Mindy Leary, Gilpin County.

Managing the county during crisis

On Tuesday, April 14, 2020, the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners met for their regular meeting online at 9 a.m. Commissioners Gail Watson, Linda Isenhart and Ron Engels were in attendance, as were County Manager Abel Montoya and County Attorney Bradford Benning. Highlights include a Covid-19 update, a discussion on county road closures, impact fees and the a contract change to the construction plans for the new human services building.

Public Health Coordinator Bonnie Albrecht gave an update on Covid-19 with current stats including the one case still in Gilpin whose status has not changed. 

Clear Creek County passed a public health order last week closing their county roads to non-residents. Gilpin residents can still travel to Clear Creek for groceries and essential services as Gilpin is lacking many of these services. 

The commissioners discussed using signage and barriers to reduce law enforcement personnel resources. They are also discussing doing a blanket coverage of county roads with barricades at hot spots and signs threatening fines. Violating the state CDPHE public health order is $1,000 and 12 months jail but the county could charge up to $5,000 and 18 months jail. The board decided to reconvene on this issue at their next meeting this Thursday.

A discussion of fire code and impact fees was presented by Timberline Fire Protection District Chief Paul Ondr. State statutes allow special districts to impose impact fees to new construction divided into two categories: residential and non-residential. “Impact fees have been studied by a third party for about a year looking at assets and availability in the area to determine what the impact is to the district when someone builds a house or commercial building,” said Ondr.

The Timberline board adopted impact fees for new construction in the amounts $2,327 per residential unit and $2.82/sq. ft. for non-residential units. Ondr is looking for the support of the commissioner’s board by July 1.

County Manager Abel Montoya discussed a contract change to the Human Services Building project to move the current Human Services department to a new location. The 900k DOLA grant requires certain materials and infrastructure. Those costs include an ADA-compliant concrete sidewalk and lift, equaling 48k. The original project funded at about 1 million would be increased by 260k. The board tabled the matter until the due date on April 20.

The minutes from April 9 was reviewed and passed unanimously.

Gilpin closes all county roads to non-residents

On Thursday, April 16, 2020, the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners met for their regular meeting online at 9 a.m. Commissioners Gail Watson, Linda Isenhart and Ron Engels were in attendance, as were County Manager Abel Montoya and County Attorney Bradford Benning. Highlights included a motion to approve the Annual Operating Fund and a Board of Health Order to close all county roads. 

Public Health Coordinator Bonnie Albrecht presented the Covid-19 update stating 8,280 cases and 1,636 hospitalized with 357 deaths in the state. There’s been no change in the status of the single case in Gilpin County.

Emergency Manager Nate Whittington discussed the 2020 Gilpin County Annual Operating Plan and Emergency Fire Fighting Fund stating that there were no major changes and no questions were posed. The only minor change was extending the duration of the agreement from April 1 to April 30. Isenhart made a motion to approve and all were in favor. 

The board then recessed and convened as the Board of Health to discuss closing all county roads to recreational visitors. Watson asked, “How will this affect Black Hawk and Central City and have we coordinated with Public Works?” 

She also said she would strike the permit sticker language in number 7 as there may not be enough time to make and disperse stickers before signing the order. Benning said stickers are optional and Watson let him know about the transfer station stickers that most Gilpin residents already have.

Board of Health Order #20-03 to close Gilpin County Roads, says Benning, is basically the same as what the state has enacted and city roads would not be impacted. 

Watson asked what the implementation phase would be for Public Works to get signs out. Montoya said signs are about $15k each. 

Signage could be setup at county entrances in just a few days says Gordon Thompson of Public Works. Thompson said we have seven signs at the main entrances though one on 72 was vandalized, it has also been repaired.

Isenhart said, “The whole reason we’re doing this is to save our emergency responders and our sheriff’s deputies from having to respond to emergency calls from people coming out to recreate and as soon as this disaster is over we’ll welcome people back again.”

