We are on the record. Good morning. It is Tuesday, September 24th, 2024, and I'm calling the Park County Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. First, if any of you are so inclined, please stand for the invocation and the pledge. Dear Heavenly Father, our higher power, we thank you for this awesome place we call Park County. We thank you for the color of the aspen and the snow on the peaks. Boy, what a beautiful combination. We ask for discernment during this meeting and ask for you to intervene and assist us with good decision making. We lift up those who are suffering challenges in their life and ask for your divine intervention to help them. We also ask that you deliver and protect us from evil. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the public for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, the agenda. I would like to amend the agenda and put in an administrative session after public comment for us to discuss some letters of support. I would so move that. Madam Chair, you cannot put an administrative session inside a regular session. Okay, well then we can have the administrative session follow the regular session, but we cannot make take action in an administrative session. Okay, we'll do it after adjournment. Well, I think what the ask was was after we were done, you would have, we like it administrative, that's what I understood. Right, because there's so many. After we adjourned from the meeting. After we adjour done, you would have, we'd like it to demonstrate that's what I understood. Right. Because there's so many. After we adjourn from the meeting. After we adjourn. You can have it. Yes. Okay. I don't know if we can leave that. We'll just have one. And then Madam Chair, do we need to add the, is that for the letter of support for both Fire, Black Canyon Fire? I can't even fire his on here. It is for- How about Depot? Comodipo and letter commenting on the National Old Growth Amendment letter of comment. Yes, we just got that. Thank you. Okay. Sure. All right. Okay. So with that, I would move to the agenda as presented. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All right. Okay, so with that I would move the agenda as presented. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. We have consent items approval of the minutes and approval of vouchers. I would move approval of the consent items. I would second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. We can just know Madam Chair for the record. It's favor. Aye. Aye. We can just know Madam Chair for the record. It's a low week. It's only $743,000. All right. Right. You can tell the snow is road bridges on the downside of construction for the year. So road work. So the expenditures are not quite as high. Next item is consideration and or decision on the following items. Approver deny a letter of support for PLAC Canyon fire in their application for multiple grant applications on reducing wildfire risk. And one is for a chipper grant and one is for deer creek and some additional fire mitigation. Yeah, Madam Chair, this was brought by a Black Canyon Fire Department. They sent me a note saying they would really appreciate our support. These things are both projects that go towards fire mitigation. They're really important for our community and this is going to the state for us to get some money to do some additional work as far as cutting down some trees and also to buy some equipment. So once they cut them down, they can actually chip them and get rid of the slash that goes along with it. So I would move that we approve these. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor. Aye. Aye. Next item is Approver Deny's support of a Water Do Diligence application. Commissioner Whistle. Yeah, I would move to approve this and adopt this. This is basically the continuing legal documentation for our conditional water rights to make from conditional to absolute in the county's blanket plan of augmentation, which allows our public works department when they do road work and you see them pulling water out of the river. We have to account for that and that's what this blanket plan does. We have approval from the court as do other entities in the county and the basin to operate with their approval within certain limitations. All this does is magnify this into absolute right, and this is a proper protocol for us and it's through our water attorney with Deeks and Davis. We send the recommendation of the Applegate group, their engineers. Mr. Ellsmer? Yeah, I would just say that some of this has been in the works a very long time. When I first became a commissioner, one of the first things after about eight months, we had an agreement to put in place for storage in Spiny Reservoir, so we could take some of our water that we get, or can get when the river is running that is if we have a really wet here. We have some really junior water rights that we can store in there. And it makes a great place for us to store it. And I fully support this. A lot of this work was started by commissioners prior to me. And I always like to thank Mark DeWalibi and Dick Hodges and Mike Brzele because they had the vision to say park county needs water. And we've been able to continue on and do all of this good work. So I think it is a great thing and did he move to approve? He did. And I will second that. All right. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Next item. We recess. Next item we recess move to recess as the Board of County Commissioners and convenes the Board of Equalization. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Second. Second. Thank you. All in favor. Hi. Hi. There we go. Thank you, ma'am. It's our assessor here. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. I have just seen this document now. So until I would have a chance to review it, I'm not sure what I'm being called for today to be here. Yeah, and I agree, and I think Commissioner Rwissle, this is totally unprofessional of you to bring an elected official in and hand them something you wanna ask without giving them a heads up, so they can come prepared. Okay, well, we will let Commissioner, recognize Commissioner Wissle. He's got the floor to explain. Thank you Madam Chair Assessor Jones, thank you for coming We haven't had an opportunity to have a dialogue with you in one and three quarter years that I've been here And I would like to open that for you some dialogue and with that I have questions So let me set the table a little bit. Sir, we have not even I have not even seen any of this. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm a lady or fears, ma'am. No, you will not. Excuse me. This is in a whistle. I get this is inappropriate. Mr. whistle has the floor. Proceed, please. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. Please proceed. Okay. As you may or may not know, I've spent a good portion of my life working on assessment in the public arena. I've dedicated a good 40 years of my life to the assessor's office. I've continued my career as a certified general appraisal in Colorado since 1992. I've been licensed appraisal in Colorado since 1990. I was on the first board of real estate appraisers. I worked on the ability to bring a praise of licensing to this state in 1988 and 1989 through a federal mandate. In those efforts, it also applied to the assessor's office. That's where the next is. I represented the International Association of Assessing Officers, the preeminent international organization for assessment in the world started in the United States. Ascended Jones and I share that, I was a member of the organization for 40 years. She's a member of that organization today. So with that, we need to be able to have some frank discussions on the assessment process. There is a group of people in this county with both personal and private and public experience in this field that have expressed some concerns. They have expressed those to me. I wanted to communicate to the assessor those concerns, not expecting an answer today, because a lot of these won't be able to be answered today, but to start the dialogue that we can have to improve the property tax system. That's the goal of the IAAO, International Association of Assessing Officers, is to improve the public appraisal system. Now balance that with uniform standards of professional appraisal practice. Why do I bring that up? Because they are applicable to Colorado licensed appraisers under the border real estate appraisers. They're applicable to any appraiser whether they agree to or not as a matter of national policy through the FIREA Act 1989 federal legislation required every state to set up an appraiser regulatory program because of the savings alone debacle. Part of that blame was shifted to appraisers and the fact that they were not following any standards. So the standards of uniform practice like any other profession would develop over time. They have 10 different standards, 5 and 6 specific to public or mass appraisal. So that applies to public appraisal, private appraisal, and different standards for different assignments. So with that, I had come up with a series of questions not just my own, but from other people I've consulted and put it on paper so that it would be on the record and there would be an opportunity continuing this dialogue. There were certain things done in the county board this year that were improper in my opinion. The reason we are here is to correct those errors. Those errors were, and I will ask these questions, but in a general sense. For