract to find out who owns the property for sure, and if there are any other encumbrances. He will let the Board know what he finds out at the next meeting.
With no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned until 9:00 a.m. on December 7, 2009.
__________________________________________ ______________________________
Corinne M. Lengel, Clerk to the Board Ted Lyons, Chairman