John Scarffe, Boulder County. With all three commissioners present, the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners approved a fire ban during an online meeting on April 14, 2020. The Board approved ratification of Chair Gardner’s signature on two resolutions implementing a fire ban in Boulder County pursuant to the Declaration of Local Disaster Emergency.

According to the County Attorney’s office, this fire ban resolution is different because the statute they usually use requires scientific evidence of high fire danger, which they don’t have, but all around the state, fire chiefs and sheriffs are recommending that the entire state go into a fire ban, and then the governor could waive the statute. 

The County needs expedience to make this happen due to concerns that personnel fighting fires would not be available to assist with Covid-19, so they are asking the Board to grant a resolution implementing a ban under the disaster resolution statute for the health, safety and welfare of County residents. 

The ban was signed on April 8 and took effect on that date. According to the resolution, the Governor of the state of Colorado and the President of the United States declared state and national emergencies on March 10, 2020, and March 13, 2020. 

On March 14, 2020, the Board of County Commissioners declared a disaster as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region has implemented fire restrictions in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, both within unincorporated Boulder County. 

“The Level 1 Fire Restrictions are now in effect and include the mountain area of Boulder County,” according to the resolution. The mountain area includes any and all unincorporated areas of Boulder County west of Highway 93 from its intersection with the southern boundary of Boulder County up to and including its intersection with Highway 119; west of Broadway Avenue in Boulder from its intersection with Colorado Highway 119 up to and including its intersection with U.S. Highway 36; west of Highway 36 from its intersection with Broadway.

The fire ban prohibits building, maintaining, attending, or using an open fire, campfire, or stove fire except building a fire in constructed, permanent fire pits or fire grates within developed recreation sites, and on private lands along with the use of portable stoves. The ban prohibits smoking, except in an enclosed vehicle or building, a developed recreation site, or while stopped in an area at least three feet in diameter that is barren or cleared of all flammable materials.

The Board also approved eight items on the consent agenda, including an Intergovernmental Agreement between the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department and the Town of Nederland, Town Marshall Larry Johns and Town Administrator Karen Gerrity, for dispatching services for the 2020 year at a cost of $33,000. 

The Board approved a resolution conditionally approving a Denver Water request for a Multipurpose Communications Tower at Gross Dam. Joe Kramer and Ashley Christensen, on behalf of the Denver Water Board, requested Special Review approval, with an associated site-specific development plan to install a new multipurpose communications tower to provide greater bandwidth and improve service coverage at the Gross Dam facility. 

The subject property is located at 4121 Gross Dam Road, about 0.5 miles south of its intersection with Flagstaff Road, in Section 19, Township 1 South, Range 71, in a Forestry zoning district of unincorporated Boulder County. After hearings with the Boulder County Land Use Planning Commission, the Commission set many conditions but recommended approval of the resolution. 

At a public hearing on January 21, 2020, the Board of Commissioners considered the staff recommendation as well as the documents and testimony presented by County Community Planning and Permitting Department staff. Based on the Public Hearing, the Board found that the Docket meets the criteria for special use approval for a multipurpose telecommunications tower subject to the conditions recommended by the Planning Commission.

Mike Chard, director for the Boulder Office of Emergency Management, requested a waiver for Procurement Related to Personal Protective Equipment and other goods and supplies for Covid-19 Response. “The National Emergency declared on March 13, 2020, related to the Covid-19 Pandemic and the State of Colorado Disaster Declaration on March 10, 2020, allow for noncompetitive procurements when a non-state entity determines that immediate actions required to address the public exigency or emergency cannot be delayed by a competitive solicitation,” Chard wrote in a letter to the Board. 

To date, the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) has procured KN95 masks, 3-ply masks, thermometers, face shields, protective goggles and nitrile disposable gloves from Anthem Branding, LLC, related to the COVID-19 Pandemic Local Disaster Emergency at the cost of $334,180.50. The OEM reached out to 60 vendors, but Anthem Branding was the only vendor able to provide these goods at a reasonable price and, as importantly, in a timely manner.

The Board approved the request. The Board will meet online again on Tuesday, April 21, 2020. Commissioners’ agendas, minutes and links to the updated virtual meetings can be found at the Open Meeting Portal: www.boco.org/BOCC-Agendas.

(Originally published in the April 16, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)