some reason, unbeknownst to me today, and I hope to find out, we included two different paths of appeal in our law in the county board of equalization process. There is the standard appeal where you start May 1st with the assessor go through the process, get a decision, you must always start with the assessor. That decision is then appeal to the county board of equalization. That's where we come in. The Board of Commissioners could hear these cases, but many years ago when I was the assessor, we went to using professional hearing officers to take the any appearance of impropriety out of the mix and to put it in the hands of a certified general or a qualified appraiser. And that's what we've done for many, many years. That's what we've done this year. I've talked to all three of our hearing officers from last year and we had a repeat hearing officer this year about those concerns, part of those concerns and contained in these in this document. With that, the bottom line is the service to the taxpayer. That's the only reason county government exists is to provide service to our taxpayer. How do we do that? We need to do that with credible, easily obtainable information. And I think there's a dark and a vacuum of that information available in the current situation. So my first concern when I began to look at this were the abatements involved in the county board process. And that, again, the abatement process is a separate section in law to correct illegal or erroneous assessments after the taxes have been levied. So to mix those two paths was inappropriate. So when we began to look at it and we adopted these decisions August 26, that mixture was included in those numbers. All I'm simply asking for us to do today is get a handle on the abatements that were mixed in with the county board, remove them, and adjust the total on the report. Now the report is an internal document for our purposes only, but to me, to be credible, we need to have the numbers corrected to whatever they were. There were at least four accounts, and we may need some help discerning this, but at least four accounts, and possibly six, that had an abatement form in their file that were counted in the county board actions, I believe. It's a little unclear. We will clear it up through this process and make it whole. But in that, we also had some other items of concern and suggestions to bring up to our assessor and letter Mollumover. We have a reappraisal coming up in 25 when it asked her opinion about that because our effective date was just a few months ago, June of this year. So that point in time, moving from June of 22 to June of 24, will be that point in time that we'll be looking at next May 1st. What are the potential impact of that? So we have another black log of abatements that we wanna address that are kind of stacked up. Abatements are very specific in the law and there's a very specific process to provide due process to the taxpayer. And that generally comes through the board of county commissioners. So there's a six month window in the law for that abatement to be filed with the assessor before it's acted on. Our experience has been that we would like to create a negotiate or come to an agreement with the assessor for a process that we don't use that whole six month period. For example, 30 to 45 days, 60 days, whatever's reasonable, give us notice of it and then let's schedule the hearing for the taxpayer. Current law requires seven day notice. I would like to expand that to 14, just to give our taxpayers some ability to run their calendar a little bit better. Those are the kinds of things. And then certainly her comments that she has on that. And basically it was again, just to start this, talk about some posting on the website and available data, a special legislative session, what are insights and impacts on that. Are there any mandates we're going to have to prepare for? We have some certainty, but that's only until the next legislative session, which is January. So we have that. And then I have some things that are constructive criticism for county board. And with that, Madam Chairman, if you will, I'll stop and let our assessor respond and go with some of these questions. Madam Chair, I would like to make a comment before. Elzmer? You know, when I ran for office eight years ago, one of the biggest things that you tried to make is you were a assessor at that time. You said the Board of County commissioners has absolutely no ability or authority to tell me what I do or to look at how I do things. It is my office. I am elected by the people of our county. My first question would be, of course, why has that changed? Well, obviously it's changed that now you're a commissioner and not an assessor. So you want to take the role that you told me I couldn't take when I first ran. We had several cases the first few years before we had a new assessor where your staff would show up and surprises with things. And you know our county attorney at that time, Lee Phillips was just horrified with things that he was asked to do on the day because your staff showed up. You never showed up. Your staff showed up. This is something that should be taken offline, that this is not something to be aired out in public because I look at a lot of these questions and say, their opinion questions, they have nothing to do with how the law is written and what should be done. The fact that you ambushed her with, hey, I've got all these questions and I have not, you know, she has not even had a chance to look at it. You cannot start any discussion with anyone that's going to be meaningful by bringing it up in a public meeting with a bunch of questions, accusing them of not doing their job. That is not fair. And I honestly thought, Mr. Whistle, you would rise above that and do this properly. But apparently that is not in your DNA by this and other things that you have done recently with our staff. So I think, you know, my advice to our assessor, and she can take it or leave it, is to say, thank you very much. I have these questions. We'll go back. We will respond on our time and not your time. You are not the assessor. You're a county commissioner. You need to understand there's a very good line between the two because you don't want county commissioners doing things on assessments because we get hit with a lot of things and someone might want to do a business and say, you know if that's assessed too high, I can't do the business now the county commissioner is going to get involved. That is not our job. It is the assessor's job. If you have concerns, we have the list. Let the assessor go back and respond and not stand in front of a bunch of people not truly being able to be prepared because you pulled an ambush. Commissioner Whistle. Madam Chair, thank you for your revisionist history commissioner. I expect it out of you every meeting. And I don't need interrupted. She's not revisionist. Commissioner Whistle has the floor please. We will acknowledge you at the Sino- you may comment at public comment session please. We are trying to get this agenda item through. You may comment at public comment please. It's on the point of order by the way. I think this is coming. Please. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. I think this is coming. Okay, we hear you. Thank you. And you've been consistent, sir. Thank you very much. You'll have an opportunity. Commissioner Whistle has the floor and that means no one else may speak until you are recognized and given the floor. Thank you. I fully expect. Do we need a recess? I think that we should recess. If we can't have orders, sir, we can't continue. I mean, I don't want to, but I would like to be able to speak. Thank you very much for your support. Let him go ahead. Please. Thank you very much, though. I don't, you know, you're welcome to come and go as you wish, but all we are is questions answered. So I'm going to go ahead and look at these in the light of the abatement. We have abatements backed up. There are at least 21 abatements that are backlogged and one of them was filed in February and we're past the six months. Now they don't do capital punishment if you don't meet in six months but you have to least schedule them and hear them. And we have had them backed up. This is the year after the most significant increase in values in our county history. And we were not receiving abatements. And we wondered why because we had them in the past. That's because they were setting in our administrative area. And part of our unusual circumstances this year has created that backlog. It's up to us to fix it. We are trying to fix it. We are meeting as the Board of Equalization. We are not the commissioners. That's why we are in the Board of Equalization. We have the authority ladies and gentlemen assessor Jones, you know this, to override you in matters of equalization or matters of appeal. That is our job as commissioners. That's why we're here today to get signs, the abstract of assessment. It's our names on those appeals above the assessor's level, not the assessor. It's valid commissioner work. Commissioner Elsoner always has a different view of life than I do. His view is his view, and I lived it in my view and we agreed it to agree on that and I really don't have any respect for his position or his recollection because it's never generally true. So with that I would like to know about some things and so if you wish to answer the questions today I would like to know about some things and so if you wish to answer the questions today