John Scarffe, Gilpin County. Five candidates are running for seats on the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners in the upcoming November election. The Mountain-Ear has sent a questionnaire to each candidate. Below are their answers. 

The Candidates are District 1 – Republican Web Sill and Democrat Ron Engels; District 3 – Republican Doug Lupo, Democrat Sandy Hollingsworth and Independent Shannon Arrington.

Web Sill

Former Gilpin County Commissioner and Chair Web Sill has come back to run for Commissioner in District 1 on the Republican ticket. He lives in the Bald Mountain area, and has lived in Gilpin County for 37 years. 

Sill was raised near Manhattan, Kansas, and his wife, Diann, is from Hutchinson, Kansas. He attended Kansas State University for two years and then earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado in historical geography. Diann was an interior designer for 40 years and worked on international projects.

Sill worked for an insurance company that covered hard-to-insure projects such as school buses, grain elevators and heavy highway contractors. He is now retired. 

Sill served as Gilpin County Commissioner for eight years. He was elected to the Board in 1996 and then served from 1997 to 2004. During that time, he was Board Chair twice. 

He also served for 6 years as President of the 25 mountain counties in Colorado Counties, Inc.. As a board member of the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DrCog), he chaired the subcommittee that wrote the master plan for the metro area, Metrovision 2030.

During his time with the commissioners, the Board built the fairgrounds/recreation center for $9 million and paid it off. The Board paid off $1.5 million on the Justice Center and left $1.5 million for the incoming Board.

The County also rebuilt every major road and improved three-and-a-half subdivision roads. The Board’s biggest budget then was $14 million. The budget in 2004 was $12 million.  Now, the County has fired 74 people at the recreation center, have reduced the budget from $24 million to $22 million, and have gone out for levies.

“It’s a matter of priorities,” Sill said. “Stop digging, balance the budget and create savings,” Sill said. “You have to have savings.”

While he was commissioner in 1999, the County had enough savings to stop a fire coming from Clear Creek County. As the fire came towards Gilpin County, they found an airplane and bombed the fire, which stopped just before the Gilpin County line.

“You have to have savings because of a vicious fire or six-foot snow storm that shuts down the county for three weeks,” Sill said, recommending a shift in focus back to a rural-like community. The County has 99,000 acres, half is federal and state land, the County isn’t that big.

“We don’t need to be run like other Front Range counties,” Sill said. “You don’t need a giant structure to run the County.

“I will try to bring the budget back in line, live within our means and hire within Gilpin County,” Sill said. When we hire out of the county, employees have a hard time getting to work when the weather is bad. 

The Board is spending $150,000 to find out what the county wants to be, Sill said. “Let’s talk about fiscal sanity.

“There is not a single soul who lives here who wants to live in Denver.” He sees pluses and minuses to gaming. Before gaming, Gilpin County had the third highest tax rate in the state. 

It was kind of a third-world country, but people liked it that way, Sill said. Because Gilpin County is so close to a metropolitan area, it can’t be rural, but it can be rural-like.

County Commissioners have to be aggressive, Sill said. Make the commissioners work and go talk to the banks, which left town when gaming came.

Commissioners should pursue a small grocery or hardware store. “The big job is to manage the budget, and to serve the residents with open meetings and make sure the staff is doing what they should be doing,” Sill said.

To contact Sill, email websill@ecentral.comTo contact Sill, email websill@ecentral.com.

Ron Engels

Current Gilpin County Commissioner Ron Engels, running for District One Commissioner as a Democrat, has lived in Gilpin County for more than 20 years. Before Gilpin County voters elected him as Commissioner in 2016, he served Central City as a member of the Historic Preservation Commission, as Alderman, then as Central City Mayor.

“When I was elected to the County office, I left a 22-year career with the Denver Public Schools’ Technology Services Department, where I was a system administrator for the District’s student information system, then later for the human resources and payroll system. I finished my career at the District as the senior architect and database designer for DPS’s data integration efforts, managing a team of seven developers,” Engels wrote. 

