Mindy Leary, Gilpin County. On July 23, 2019, the Gilpin County Board of County Commissioners met at the Gilpin County Courthouse to discuss the 2018 Tobacco and Health Household Survey results. The survey was conducted in April 2018 and included questions related to tobacco use and exposure, marijuana use and exposure, alcohol and prescription drug use/abuse exposure; and tobacco and nutrition policies.

The survey was mailed to hundreds of randomly selected households in Jefferson, Clear Creek and Gilpin counties. The anonymous data was then analyzed by the National Research (NRC) and Jefferson County Public Health.

Commissioner Gail Watson inquired about an oddly worded statistic given that “53% have ever smoked cigarettes (vs. 41% in CO).  She asked, “Is that maybe never smoked cigarettes or have smoked cigarettes?” The reply was that it meant “ever.”

Next on the agenda was the Cost Allocation Plan presented by Ellie Hennes. A Cost Allocation Plan is defined in the handout given as “An accounting document that identifies countywide indirect costs and distributes those costs to benefitting departments.”

The allocating departments are depreciation, maintenance, administration, finance, human resources, and attorney. For the financial year of 2018 the most significant variance was an increase of $37k to the Clerk and Recorder function within Administration that was mainly due to maintenance.   

The Sheriff had an increase of $52k due to maintenance and increased costs in finance function.  Parks and Recreation and Solid Waste had increases as well, $41k and $33k, respectively.

Next on the agenda was an RFP presented by Business Analyst, Cindy Carter, for Financial Reporting Software. Gilpin County is seeking proposals from interested and qualified individuals and firms to create, coordinate and conduct the implementation of an integrated budget, performance, communications, and reporting software solution.

Two vendors gave demonstrations and the selection committee discussed the pros and cons of each vendor and based their recommendation on the following criteria: cost, implementation plan and timeline, ability to meet our needs and training. OpenGov met all the requirements in the RFP: comparable cost, clear proposal, date migration heavy lifting done by them rather than Gilpin County, and ongoing training and support included in the quote.

County Manager Abel Montoya said of the company, “That’s at a significant discount, the only reason we’ll ever have to pay more is if we change our minds and something new pops up.” 

Commissioner Gail Watson asked, “Ten days for opening an RFP seems short to me, and are we missing anybody because it’s only ten days?”

Montoya replied, “No, I don’t think so. Standard is the minimum ten days and the objective is to get more than three days.” Commissioner Chair Linda Isenhart thanked Cindy Carter after having the motion approved.

Pickle Liquors located at 661 Hwy 46 in Black Hawk applied for a liquor license renewal and was approved by the liquor licensing board.

After reconvening as the County Commissioner Board, the commissioners heard the County Manager Status Report which consisted of three reports: jail, human services and parks and recreation status reports. 

Montoya and Watson discussed the county road construction and the issue of having crews work 24 hours a day and get it done in a third of the time versus other opinions which are to do it slower and have more access. “That’s one of the points of the meeting on the 30th,” said Montoya. He’s referring to a public meeting about Tungsten to Bobtail Natural Gas Project construction in Dory Hill Road that was held on Tuesday, July 30, 2019.  

(Originally published in the August 1, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)