I would appreciate it. I think the taxpayers would appreciate it. One of the things I have noticed in this appeal process as I'd ask for data. I'd ask for data on all of the 23 appeals that went to the Board of Assessment Appeals. I have yet to receive that from our council. I have yet to receive that from our council. I have yet to receive, I did receive the district court briefs from our county council. And I read those and again, people go to appeal for different reasons and county district court is a very significant process to have an appeal. It costs a lot of money to do that. And are we being successful at district court simply because we're successful at district court or does the case have merits? One of the things we've discovered in this was House Bill 211061, where I spent 40 years trying to give a benefit to people that had a vacant piece of ground next to a residence. Legislature acted in 2021 and took that benefit away. That is an impact on assessor Jones and what she's had to deal with and we've seen it in these appeals. One of the questions is, is there any remedy? Is there any upside? There's any downside in this. So with that Madam Chairman, I basically would like to at least talk about some constructive criticism if I can get a chance, but I will do that after some more dialogue. Okay. Monica, I will give you the floor. Thank you. So I was asked here today to talk about the abatements and so I want to give you some history on this because it seems like the history is not quite there. In April of February March April I discussed with Tom Iseman the county manager at that time, the impact of how many abatements we had. And when we discuss this through, I checked with other counties, I checked with the state. Abatements and appeals can be done at the same time. There is statute for this to happen. I, at that point in time, am out of the picture. This has to do with you and your administration and what they decide with it and whether they're going to tell you about it or not. This had nothing to do with me. It was my suggestion that wait for time, staff resources, and money that the hearing officer be heard here, all the abatements at that time. So what did it come down to? We sat in our hearings and we said this is an abatement on this. This is an appeal on this and never once did anyone say this could not be done. Your administration never said this could not be done and by law Department of Taxation says there is nothing there that says this cannot be done together. So we went through with it. When you pulled back those four abatements, you stipulated the abatement had taken place. He was appealing a different value. And in doing that, you have now pulled back an appeal from the CBOE process, the Board of Equalization process, and the hearing officer process that should have been approved and gone through. So what do we look at now? That's my thing. What is our solution at this point in time? And I believe there are two solutions. Pull back every abatement and let's have hearings. I'm more than I'm open to that one completely and absolutely. There are 13 abatements that were heard at hearing. And those 13 abatements did not go into your CBOE numbers. Only CBOE went into the CBOE numbers in abstract. So, I say either we pull them back or we go ahead and go forward and you can contact all those abatements and ask them if they would like to have a hearing and if they don't want to have a hearing, give them an administrative denial and give them another 30 days to go ahead and go to the BAA. That would be a fair and equal way across the board to allow this to happen. And I will have you know, they did, there was nothing procedurally wrong with what was done. There were no procedures wrong with what had been done. There was proper notice given to each of the petitioners. There was, they had their hearing. They were able to call in or be in person. They were heard by the hearing officer. The hearing officer heard our side of it and came to a determination as a subject matter expert. On these cases, he came to a conclusion that was presented to the board. So, and Mr. Whistle claiming, or Commissioner Whistle claiming that something was illegal, immoral or unethical is completely false and downright a lie. Would you ask for questions? Thank you for your comment. Would you tell me one county that does that process? How can he interrupt me? I can't tell you a lot of counties that do that. Teller County. No, it doesn't. Yes, it does. The hearing officer confirmed it with me yesterday. The county confirmed it with me. Our hearing officer knew it with me. Our hearing officer knew it was long Madam chairman our hearing officer knew it was an abatement and it was not his place to say anything. Could I have order please? Please please do not interrupt Commissioner whistle has the floor and why did you take over a month and a half? Jones had the floor in Commissioner whistle. He did. I thanked her for her comment and recognized Commissioner Whistle. I'm trying to have an orderly conversation here. She's. Okay. There's a process. Commissioner Whistle. All we're trying to do is follow the process. You've talked with our administrator who's no longer here. We don't know. I never heard anything about this. And that is not my problem, sir. That's fine. I understand that we have a lot of problems in our administrator and we're going to talk about that later. But in this realm, you guys made decisions that we were not aware of that are not protocol. There is a process. I pulled it up. I have the abatement process. I have the instructions. It's very simple. It's exactly what it's supposed to be done. If they're setting there in a bottleneck, that may be our problem, but it's our issue to solve. So we will solve it, and we're trying to work our way through to understanding what that is. Part of the problem is that the records are a little unclear. So I'll stop and we'll have that dialogue. Okay. I'll say I don't. There was no bottleneck at the time. When I discussed this with the county manager, the county manager, and I knew that we would have 22 abatements at that point in time. We know this is done in other counties. I've talked to Rapaho County. I have talked to Teller County. I have talked to Poablo County. I have talked to counties and yes this is how it's done in their counties. There may be more things that they do on top of it that I don't know about, but I have talked to several counties and yes, when I said this is what was going on in my county, they looked at me like I was crazy, that these things that you were questioning were not a problem. So I am giving two solutions right now. And those are my two solutions I said for these abatements. Come back, let's have hearings on all of them. Let's get them done in October, and so they're all out of the way. Any other abatements that we have that are ready to go, we can address at that point in time too. It will probably take three meetings to do this. That's perfectly fine by me. I will present each and every case. There is not a problem with that. But I cannot do it until October 15th. That's point blank. I don't have any time. The other thing is when we're talking about abatements and why the six months is given, it's given for the fact that we have other jobs to do. We have appeal season. We have to try and get our sales done as of June 30th. We have that we have timelines and deadlines that we have to meet. And an abatement is not always the front burner. And if you want to make it the front burner you really don't have a say in it. I have six months in which to process an abatement and we have none. We have the only ones that we have that have a problem with right now were the ones that were decided in the hearing and it is not all of them it is a few of them. Okay thank thank you for your comment. Commissioner Whistle. Thank you, ma'am. I'll have to go back and review those and see where we are because I just don't believe it's proper. You may say that it is, I have found no county. I found evidence of no county admittedly in limited research that does this process. When it occurred, I have reached out to other people across the state to see if they've done it. There may be some processes with that, but I can tell you, Mr. Pederson told me in our conversation. He said it was not his place to say anything. I appreciate that. He went ahead and handled him as an appeal, but I think we will get our house in order before next year, because next year is my concern. This is basically prepping for next year, because next year is another reval year. So with that can I ask you what is your prognostication for next year? Regarding what? I mean values like increases. What do you see or anything yet? So as of June 30th we have just finished up with we're finishing up with our sales. We have not started to model yet except for we're starting to model vacant land. A very, very rough estimate right now is that residential will be between flat and 2%. Vacant land will be probably between 4 and 8% increase. Commercial will be relatively the cost of the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the increase in the only use two years of sales, unlike the four years of sales, and in doing that, it is a benefit to the taxpayer because using the two years does not hit that high level that we had in 2021, 22 area for that appeal, so or before that time frame so I'm looking at everything I possibly can to make sure that values basically stay the same or Decrease whatever the market