As County Commissioner, he represents the county on the Local Government Limited Gaming Impact Committee, the Colorado Coroner’s Training and Standards Board and the Colorado Board of Health. He also is the County’s primary representative to Counties and Commissioners Acting Together (CCAT), joint representative to Colorado Counties, Inc. (CCI), and alternate representative to Colorado Communities for Climate Action (CC4CA).

Engels is a member of the Central City Elks Lodge and Peak to Peak Rotary, serves on the Executive Board of Directors of the Central City Opera House Association and is a volunteer for many community events.

Engels’ top goals include health and safety. “Today, and until there is a vaccine, Goal One must be to continue protecting the health and safety of all our residents, employees and visitors from contracting COVID-19, while at the same time allowing gaming, our primary industry, to stay open, producing revenue to fund county services,” Engels wrote.  

With restored revenues, either through a full return to pre-pandemic gaming numbers, additional games in the two cities and higher or no betting limits, or voter approved tax increases, the Board of County Commissioners can also focus on returning county services to pre-pandemic levels, including increasing staffing to appropriate levels, re-opening the Community Center, maintaining the vehicle fleet and buildings, and focusing on strategic goals.

At the same time, the County needs to continue down the path they started under his leadership — building a county government that is guided by the three legs of their strategic plan: Long-Term Planning, Financial Sustainability and Employee Engagement. “When we have an explicit plan in place, we make spending choices that advance the plan, which reduces unnecessary spending and equips employees to excel in achieving their personal work goals and our goals as a county,” Engels wrote.

Enhancing quality of life by identifying and supporting opportunities that get and keep the County healthy is another second-term goal. Re-opening the Community Center, working regionally to advance plans to encourage sustainable use of forests and access to them, collaborating with county residents to bring an in-person health care clinic and building affordable senior housing in Gilpin County are on his second term to-do list. 

The county is gathering input for creating a Comprehensive Plan. The information the County gets from residents will form the core of defining both what the Commissioners want to change and what they want to remain the same in our mountain home. 

Paramount to most residents is preserving and maintaining the rural character of the County, so Engels has been working on updating building and zoning codes to make sure they provide the framework that defines the expectations they have for any new development in the County, and that they are fair and enforceable. Regarding COVID-19 and County budget shortfalls, Engels said the Commissioners have referred two questions to the ballot for the November general election. 

One would provide funding for three years to the Sheriff’s Office so the county can maintain the same level of high-quality service. The second measure would fund the Community Center at 2018 levels for three years.

 If voters pass both measures, the County will have breathing room to work on finding additional revenue streams, and to allow the casino industry to get closer to generating pre-pandemic income for the county. The Board and staff are also looking diligently for grant opportunities that will help to fund some of the greatest short-term needs.

Engels said he has worked diligently with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the local public health department, and casino managers to craft the plan that allows the primary revenue source to re-open to viable levels while still keeping county residents, and casino employees and visitors safe and healthy. Returning the primary revenue source to conditions as good as or better than before the pandemic is vital to dealing with fiscal instability. 

“I have been and will continue to advocate for Gilpin County with our state legislators and federal congressional delegation, letting them know directly and through media outlets how deeply the pandemic has injured the county’s ability to provide essential services and how important federal assistance is to us,” Engels wrote.

“All my life, what has given me the most satisfaction has been to serve. That ranged from serving our country in the U.S. Army, to serving the teachers and students of the Denver Public Schools, the residents of Central City as Alderman and Mayor, and these last four years as a Gilpin Commissioner. I’m asking Gilpin voters to return me to office for another term so I can help to complete some of the many things that we are working on now.”