Engels said, “We’re not going to be doing a lot of enforcement unless someone is egregiously violating the order, like people coming up from Longmont to use the recreation facilities up here. I’ve seen very minimal non-county traffic in Central City.”

Sheriff Kevin Armstrong said he spoke to Todd Farrell of State Parks and he said people can still visit the state parks per the Governor. Watson said there’s been mixed messaging about travel but Benning said the CDPHE has clarified that recreation should be done in your own vicinity. 

Engels made the motion to pass Order #20-03 and all were in favor. Then the board adjourned as the Board of Health and adjourned the meeting.

Commissioners reluctantly furlough employees

On Tuesday, April 21, 2020, the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners met for their regular meeting online at 9 a.m. Commissioners Gail Watson, Linda Isenhart and Ron Engels were in attendance, as were County Manager Abel Montoya and County Attorney Bradford Benning. Highlights included a discussion on the Governor’s phased reopening of the state, FAA update, county meeting stats and a motion to furlough county employees. 

Emergency Manager Nate Whittington said they are actively awaiting for clarification from the Governor to his phased approach to recovery and “safer-at-home” messaging. He’s working with Bonnie Albrecht on the testing plan and resource allocation. Watson asked for the Governor’s guidelines for “safer-at-home” be posted on the County and Sheriff’s website.

Benning presented the Legal Status Report beginning with the challenging of the FAA’s Denver Metroplex plan. This week he will be meeting with other petitioning parties to hammer out some issues like participating entities and scheduling. 

The county has cancelled the purchase of a loader from Wagner given the budget.    

Montoya gave the County Manager Status Report saying 159 people attended the virtual town hall on Monday, April 20, breaking the previous record of 153. On May 4 there will be another virtual town hall, and on May 5 there will a virtual public meeting concerning the comprehensive plan which will be on the county’s website shortly.   

Engels said, “Wall Street Journal’s designation of us as the most economically challenged county in the crisis has generated a fair amount of press interest. We have a story on CBS locally in Denver. The folks who are managing that are also turning some other media outlets in our direction. And so we are being able to get the word out of how much financial damage the virus has been doing here and to other cities and counties across the country. We are working to leverage that as much as we can to interaction with the feds.”

Engels supports Joe Neguse’s bill which has 152 co-sponsors to give direct aid to the counties. He encourages anyone to send emails and phone calls to our federal delegations office to get Joe’s bill passed through the Senate and on to the President.

The meeting minutes for April 16 had no changes or edits and a motion was made to accept the minutes which was passed unanimously.     

The board recessed into executive session and returned to the meeting at 10:04 a.m. Montoya presented on the issue of Parks and Recreation furloughs. He spoke about the county’s financial crisis planning with the gaming industry being closed for the foreseeable future. 

“Unfortunately we’ve had to look at some very difficult options on reducing expenditures due to the closure and when examining these types of things, you first look at what statutory services are required by government and which ones are not and unfortunately our Parks and Recreation and Community Center are not a statutory required function of government.”

Projected revenue shortfalls for the casinos being closed is going to be about 3-4 million in the short-term and could be as much as 23 million over a series of years. The county has made about a million dollars in reductions to the 2020 budget, mainly by cancelling large vehicle purchases. 

“We always start with things and not people,” said Montoya. “This has been a hard decision.”

The furloughs would impact 52 employees, 23 current and 29 seasonal employees at the Community Center and Parks and Recreation, starting May 2 through July 10, dependent on a fourth stimulus bill. “If we’re successful, we’ll know in a month or two whether we’ll be able to open the Community Center again or not,” said Montoya. 

Four of the nine full-time employees would remain as a skeleton staff primarily for maintenance and to start planning should the center reopen July 11.

Isenhart became teary as well as the rest of the commissioners when making the motion to furlough these 52 employees. “I hate to make this motion,” said Isenhart. Engels said, “With teary eyes and heartfelt sorrow, I second.” The motion was reluctantly passed with the hopes these employees can collect unemployment. Montoya said each employee will be contacted directly and made aware of any assistance they can receive. 

(Originally published in the April 23, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)