shows that they were at as of June 30th Commissioner whistle when I talk to my personal friends they say somewhere between 10 and 20% is a good estimate to I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I'm not sure if that's okay. I was hoping that we would have. Madam Chair, I would like to say something. I had my hand up earlier. We need to work with our assessor, and we need to work with all officers in the county, all elected officials. If the people don't like what the assessor is doing, the people can replace them, which is what happened six years ago. They were upset with an assessor, and ended up replacing that assessor. I know that hurts Mr. Whistle that you were that assessor that was replaced but that's what happens. I go through your list of questions and these are not things that you really as a county commissioner need to be bothered with because these things will work themselves out as we go through the process. A projection of how much do we think values are going to go up next year? Well, values are going to change for the next cycle. We don't know for sure how much values are going to change. If you were around in 2008 when the everything imploded values went down rapidly. If you look at California values, go up, values go down. There's a lot of time between now and then for things to happen. What I see in your questions is a bunch of things that you could research on your own and if you knew how to research, but you actually are an analog person in the digital world. But you can find out all of this stuff by yourself and not waste our assessors' time in her office, and if you look at the assessor and her office, they're a bunch of really busy people because they have a lot of work to do. And they don't need a commissioner who's on a mission to try to figure out how to make the person that replaced them in an election look bad. Thank you. Commissioner Whistle. Again, Commissioner Ellsner, I appreciate the colorfulness of your memory. The colorful memories that you have are just outstanding. Unfortunately, they're not true. They are true. And I appreciate the fact that you are the biggest defender of the person that you helped select. And I can tell you, as far as my professional matters, I am a continuous certified general appraiser. In our law, you have never done this work. You don't have any experience. You don't have any appreciation for the uniform standards professional appraisal practice. So let me help you. The whole purpose of a appraiser licensing is to protect the public trust. Very simple. To protect the public trust. To know that if you hire an appraisal from someone licensed by a state like Colorado, they have met the minimum qualifications. They have passed an exam demonstrating their acuity and their abilities. And then they have to acquire a certain amount of hours of direct education, what we call qualifying education. And continuously through a two year licensing program I have to obtain seven I have to obtain 14 hours of continuing ed every year and I do that and I hope to return to the appraisal profession when I'm done I was involved in state work and it's something I truly love and something that I am so forever grateful and humbled by, because Park County gave me that opportunity for all those years to learn and to grow, and to experiment, and to make things hopefully better. Our goal every year, ladies and gentlemen, was to try to do something to make our in-results, those values that we passed on to all 40,000 accounts as good as we could make them given the resources we have. I still look at the assessor's office and when I get cut which is often bleed little tape measures because once it's in your blood it's in your blood and not everybody has the aptitude to be in a praser. I agree with that. I recognize that. But we are also bound to these standards. And what I have seen is we have a lack of training. We have one of my significant concerns is in the legislation that created this in 1990, 90-34, which I helped sponsor and pass, the county is required to obtain and maintain those professional credentials in the assessor's office as a term of incondition of employment. Now, there are ad valorum appraisers. I help create that title. It's basically like a driver's permit. It allows for trainees, what we call data collectors, to learn the process of the appraisal process, profession. Assessor's offices are great learning opportunities for those people. And so, assessor's offices has really become the training ground for people that go in the private sector. And now, when we have hardy comment times, people going from the private sector back to the public assessor's office because of their guaranteed paycheck. So with that, welcome back. I'll let you have a floor. Madam Chair. A. the floor. I'm sure. Acesse are Jones. I have a huge problem with making judgments about my staff or my training or anyone's training in that office. You do not know my staff. I know what my staff does on a daily basis. They are there, they are doing their job, they are improving every single day with every action they have. They have wonderful, wonderful work with the public and they are continuing to do that. And you are degrading my office and my staff by what you're spouting. OK. I want to bring up one other thing. You said about the fact that the contiguous properties, 1060, 1061, 1051, whatever. So the problem with that is that your office and your administrator, when you were in there, you were the one who put properties together, changed legal descriptions which you are not allowed to do, not allowed to do, and combine properties when it states that all properties are to be valued separately for advalorum purpose. So my staff is now having to go through and break up every one of those properties that was illegally combined and then make the determination whether it is essential to the residents or not. So don't tell me about things that my office is not doing when I can tell you things my office is repairing that were done previously. Okay, thank you. All right. Commissioner Ellsner. I would just want to say that if you look at history, Mr. Whistle, you were censored by the Board of County commissioners for failure to do your job. And that is public record. I can come up with the date because you refused to do your job and that is public record. I can come up with the date because you refuse to do your job in that cost of county additional funds. Now you can put whatever spin you want on that. But there are some articles in the flume about it and some conversations about it. So I think we need to get away from accusing people of things because, as I always say, when you point at somebody, you got three pointing back at you. I think we need to get rid of this. I think we need to get to an environment in this county where we are working together. And I know you have a real problem with that, Mr. Russell, because my history with you says that the more disruption, the more anger, the happier you are, because you think you can get your way. So not gonna work in this county. We need to get this county working together. We need to stop talking about, while your staff is uneducated or untrained because they are trained. And I would put them up against a lot of people. We do have trouble of course retaining staff. I think Monica's done a very good job about getting people here and keeping them here and training them. And you know, once you get trained, it's like, okay, now I'm going to go make some money. No we need to make sure that our staff knows that we are behind them and we need to get away from the anger, the vitreral and all those things that you seem to spout and we're going to be talking some more about that when we talk about the administration position which is also on this agenda. You need to get away from that sir because you are doing severe damage to the staff and the morale and everything else in this county and our government. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Ellsson or Commissioner Whistle. I think it's really amazing. I've been here a year and nine months and it's all my problems. Sounds kind of like the socialist Democrat progressives to me. Dislame your problems on everybody else. That is totally uncalled for sir. So with that, Commissioner Ellsner, you are truly a tempestuous five year old trapped in a 100 year old body. And so with that, I'm done with your comments. You have no relevance to my life. You make no decisions for my life. You have no relevance to my life. You make no decisions for my life. You have no impact on my life. I do not have any concern for your consideration and your words because you have no basis for them. So with that, I would love to say, but I can tell you, I got a report from finance that was in, not dated, but $887.88 has been spent on training in the assessor's office in this year with a budget of 5,500. I certainly hope more training has occurred. Sir, you don't know what training we are doing. We do it through the Department of Taxation. We do it through McKisic. We do it through fiscally responsible. Right, and I'm fiscally responsible with my budget to make sure that I am not over spending anything that I do not need to spend on. That is not my entire year. All of my staff is licensed. All of them are up to date on their CE credits. All of them are doing the job with their education, and I had one advance to a certified residential. I have two certified residential right now. I have ad valorums, and I have another one looking