As originally published in the April 12 issue of The Mountain-Ear newspaper.

John Scarffe, Gilpin County.

The Gilpin County Clerk and Recorder’s office seeks transparency in the November 2018 elections. Clerk and Recorder Colleen Stewart will be retiring, and her deputy Clerk, Gail Maxwell, is running to replace her.

During a work session following the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners meeting on March 27, 2018, at Central City Hall, Stewart told the Board that she asked for funds in the budget before she knew Maxwell was going to run. “We need more transparency, and I asked for $28,000 in the budget to pay for extra judges.”

The Secretary of State can’t help. They have several other clerks that resigned early. Maxwell is not running unopposed. She requests $15,000 for Dominion to create the ballot and be there when counting.

Maxwell and Stewart always created the ballot, so they need a third party to create and test the ballot. “We’re actually programming the voting machines. We have to program the machines to count the votes and that’s why I want a third party there to do that,” Stewart said. She would also like Dominion to come out as the machine calculates test votes.

Stewart also has Dominion in a third proposal, two elections for set up and testing as well as loading all the machines, Stewart said. They charge $2,000 a day and could do both on the same day.

The Secretary of State has recommended super judges, a democrat and republican working all day, and her office would train them ahead of time. They would supervise the vote counting and the judges.

Clear Creek County uses super judges, and Stewart previously worked an election in Clear Creek County. She had judges who trained other judges and helped with computer problems. “In our county, Gail and I do everything,” Stewart said.

Maxwell and Stewart will do the training. They have two judges who have been doing elections for a long time.

Stewart sees parts of the election she wants Maxwell to stay away from. “A lot of it is public perception if they see her over there trying to fix a machine. We’re training to do the job.”

Board Chair Ron Engels said that having people with a working relationship with either could be a problem. “That’s one of my biggest questions. For every race there is a maximum of one democrat and one republican?”

Stewart said they have 17 days during the election. They are cross trained so the ones already cross trained can be used as super judges. The mail ballot plan is due tomorrow, and it will cost $2,488, with $4,000 for LAT testing for two elections.

Engels said it doesn’t feel like they need that level for the primary, but it might be good for them to go through the process and do the work. “If we do a posting and blast it out widely, people who already have that base training are already going to be working an election somewhere else so we only get the locals.”

County Manager Leslie Klusmire told the Board that the Justice Center needs an options analysis. Engels said he came to a comfort level with one of the vendors and directed staff to renegotiate items, and the preferred vendor agreed. Klusmire said that $86,025 was their proposal. They have been discussing adding an analysis of the current building and what it will need over the next 20 years. They included that and an estimate for solar panels on the building to reduce energy consumption.

It would cost $14,000 for the study and to write a report and narrative would be $4,200. As far as the roof, they have expertise in-house and will call on other engineers, but they don’t have the expertise for the roof, Klusmire said. They would pay the cost of the roof inspector and their mark up so it would be better to go directly to the roof inspector.

Engles said they kind of know what the scope is and they may be able to do that without much more work. Klusmire said the total would be $111,775 for all that work, which is about in the ball park of what she expected.

Engels said he was impressed with what they brought to the table and their enthusiasm. It feels like a really good investment to figure out what the facility will need over the next 20 years. “When recommendations come back we will have to do a deep dive into deciding what we can afford to do.”

Klusmire said that people ask the question before they know what the possible answers are. You save hundreds of thousands of dollars by looking at the options.

Engels said that the big strength is they will come back with recommendations for many kinds of things like working with the courts, so before we even start talking about whether we need more cells, we can work with the justice community to find out if we are giving inmates the help they need rather than just locking them up.

The Board approved a motion to direct staff to finalize the scope and contract not to exceed $112,000.

Bill Harrington with Alpha Service, Inc., gave the Board an update on flooring renovation at the Courthouse. “The sample on first floor of the courthouse outlined with blue tape is definitely yellower and I think it will look kind of neat -- the real blonde and then a dark streak.”

Harrington recommend dropping the amber seal and going with a clear finish. He has worked with a flooring contractor and will do it at night on the weekend. He will sand at night and then put board down to walk on.

They will have everything moved out, so it should be clear access during the day. It won’t restrict any access to offices or the courthouse, Harrington said. They will do the meeting room first, the stairs and stairwell second and the main hallway third.

There will be a security guard.

Commissioner Gail Watson asked if they can lock the offices instead of spending $9,000 for moving and storage. Harrington said they will keep the storage containers until the end of April. They can move the furniture out to the PODS so the meeting room will be basically empty.

Watson and Commissioner Linda Isenhart both said they just lock the office doors and don’t need security. Most valuable files have been already taken care of.

Harrington said he will talk to movers and see what they can save. Engels suggested approving the change order and trying to save as much as possible, and the Board approved.

The Board met on April 10, 2018.

CORRECTION:

In the April 5 edition of The Mountain-Ear, the person joining Officer Kapke in presenting the need for additional support at the jail was Undersheriff John Bayne, not Captain Ihme. The Steam Shovel is 17 feet tall, not 7, hence the need for so much planning. Thanks Commissioner Isenhart for alerting me to the errors, and I apologize to my good friends at the Sheriff’s Office.