Those include managing our response to the COVID-19 pandemic by providing the appropriate balance between personal safety and economic viability, staying focused on the three legs of our strategic goals of long-range planning, financial sustainability and employee engagement so we can build and maintain the Gilpin County quality of life, returning the county to some sense of normalcy with adequate revenue to balance a budget that provides required and discretionary services we both need and want, continue to modernize county business processes to save time and money, to create more transparency in local government and to make accessing county services easier for everyone, and pursuing quality of life and health opportunities including access to health care, affordable senior living and sustainable forest recreation.

To contact Engels, email him at commissionerengels@gmail.com. Other information is available on his website at Engels4gilpincommissioner.com.

Sandy Hollingsworth

Running for County Commissioner in District 3, Democrat Sandy Hollingsworth has lived in Rollinsville for 22 years. “I grew up in a family which taught me the importance of public service, and it influenced my career in human services,” Hollingsworth said.

“Being Commissioner will bring together my work with people from diverse backgrounds, municipal government experience with policies, budgets, and strategic planning, with my over 20 years of volunteerism in my community,” Hollingsworth wrote.

She went to junior and high school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received a Social Works degree at the University of Iowa School of Social Work and took courses at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Hollingsworth has been married 22 for years. “As the daughter of a career Veteran, I have taken pride in being the primary caregiver for my elderly parents who moved to Colorado in 2012 until my Father passed and now it is for Mom,” she wrote.

Hollingsworth has been a social worker for more than 30 years with older adults, families and caregivers and in city government with credentials in Gerontology (SW-G), Priority Based Budgeting; Performance, Planning & Feedback Supervisors Training; 14-module City Management Training, Conflict Resolution, Results Oriented Management and Accountability (ROMA), Project Visibility, Elder abuse Reporting, FEMA 100, Inclusion and Diversity and as Election Judge.

She has worked with the Colorado State University Extension Service as a Master Gardener from 1999 to present and been on the Advisory Board from 2003 to 2006, the VOC East Portal noxious weed reduction projects for eight years, Greater Rollinsville Community Association member 2002 to present and past officer for three years, Gilpin County Democratic Committee since 2000, Precinct Organizer, Fundraiser Chair from 2005 to 2008, Indian Peaks Forest Watch Arapahoe-Roosevelt Forest, volunteer and officer from 2001-2006, Gilpin County Senior Living Board from April, 2019 to the present, Gilpin County Human Services Food Bank gardener and volunteer from March 2017 to present, High Country Auxiliary from March 2019 to present, Peak to Peak Rotary from September 2019 to present, Access to Healthcare Coalition from August 2019 to present, Mountain Peak Life and Mountain Forum for Peace events volunteer from 2018 to the present, Mountain Masks Project summer 2020, Axe and Snax firewood deliveries summer 2020 to present and Peak to Peak Human Services Coalition 2020.

Regarding her experience with budgets, Hollingsworth managed a municipal government division budget using a Priority Based Budgeting system. This included during the 2007-2010 recession years when they had to make deep budget cuts, implement a hiring freeze, forego non-essential spending and plan a streamlined vision for recovery of city services over future years until the city and county economy strengthened and revenues increased.

Hollingsworth’s top goals would include listening to residents, employees and community groups for input on Gilpin County issues, and economic recovery, priority budgeting, and moving to financial sustainability. Her goals include emergency preparedness, community safety, egress, fire mitigation, reopening the community center and the health clinic.

Other goals include thoughtful growth and land use considering impact on land, water and first responders, collaborative human services, health clinic and safety net services.

“Let’s keep Gilpin our rural mountain community which supports locally owned businesses. We can add opportunities which match our interests like eateries, outdoor recreation, artist hubs and community-oriented meeting spaces for all ages,” Hollingsworth wrote.

“Traditionally, community groups have stepped up in times of need and this has been highlighted during the pandemic. With public input we can work together to find solutions for overuse of public lands which is clearly a problem.

“This may mean implementing parking fines and nonresident user fees which could then help pay for our first responders and road maintenance. Gilpin would benefit from a nonprofit for donations to our community to help residents facing tough times to complement what county human service currently provides,” Hollingsworth wrote.