at licensed residential. So your take on this is your take in your mind and it has nothing to do with my office. These questions have nothing to do with my office but an attack on me. And I am done being bullied by you and I will answer the questions that are relevant to my job, but you have no say over my website. You have no say over any of those other things that are being brought in here of why I haven't done things. I'm doing the job. I am here day in and day out doing this job. And my staff knows it and they know they're supported by me a hundred percent. And I just have to respond to Mr. Whistle with some of his comments. You know, okay, four-year-old brain in a 200-year-old body. I would challenge you to any contest except assessing what you know. And when we get into computer programming I'm pretty sure that I could probably clean your clock on that one. But Mr. Whistle that is exactly what I am saying is you when you run out of arguments you start calling people names. That has been my history with you for the last 16, 17, 18 years that I have known you. I suggest you stop with the names. You stop accusing people of doing things that they have never done. And pay attention to county business and do so in a manner that gets our job done serving the people of Park County. You're comment that well you're I'm not going to listen to you anymore. That's obvious because there are several emails that you and Commissioner Mitchell share with the county that I never see that are on policy, on agendas. So, you know, you need to start thinking about your job as a county commissioner, one of a board of three, and work with the board of three, rather than often your own little fantasy world that you think everybody else is dumb and you are brilliant. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I think that this agenda item has run its course. I am going to move that we adjourn as the Board of Equalization and reconvene as the Board of County Commissioners. I would say I could. Okay, and I'm going to just make one comment. All I can say is if a resident requests an abatement, they should get an abatement. And if a resident request is a hearing, they should get a hearing. All we want to do is serve the citizens of this county to the best of our ability. And whatever they ask for, which they have a right to, is what they should get. And our goal is for transparent government. And I think that the best future course is for better communication. And when those files come down list. How many abatements there are, how many hearings there are, and then it comes on to us to make the decision of how they should be heard. So that's all I ask for the future is that communication. So all in favor. Aye. Aye. All right, we are done with this line item. It has run its course. Next item is a public hearing with regard to ordinance 24-001. Final reading of an ordinance of Park County, Colorado, to protect the right to carry insensitive spaces in accordance with Colorado Senate bill 24-131. We've had one hearing on this. This is the second and final reading. This bill prevents carrying in the defined sensitive spaces defined by the legislation. And we were given the right in that legislation to not to allow carrying in this county building. And that is what this final hearing is about. So, come and show our Eleanor. hearing is about. So. Commissioner Ellisoner. Yeah, this is. The legislature doesn't like people carrying guns and areas that they can be used in the mass shooting. I think the deal up in Boulder was pretty obvious. What their concerns are, the issue always comes down is how do you solve the problem? And I'm not sure the legislature knows how to solve the problem, and I'm not sure I know how to solve the problem. It's a mental health problem. And there are a lot of other things. There's one thing that this is very specific. It's only this building. And that's listed in this. So it's just this building, but there is one other thing that needs to be pointed out that everybody needs to understand that when this building is being used as an election facility, it is illegal to carry a gun, period. If you can see, carry and come in this building, and I'll say that to the employees and my fellow commissioners, if you can see, carry and come in this building while we're running an election, you are in violation of the law. Plan and simple. If you walk up to a voting box and you have concealed carry or open carry, you are in violation of the law. That does not change. You cannot take a gun within 100 feet of any facility that is being used for an election. Which in this case would be the library in Bailey, Shawnee Community Center, here, any place that we have a voting box, you cannot do it. This does not change that fact. That is part of state law that cannot be changed. This does allow people the rest of the time if they want to come into our building here to conceal carry or open carry or whatever they want to do. And that was the way it was before this legislation was passed. And I think in order to make some people feel better, to get it passed, they decided to carve out that a county can in its own facilities, that is we have control over our facilities a county could do that. And with that, I think I've said my piece on this one. Thank you. Since this is a public hearing, if anyone would like to make comment in favor of this revision and this ordinance. Please either raise your hand online or come up to the podium and make a comment. This is in favor. All right, seeing none. If you're in favor, yeah, come up to the podium if you'd like to speak in favor. And please sign in and then give us your name and we're happy to hear from you. Is the green light on? Okay, yeah, just maybe a little closer. I'm not quite clear on what the resolution is actually. Yes. I would make sure that you're also good. And unfortunately, people in the past, and it's actually a kind of situation. And unfortunately people in that state are just humans. People working out here and people coming in and being able to stop and work here. We've never had anybody holding here a little bit of a legend. And so they're getting a lot of attention. And they're trying to ask for a problem. And the simple thing is, And this is the key and the interest of the trust is really obvious. We are really excited. And one of the people that I think is actually going to be having this back, of course, the court and the election, all of you, and the fact that you see that, and I don't think that you can just throw a game of contest in the air. And this is very close. Can you check to make sure that the light is really truly on and speak in closer to the mic? Yeah, I've been that are having a whole new care are not allowed to build these buildings in different elections, they're really good, and I think that's possible, it's just that. I think the purpose of that is that the United States is that the government is doing well. The door is locked, where they have just to build people that are waiting. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Still not working very well. They still can't hear you. We will investigate the mic after this meeting and figure out why it is not amplifying the way it should. If anyone else would like to speak in favor of this ordinance, please either come up to the podium or raise your hand online. Seeing none, if anyone would like to speak in opposition to this ordinance, either come up to the podium or raise your hand online. Seeing none, if anyone would like to speak in opposition to this ordinance, please raise your hand online or come up to the podium. All right, seeing none? Oh, okay. April Shaboe. As an employee of this building, I feel like it should be a safe and secure place. I've talked to several people and it's a little upsetting that this building is the only building that is being targeted, I guess, allowed for open carry or concealed carry and it's the only building that's unincluded or is being singled out from the rest of the buildings. Being in this building and in this position and for working for the county puts us in a higher level. I don't know if discord I could say. People get upset. People don't like some of the things that happen, whether or not one person is responsible or a commissioner or all of the commissioners or whatever it may be. You know what I mean? So I don't feel safe having open carry or concealed carry in the building as an employee. And I might be the only one in this, but that's just how I feel about it. And I feel a little upset that these decisions were brought to light without consulting any of the employees in the building. You know, we live here day in, day out, you know, and we see the commissioners once a week. And while you might feel safe, I don't always, especially in admin, because people come up to that window and they are royally mad. And we have no protection. I mean we have no recourse. We have, we sit there and we take it and we try to do the best that we can but we can't always diffuse that situation. So that's my opinion on the matter. Thank you and maybe I should just clarify with regard to this, the law that was passed was in response to legislative buildings, buildings where legislation is going on, like what we're doing right now. And I think that that is why only this building is targeted. It does not, community centers, anything else that aren't being used for elections don't fall under this. This is because the law that was passed was specifically for any legislative bodies where they meet in that building. And so that's why this building was singled out and we wanted. So if you that makes sense on the whole picture. That's not quite true, Madam Chair. If you look at the legislation, it added license trial care center, public or private college, university or seminary, or well, then it goes further. It did not just say legislative buildings. You can just go out and you can look at it. It's of course really easy to go through the legislation and look at, oh, what changed? Well, it's all in capitals. And it goes further, you know, it basically it's all the schools. Child care. So basically it's everything that the state could have some control over. And of course legislative, which would be us. So that's why it is. It's not just they single that legislative. They added a lot of things to this bill and attempt to try to figure out is their way they could make things safer. Right, but that's why this building was because that section of the bill related to this and we were given the ability to write it out and to not have the prohibition happen here. So April, thank you for your comment. I just wanted to clarify. Now if you'd like, I'd be happy to read this ordinance. I've read it. Okay. If anyone else would like me to read it to help clarify, I'd be happy to. But if anyone else would like to make a comment, please come up to the podium. But it has to do with this building outside of elections. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Stevie Wilcox. I have lived in Park County for eight years. My husband works here. My kids go to school here. I work in this building and I've been working in this building now for three months. And I can tell you in the time that I've been here, I don't feel safe. And that is already without this legislation. I grew up with guns. I am from a family that was proud hunters. I was shooting before I could drive. I have no problem with guns. I have no issue with them. Guns are just a tool, a tool that can be utilized by the individual person. Unfortunately society has changed whether we want to admit it or not. Since COVID people have become much more irrational, much more unsafe. My kids go to school here and every day I have to worry about a text message that something bad could happen. That's the nature of being a mom in modern society. Now you're telling me that I have to be aware of everyone who walks through that door. I know that it seems very easy to look at this type of situation and say, oh, well, most likely something bad isn't going to happen. Maybe you're right. I mean, at the end of the day, a lock is just going to keep an honest man honest. But we have no security here in this building. None. You are asking me to come to work every single day with people who will be angry and upset with this office and department that has maybe nothing to do with me personally, but it doesn't matter, does it? Because at the end of the day when somebody's made that decision, they're the ones who are unsafe and a weapon like that would allow them to do whatever they wanted to do. I do not have any recourse to stop them or protect myself. I don't have security. I don't have any means to take care of myself. What you are telling me is that my life is not as important as the rights of other people to walk in this building and to pretend like they have power. It's a little upsetting for me. It's a little distressing. It's already hard enough, feeling like I don't have security here, knowing that if this legislation is passed by you, that you are officially telling me that my life is not worth anything. That's my feelings perhaps on it, and maybe it's not how you feel, and it may not be accurate for you. But until I can see that there are active steps being taken to protect the people who work in this building, who work for you and do everything they can to help take care of this county, I'm not sure that I can feel safe at work. Thank you for your comment. All right. Anyone else like to speak? Please come up to the podium. Give us your name and sign in. Hi, I'm Rita Mick, I'm library manager and as Commissioner Elzner went down the list, I think that the libraries are just as important as the schools are. We have had issues and I do have a concern about both Open Carry and Concealed for all of our four branches. We do go through a lot of challenges at the library and I would like my staff to feel safe and I'm hoping that something can be done about that. I think I just want to add it. I wanted to add that to it. The last two people commented on. The libraries really need some help there too. We have no 911 red button. We have nothing. We need, we need to look at the libraries and make them a safe place for the public. That's all. Thank you for your comment. Anyone else please come up, sign in and give us your name. And then I'll get to the people online. I think the green buttons push, correct? Yeah, it's on. Perfect. I'm Karen Susage. I work for the county as well. I've been here for quite a while. We've dealt with co-inforcement and building development services. And we've had multiple threats that come through from code enforcement people. And Open Carry to me is something we shouldn't have to deal with as employees. I don't need somebody coming in with a gun and not knowing if this person's going to get angry and shoot all of us. So. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Please come up and and give us your name. Tristris Fnagogin. Now it's working. Well, I spoke before as a point of clarification and I didn't want it to appear that I supported the issue that you're going to vote on. Because I don't, and I totally appreciate the employees and the way they spoke. They feel the same way that I feel as an election judge. You want to feel safe in your place of work. And you say maybe nothing will happen. I've lived here for 48 years, and there have been more than five incidents for something happened. And people have gone home to get their guns to bring them back. They've been interrupted. People have run heavy machinery and public buildings to express their anger. There have been some really crazy things that happen in Park County when people are angry because they were asked to renew their license of all things. So I strongly disagree with opening this building up to conceal or open carry. I think it's dangerous for the employees. Somebody who's really mad and out of balance is just armed and that's not healthy for anybody in this building. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Anyone else in the room? Okay. come up. I'm May and Wastlowski in Bailey and this did these employees who so courageously stood up here and discussed how they feel, brought to mind, experiences I had as a pediatric nurse in a county hospital in the inner city where we had people coming all the time and threatening us if they didn't appreciate whatever. And when we do work for a public entity and we interface with the public, we are at risk. And to the person who spoke so eloquently about since COVID, this risk has greatly increased. My thoughts are, as commissioners, you would want to protect. Your employees, and in fact, Section one of this says, the purpose of this ordinance is to protect and promote public health, safety, and general welfare of the citizens and residents of Park County. And that includes the people who work in this building. I don't understand when you're putting the balance together and weighing the pros and cons, how the people who have spoken here about how they feel threatened and their fear for their safety is not a greater need than the person who wants to bring and carry something in. So I hope you hear the people here. When we work and feel threatened like that, it is to the very core of our being, not knowing if we're going to go home to our family. I have been threatened by guns in my work as a nurse. I can't imagine how you guys feel when angry people come and interface with you. So please listen to the people who work here and listen to their concern. It is a new era here and I hope that you will protect the very people who work to make this county run. Thank you for your comment. Anyone else? Any Flint, Park County, Treasurer, didn't expect to come up here, but with what everybody's saying I have to echo our safety and concerns for whether somebody has the right to bring it in or not could happen. Definitely. Does that give us as employees the right to carry as well? Yes? Yes. Okay. Just clarifying, I would like to have safety, maybe more security. Yes. As a treasurer, first door here, I have, in the last couple of months, been considering my concerns for our safety as we come into a public auction of Rina for people wanting to get their treasure steeds. We do have several sovereign citizens who write us letters regularly about not paying their taxes and their rights. That is my concern and I intend to reach out and make sure we are safe to the Sheriff's Department if we need to. Okay, thank you. Anyone else in the room? Good afternoon commissioners with all due respect I have to echo some of those concerns we work with a variety of people I Would say most are pretty happy with our services, but on occasion we work with people in highly volatile situations. I do have a number of staff who conceal carry and I have copies of their permits. That's all I've asked. And I think that's great. But already we have such trouble getting law enforcement as quickly as we need them in many, many dangerous situations. And that's in the community. And even