Reach Joel by email at joeforgilpinclerk@gmail.com

How long, and where have you lived in Gilpin County? We’ve lived in the same mid-county location for 21 years. 

What post-secondary schools have you attended? Oregon State University.

What specific training or education have you received relevant to the position? I’ve been the Chief Deputy Clerk since January 2023. I have worked extensively in all 3 primary subdepartments: Elections, Motor Vehicles, and Recording. I’ve participated in regional training several times each year for Elections, most recently attending the annual Clerk’s Association’s 3-day Summer Conference. I’ve spent time in Fremont County training with their Chief Deputy. I’ve worked closely with our County Treasurer on financials. I’ve taken numerous online training courses for Motor Vehicles. Prior to 2023, I was an Election Judge for several years. I have over 45 years’ management experience in both small and national businesses and have supervised teams of up to 80 employees. I had my own business for 13 years, providing food safety training and performing mock ‘Health Department’-like inspections for restaurants and grocery stores across Colorado. This included creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for specialized food processes and organic certification.

Briefly describe your current career and home life. As Chief Deputy Clerk & Recorder, I supervise Motor Vehicles and Recording and help run Elections. I’m married and have been with my husband since 1996. We currently have 3 dogs. We’ve had up to 5, as well as 2 cats. My favorite thing about living in Gilpin, besides the friends I’ve made, is the wildlife that we get at our house: moose, deer, bobcats, bears. It’s hard to beat the sight of a moose nose-to-nose at the window with your dog.

List the Peak to Peak boards and civic or volunteer activities in which you have been involved and the dates of service. In Gilpin, I’ve been a volunteer for the Senior Lunch Program since early 2025, which has been fun, fulfilling, and a great experience getting to know more of our residents. For many years I was a volunteer for Boulder County AIDS Project. I was on their Special Events Committee, oversaw the operation of their food bank, and worked at the front desk, which included providing information and education to clients and the public.

Have you attended BoCC and/or local government meetings? Only as a County employee.

How would you enhance the experience of Gilpin County staff? I believe in treating the employees working for me as colleagues, not just people that are there because we need a job done. I respect the knowledge and experience they bring and trust them to perform their duties without ‘helicopter supervision’. I try to work cooperatively with the employees in other departments and consider many of them friends. I work to promote a sense of friendship, and even family to an extent, within the department. We’re a team, and we care about the well-being of each other. We work with other county employees, many of whom have the same schedules as we do, to help them in Motor Vehicles without needing an appointment.

What do you see as the major issues facing Gilpin County? How would you begin to address them? Disinformation and misinformation among the residents, whether it’s election security, taxes, the BVSD connection, Charlie’s Place, or that the budget isn’t balanced.

Wildfire mitigation/readiness.

Low-income and senior housing. 

For election security – increased social media activity for clarification, education, and greater transparency of how elections work. To the extent we’re able, I would encourage more participation by residents as workers or observers.  As an employee and a candidate, I’ve learned a lot more about many aspects of county operations and feel better prepared to discuss some of the other issues. As an elected official, I would continue to maintain and build relationships with the other elected officials and department heads.

As an elected official, what would be your top three goals for the county in the next year? I think I answered at least one of those in the previous question – providing correct information to residents, especially for the incorrect or deliberately misleading information that is rampant on local social media, whether it’s for my office or general county issues. As the question is not specific to the Clerk’s duties, I also want to see housing for our low-income residents, and road repair with consistent maintenance.

How would you collaborate with other Gilpin County departments and organizations?
I already do – Recording and the Assessor’s office both deal with different aspects relating to property records, and we often assist each other when needed. I’ve worked closely with the Treasurer’s office for departmental finances. I have established positive working relationships with Community Development, the Communications Officer, Human Resources, and Facilities. I’d continue the tours of the Old Courthouse for the 4th graders and the Judicial District employees. 

Why do you want to hold the office for which you are running? Have you run for/held political office before? If so, where and when? I really do enjoy my current job as Chief Deputy, and stepping up to be the elected Clerk has been my goal since I started. I love working for the County, and how the Clerk’s office provides so many important services to the residents: Elections, Motor Vehicles, and the Recording of property documents are the primary roles, but we also issue marriage licenses/certificates, and County liquor licenses for businesses and special events. Quite often, we are the ‘face’ of the Old Courthouse. I love that the Clerk & Recorder’s office has so much direct interaction with the residents. I have never run for or held a political office before.

Will you be able to meet the time requirements of the office?  Do you, or will you, have another job as well as the position you are running for? Having been the #2 person in the department for more than 3 ½ years, I’ve already proven I’m prepared to meet the time requirements of the job, including the extra hours required during elections. As the elected Clerk, I realize that I’ll be an employee of the voters, and need to be available 24/7, 365 days a year. That doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy time off, but I’ll always strive to be reachable for the staff for any needs that arise, whether by phone or email.

I will not have another job. I do not think any elected official (other than the County Surveyor, which doesn’t need to be an elected position) should be working a second job.

How have you, and/or how will you, operate with transparency and honesty in your role? Everything the Clerk’s office does is dictated by statute. I’ve worked hard with the current Clerk to build a team that understands that and works within those requirements. That had not always been the case prior to Sahari. Security of the election equipment was not maintained. We’re still working to resolve issues in Motor Vehicles where we once had a reputation as a county that would register vehicles for anyone, anywhere in the county, even if they weren’t residents. We even had someone try to say their address was that of the employee that was helping them. As I said before – I will work to increase community understanding of how the subdepartments operate, including correcting misinformation and actively refuting intentionally spread incorrect information. I’d welcome, within the bounds of the laws that we are able, community observance of election activities.

How will you handle conflict resolution within your office, if elected? The goal would be to prevent conflict before it happens, but I do understand this can’t always happen. The department is small – in MV they’re almost sitting on top of each other. This makes it imperative that the staff work cooperatively with each other. I will remain actively involved with them day-to-day, week-to-week, to stay ahead of any issues that may be developing. When possible, I’ll deal with those directly, with all employees involved, to come to a resolution that works for everyone. If that’s not possible, I would seek assistance from Human Resources.

Please disclose any current personal and/or professional relationships with the City of Black Hawk, City of Central, or Gilpin County. My husband Richard Conklin worked in the Clerk & Recorder’s office for several years before I did. He has worked as an election judge in the years since (not this year, of course). He runs the Slash site and has for 5 years.

If you could ask one other candidate one question, what would it be? I’d ask Brenda Diehl why she waited so long to announce her candidacy, instead of doing that either before or during the Republican Caucus as it is normally done?

Clerk & Recorder only

What do you see as the biggest challenge the Clerk & Recorder office faces? How would you remedy this? Distrust in the security and accuracy of elections and voting by mail which has been an escalating issue since 2016. Every location and activity for elections is under video surveillance, and we work in bipartisan teams. Voting by mail has been around since before the Civil War. We test the accuracy of the equipment before every election and audit a random selection of ballots before certifying the results of every election. These actions are open to the public, and I would work to get more residents involved through social media, print media, in-office postings, the County newsletter, and any other method I can find.

What experience do you have running elections? As the Chief Deputy, I’m the #2 Election Official in the County. I’ve participated in all the pre- and post-election audits since I was hired, and I’ve performed and supervised the tasks that our citizen workers perform. I was also an election worker for several years, for Sahari and her predecessor.