Hollingsworth is active on groups working to reopen the community center campus and supports the proposed three-year mill levy and exploring a special district option. “Although I realize that many people’s budgets are stretched, I support the three-year mill levy for the Sheriff’s Department operating expenses and the Library mill levy increase to ensure that residents can rely on these core services.

“With my city government experience, I would look at the budget with fresh eyes not being a part of the county allocations discussion now or in the past. I support County staff and community groups securing grants and public-private partnerships to get projects like capital improvements, outdoor recreation, health clinic, historic properties tourism, and senior housing done so that these don’t get postponed indefinitely due to budget shortfalls.

The County needs to build up its reserves over time to prepare for a possible future downturn. Gaming dollars and property taxes have been the only steady stream of revenue and it is clear that we as a county need to diversify revenue sources.

“Most residents want to retain the rural mountain community that we enjoy in Gilpin County. I prefer measured slow residential growth and support increased small local, hospitality, and home-based businesses. There are opportunities in our north and mid-county already developed areas.

“We can explore shared cooperative and business spaces, another Main Street concept like Central City has, dedicated senior rental housing, and a part-time wellness clinic.

“I would strive for our public servants to feel heard and valued. I offer solutions when needs are identified. My love for Gilpin County shows in my actions.” 

For more information go to www.sandyforgilpin.com or contact by cell Phone at 303-916-2119 or email at sandyforgilpin@gmail.com.

Shannon Arrington

Shannon Arrington, running for District 3 Commissioner, Unaffiliated, has lived in the Mountain Meadows subdivision off South Beaver Creek Road since 2003. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Colorado-Boulder and a master’s of science in counseling from the University of Phoenix.

“I have lived in Gilpin County for 17 years and in the Peak to Peak area for 21 years. My family consists of my partner, Chris, daughter, Maz, and our pets,” Arrington wrote. 

Arrington served on the 2020 Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center (OVC TTAC) – Leadership Institute focused on leadership and management skills. In 2018, she served with Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance Advanced Academy, a one-week 40-hour academy focused on advocating with legislators, leadership and management, cultural diversity and inclusivity. In 2017, she participated in the OVC TTAC Program Evaluation Series, a five-week 12-hour training focused on evaluation practices to measure agency effectiveness and performance indicators. 

Arrington, the Victim Services Coordinator for Gilpin County, supports the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office and the Black Hawk Police Department. She has worked in Gilpin County Victim Services since 2011 and has supervised the division since 2015. 

“In this role, I have managed the budget, wrote and managed local, state and federal grants, updated and implemented policy in response to new state mandates, responded to crisis situations and represented victims of crime through the criminal justice process,” Arrington wrote. 

“I have participated in the Gilpin County budget process since 2015, overseeing the Victim Services’ budget within the Sheriff’s Office. I ensure the victim services division spends within the budget, plan for larger purchases and work closely with the finance team to certify all expenses, revenue, and grant requirements are accurate,” Arrington wrote. 

From November 2019 to present, she has been a planning commissioner for Gilpin County and gained valuable insight into planning and zoning regulations and the process to introduce new regulations to the County. She has sat on the steering committee for the Gilpin and Jefferson Counties Community Crisis Response Team from 2015 to present and has been a member of the team since 2011. This team would be the crisis intervention support for citizens of Gilpin County should a major crisis incident occur and assist in setting up shelters if needed in the county. 

Her top goals for the County will be ensuring transparency. Residents should have the ability to easily find information related to County meetings, decisions and news, and the County should have a better system to obtain feedback from the community so that all residents’ positions can be heard and decisions made to reflect the majorities’ position.  

Arrington would like to encourage participation in local government and awareness of community issues. The County should investigate and promote novel ideas for economic diversity including the support of small and local businesses to increase economic diversity.

