Mindy Leary, Gilpin County. On Thursday, March 26, 2020, the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners met online for a special meeting 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 of closing recreational areas with Sheriff Kevin Armstrong and a debrief of the virtual town hall held last Monday.

Watson echoed the governor’s orders to recreate in your own area. The Sheriff or the Board of Health have the ability to close roads like Tolland, Apex Valley and Columbine Campground. So a motion was made to recess as the Board of County Commissioners and reconvene as the Board of Health. 

Sheriff Armstrong had received complaints from residents about people parking in the backcountry to go snowmobiling or skiing with a report of about 1,300 people on Tolland Road the previous weekend.

Signage with barriers was mentioned as well as having a deputy advising people of the closures to non-residents. Tami Archer mentioned winter transient camps and the Union Pacific working on a water treatment facility that would need to be considered with the order. 

Given the circumstances that large numbers of people are now considered a public health risk, the Gilpin County Board of Health made a motion to implement an emergency order to close Tolland Road, Apex Road and Columbine Campground to non-county residents and essential service personnel. The motion passed unanimously. 

A debrief of the virtual town hall included a report from Montoya that 150 people attended the online meeting and that the capacity had been increased from 100 to 300 people, which only took about 60 seconds. The county will continue with that capacity in the hopes future attendance will be as great.

With so much new information to share, the commissioners decided to schedule the next town hall meeting for Monday, April 6 at 6 p.m. They want to include the other elected officials who may want to make a statement to the public, like the clerk and recorder, assessor, coroner, etc.

One way the board might improve the next town hall is by including a visual aid such as a word document with the agenda and/or a PowerPoint presentation. The county is developing redundancy with who is able to manage and operate the Zoom virtual meetings, with only 5 of 10 of the swappable licenses purchased being currently assigned to county employees.  

A resident, Jim Wales, asked what might be happening right now with building permits. Stephen Strohminger addressed the questions saying that a few have been done through the mail and that plan review is still occurring for those that were in review. Hopefully, shortly the county will be doing all permits virtually. The meeting ended with adjournment into executive session.

(Originally published in the April 2, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)