“We should not abandon our rural small-town traits or change our regulations and policies to mirror those implemented in the metro area,” Arrington wrote. The County’s financial condition is serious and every financial decision made should reflect the critical nature of this situation. 

The County should closely examine and streamline all departments’ budgets, eliminating unnecessary expenses during this time of crisis and freezing all nonessential spending for the time being; including needless restructuring resulting in unnecessary upper level managers positions, excessive spending on relocation of offices at a time when we should hold off on any new expenses, scrutiny of any new County grants to be alert to contributions required by the County, and an examination of any future updates to software and programs so that decisions to purchase new platforms include vested employee testing and practical and fiscally sound scheduling of the purchase and implementation. 

“During this difficult time, the County should be focusing on coming together as a team to freely speak and share ideas on how to address the cuts,” Arrington wrote. “We should be fully supporting the department heads in their efforts to run their department efficiently and effectively within their respective budgets.” 

The rural identity of Gilpin County is why many of us moved here and is part of the foundation of the County’s uniqueness. “Keeping Gilpin small and not allowing it to turn into another metro suburb is important to me,” Arrington wrote. “I hear many residents share that they would like to see some measured growth around things such as health care and possibly a small grocery market. I think with any move towards development we should incorporate ways to revitalize existing areas and ensure any development fits the rural character of Gilpin.”

Arrington wants to run for Commissioner because County employees and residents are disheartened and disconnected from each other. “We need a commissioner that prioritizes connections with as many employees and residents as possible to have a better understanding of issues and the current climate. We need a better format for residents to provide feedback on County issues and topics. 

“I want to hold the office of commissioner because now is the perfect time to have a commissioner that is not beholden to one party, but rather committed to understanding every aspect of an issue or position so that decisions made are thoughtful, methodical and reflective of community feedback. 

“I have spent the last nine years as a victim advocate understanding the importance of listening and collaboration. Representing, advocating and helping people get what and where they want is a skill that I’m proud to have developed. I am ready to step up to the plate and help the County I love living in any way that I am able,” Arrington wrote.

To contact Shannon Arrington, email arringtonforgilpincommissioner@gmail.com.

Doug Lupo

Doug Lupo, running for District 3 Commissioner on the Republican ticket, has lived on Wagon Wheel Trail for eight years. He did most of his school years abroad and in Virginia and was a 60th Session graduate of the Northern Virginia State Police Academy and a 12-year Army Veteran.  

Lupo worked in executive management for 13 years including hotel, retail and restaurant and bar management. He also worked for the Gilpin County Transfer Station and is currently working for Grapes and Sons Excavating Company on the mountain.

Lupo lives here with his wife, Terri, and two Jack Russell dogs named Milo and Penny.  He worked as a Timberline Fire Board Member from 2018 to 2020 and is currently the VFW Post Commander in Central City and a member of the American Legion.

“My top goals are to undertake a comprehensive review on salaries in the County, stop the unnecessary spending, save and improve the operations of our facilities to include the Recreation Center, Library, Fairgrounds and the Justice Center. I would bring a medical facility to the County.  

“I would improve Road and Bridge operations,” Lupo wrote. Integrity and leadership need changing as well as the County’s over reliance on gaming money to survive. “I would like to recruit local talent for staffing as well as creating an opportunity for those Gilpin County employees that recently lost their jobs and livelihood to the layoffs.

“When I moved to Gilpin County, it was because of the small town feeling it gave -- to basically get away from the City life,” Lupo wrote. The lower taxes and the beautiful surroundings only increased that feeling. 

“I personally don’t want to see Gilpin County become another Evergreen or Boulder. We need a smaller and more efficient government.  If I become Commissioner, I will do what you would expect me to do, represent you and your best interests, represent Gilpin County with my experience and utilize my compassion and understanding for the residents to bring our County through these hard times.

“I say NO to raising taxes. Your Voice Heard.” 

Contact Doug Lupo at DL1960@yahoo.com.

(Originally published in the October 1, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)