response on site sometimes if they're busy with something else. Like I just really, really am concerned about that. My staff are in this building and use conference rooms in this building a lot. I'm not sure a person with a gun with intent to do harm is going to care if they're allowed in this building and not allowed in mind. You know, the courthouse has a very prominently displayed sign that says you can't bring anything there. I'm not going to be talking about the community. I'm not going to be talking about community. I'm not going to be talking about community. I'm not going to be talking about community. I'm not going to be talking about community. I'm not going to be talking about community. I'm not going to them. All right. I will ask Kimberly to unmute. Yeah, hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yeah, I couldn't, my computer died. I couldn't get up to my hand up in time to raise it for the in favor comments. Can I still make those? Sure. We're, we want to hear from everybody. Okay, great. So yes, I'm pulling in favor for this protecting our constitutional rights in the building. And there's been a lot of research out there just so everyone knows on the other side that when when you actually use your second amendment right and people are in there that know how to use a gun, know how to operate safely, which I know many of you in there do including Commissioner Whistle and they, it's actually proven to increase the safety of areas whether that's in a church, whether that's in a school, whether that's in the county building. I, if I was working there and maybe I will in the future, right, would feel 100% safer if knowing that people were in there to protect me. If that happened that that crazy person happens to come in and open fire, they're not going to do that as much if they know that people are carrying themselves. And so my goal in any of these places that I were at and I have my weapon on me is that I could actually protect you. All the people that just stood up, everyone that's sitting in that room and everyone that's sitting in that building and I know many other people feel the same way that I do and that's why they carry. So I completely agree with the passing of this for that reason and for the constitutional rights within it. All right, thank you for your comment. I will ask Heather to unmute. Good morning. My name is Heather Lynn. And I would like to speak. I'm not sure whether it's for against, but I really don't want any guns in that county building. I believe that the chance that somebody could pull their gun out and save us all is not even close to the weight of somebody coming in to that building and shooting up the place. Now I was there for the orientation and I'll be back again as election judge and I'm not speaking just B.O.C.C. room after our oath was taken, I looked all around for fire escape instructions. I looked for active shooter instructions. I asked the employees if they're trained to know what to do in case of an active shooter. And none of that had been done in the room in the building. I mean, none of it. And so I think that when it comes to safety, safety needs to be across the board. And for everyone during elections, not during elections, employees, you yourselves. To be able to be safe in that building, there is a lot of contentious behavior in this county right now. I think if we probably did the statistics of the data, we'd find that most people have a gun. But I want to tell you what, there are quite a bit of people up here who also could go off and use a gun. They may not intend to, but they've got mental illness. So I think that it's best that we just make a plan for how things work and keep guns out of that building or move the entire staff of the county building to the courthouse where they can have safety. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I will ask Gary Fisk to unmute. Hi, this is Gary. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good morning. I would totally agree with Kim and the research she was citing. And I, I would not like to, I would not like people to lose their right to conceal carry when they come into a government building. That means they have to leave it in their car and lock it. And now with the state laws concerning having locked in a sealed container and there's a lot of road blocks now to prevent people from exercising their right to carry. I do not carry, but I think people should have that right. There's a lot of research and I'm sure Heather or Kim could recite this too that when there are no carry zones, schools don't where criminals know no one has gun, they're attracted to that zone. They're basically cowards, most of them, and they will go where they know nobody's going to shoot back. And it only takes, it doesn't even take hardly anybody in the building an employee having a weapon to put fear into a shooter that he doesn't know whether somebody could shoot back. So it's just that not him not knowing if somebody could shoot back will deter, whereas a no carry zone invites him in. And then another point I would make is that if the county wants to exclude, wants to not permit concealed carry in this building, then if they can exclude concealed carry in this building, I mean, then they're going to have to, the same logic says, well, you should not carry in the library and you should not carry in the DMV when you go in there and many other county offices now logically would have to extend restrictions on carrying as well. So I think this is a slippery slope. Once you restrict concealed carry in this building, you're going to have to expand it to the other county building. So yeah, I would not like to see concealed carry restricted. All right, thank you for your comment. I will ask Tracy Edstrom to unmute. If you are talking, we cannot hear you. It looks like you are unmuted. All right, while Tracy tries to figure out why her audio is not working, I will ask Angela Angle to unmute. It says the host is not allowing participants to unmute themselves. That's correct. We can hear you. Oh, okay. Great. My name is Angela Engel and I was planning to give any public comment on this, but Gary and Kim brought up some statistics that are really concerning to me that areas that are more safe are areas where people are allowed to open and carry conceal. And the research absolutely does not support that. In fact, the research indicates the opposite, that the more guns there are, the more incidents there are of gun violence. And I think as county commissioners, it is the responsibility to ensure the safety of your employees. And I think today's hearing and the volatility in that room really speaks to the potential dangers of permitting people to open and conceal carry. And I just want to put another perspective on this. I have two daughters and my daughter, I dropped my daughter off at a rapaho high school in 2014 to take a science exam when a young man walked in with a gun. And at the end of that day two lives were lost. And our family was forever changed in that one moment. And so as someone who has lived through those gun violence and those mass shootings. I implore you to listen to the staff that has had so much courage in coming forward and asking you what they need in order to come to work every morning and put in a day's work. And that's all, thank you. All right, thank you for your comment. It looks like there are no one else wanting to comment. Okay, it looks like we have one more in the room. Looks like we have a couple more online too. I'm sorry. My name is Samantha Watson and I work here for Park County and I have for about a year and a half now. My stance isn't necessarily on whether or not it's a second membermime writer or anything because this is at the end of the day This is my workplace. This is where I begin my day. I spend two thousand and eighty hours here every single year And I spend here this building with at least hundred other people who have to work here and interact with the citizens and on a daily basis not all of them are friendly and Some of them just come up to the door, demanding to be letting, because they've a meeting with somebody. And I have no way to verify that. I have to take them at their word, or take the time to go run back and check. And sometimes I'm caught with altitude for that. I have to say that it's not a place where I need to worry about my safety. It's, you know, I sit in front of your office as commissioners. It is not you do not spend two thousand and eighty hours in this building with the rest of us. You come in once a week, you come in several times a week, but you are not here consistently. Nor all the time. When you have issues with constituents who would like to address you or agree or send you personal letters, you are all concerned, but you are at home, many are safe. I come to work, I do not carry again, I enter my office, nobody in my office that I'm aware of carries a gun. The police response is, I personally don't have a person, I personally don't have experience with it, but I've heard it is not fantastic. I know it is because of hours, things have happened in the early mornings and I've been able to get hold of people. But the fact of that is we are here working every single day, four days a week when these buildings are open and we have to worry about this. And it's not even necessarily a fact that matter that if people need to carry a gun here or have a right to carry a gun, it's that nobody comes to a county building thinking that they're going to shoot anybody. Nobody, nobody initially approaches a county building or an employer, anyone thinking this is how I'm going to end my day. They do this for the moment on impulse, they do it because they are angry and they have, you know, it out of, um, not necessarily revenge, but just to come back and make a point to be upset. I mean, the gentleman that built the Kildos or did not do that overnight and he did not do that just off of one slight that he was handed. I just don't think there's any purpose for it. It's not necessarily my position with Park County to try and find out proper solution for this, but I do not believe that encouraging people and enabling them are not necessarily encouraging, but by allowing people to continue to bring these guns in. I think it'll just be one smaller deterrent against somebody having a bad day or somebody being upset with them. Oh my god, I've worked in retail and been threatened before because of a $7 return and people get upset because I ask them who they're here to see. That's it all. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. It looks like we have someone else in the room. Please come up and then we got a couple more online. I didn't plan on speaking today, but my co-workers have been so courageous. And my name is Susan Esmond. I am the administrative assistant for the county commissioners. And I am the person who sits in front of all of the offices back here. If I see somebody walking down that hallway carrying a gun, I'm not going to say, are you here to kill me or do you have an appointment with one of the commissioners? And it sounds funny, but it's terrifying. If I see somebody carrying a gun anywhere in the building, I'm going to assume malice. I won't help them. I won't talk with them. I will try to protect myself. So for the people that say we're safer if somebody if my co-workers are caring or if I am, I don't come to work thinking I'm gonna get into a shootout. This isn't the old West. Who's gonna help me when I'm sitting in that tiny office. If somebody comes in shooting, who's going to help me? Nobody would get there in time. What about the clerk, motor vehicle? They're not behind locked doors in class. Please listen to the concerns of all of us because we're here for the county. We're trying to do a good job and we don't need to be worried about our safety. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. All right. I will have tried Tracy again online. Hello. Can you hear me now? Yes we can. My name is Tracy Edström, part county resident of 24 years. And so I want to echo the comments of Ms. Gregory and Mr. Fisk. And I think that I am in favor of the ordinance as that. I have several concerns with not allowing the carrying of firearms in these buildings. The first is the slippery slope of picking apart the Constitution of the United States. And does that or does that not present a legal position for you to create an order that violates the Constitution as a county. Hello? Yeah, we're not going to have a dialogue. You're just here to make a comment. Okay, all right. So that's a comment. I feel like that could set the county up for legal legal ramifications to violate the Constitution of the United States. I would also like to say as a 31-year wife of a retired law enforcement officer that knives are every bit as lethal and harmful to people as our bulldozers as our county has seen. And so you know someone with ill intent isn isn't gonna care about your ordinance. And also having seen one of my friends lying on the ground in front of Columbine High School, having been slaughtered in that school shooting, that was a no school, that was a no gun zone as well. But didn't seem to matter to the gunman. And most law enforcement officers agreed that had there been armed persons on property, a lot less damage may have been done. So let's see. I do have concerns about the staffing at Park County Sheriff's Office. And we know that any one time our officers can be on any end of the county and not very closely available. And then to the people who are afraid when they see a gun, you know your law enforcement officers walking carrying guns. So the fear of a gun doesn't mean that someone is immediately going to shoot. So then I would just like to ask the question to the previous person who said who is going to help me. If someone walks in with ill intent and I have that exact same question, who is going to help you if there is nobody around who is capable of helping you? And that's it for my comments. All right. Thank you for your comments. All right. Thank you for your comment. All right. Anyone else who has not made a comment, please come up. Anyone who has, I think we're going to let anyone else comment first. So anyone else who has not had a chance? Hi, I'm Marcie Hagen from the Assessor's Office. I would like to say my opinion as well. We all deal with a lot of vangry people. I'm at the very front. I've even moved my desk so I can view the front door, but you know, I know they can come in for the front door, go crazy, and that might give us some time to hide, pull our guns, whatever we need to do upstairs. However, they might come upstairs first before they decide they're pulled their gun. We are all at risk. We can all carry the guns we want, but the moment that you're standing at that counter to run back to your desk to pull your gun from your purse or your pocketbook, whatever, you're already dead. I don't think it's a good idea to have any guns in this building. People are very angry and we're all at risk. There's many counties that are protected. Why are we not protected? That's my question. Thank you for your comment. All right, anyone else? And we're not gonna let people speak twice because we're running pretty long. Good afternoon, my name is Francis Tonjes. I've been a resident here for 18 plus years. I've seen the good. I've seen the bad. When we first moved up here, the keys in the and a plan that incident took place. And I remember thinking, what a beautiful country we live in. And then you have this go on the death. And it happens. I've worked in the Metro. I've seen it firsthand. I've worked at the schools. I'm fearful for our younger generation. We have a voice. We are the voice right now for those younger people. Guns hurt and they don't just exist. I have an open carries, you know, I can sell, I have it. Do I want to come to work with it? Absolutely not. I'm at the back here in AP and we share a window and we have to be vigilant if somebody comes. If some, we don't know half of these people who they are. And if we don't have badges on us, I don't know who's here to do something. I hate to think that everybody's here to harm us. But there is so much hate. People are struggling to beat their families, to make their rent, to find a house, to do so many things that some of us are very fortunate to be able to do. But those people that are struggling, we don't know what they're thinking. They might feel like they have nothing to lose. And they're going to turn around and make somebody's life hell. We don't need it. We don't need it. I definitely don't want it. I don't want to see my co-workers happen to go through it. I think the best thing for us to do is be vigilant, but we don't need to have the guns. If you're going to be here for a five-minute to get your license or we could ever, you're going to get to stand the car. To me that five minutes is better than taking several lives. That's the way I forget it. That's your personal property. You don't need to come over here with the gun. I have witnessed upset people about their taxes, about different things. It's not pretty, but there's been times where I just thought that one person is just going to go off. I know how to defuse a fight-year-old. I sure in the heck don't know how to defuse an adult that has nothing to lose. So I say that for the cops and for every other person, but we live in a crazy world and that's sad. That is very sad. So I hope you consider that we don't, because I don't want to have to carry it again. That's not, I don't get paid for that. If that was the case, I'd be a cop and be making book of bucks and get in shot at. I don't need it. So I just hope everybody else can just, you know, get along and put the gun away. It doesn't need to be here. And what are we showing our young people? Then you have the young people that are getting guns anyway. And we live in a county where people don't abide by the rules unless you're the sheriff, the New Year's All-France. They do all what they want to do. We have people that are on drugs. I'm going to be realistic. I'm sorry. That's what's going to keep me alive. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. All right. Anyone else? Hey, come on up. Sign in and give us your name. I'm Faith Nomsberg. I was sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was just wondering, I was just like, regardless because if somebody, any one of us could have came in with a gun and shot this place up, regardless if there's no guns or guns, because really if you're at that point where you're thinking of shooting somebody, I really don't think having an extra law that they just broke is going to really deter necessarily when it comes to that point. I just, that's my biggest thing. I was just like, well what's gonna stop, I mean for safety wise to everybody here, what safety procedures do you have in there to actually stop somebody coming in with a concealed weapon? That's just my question. I'm not saying either for or against. I was just like, if we're putting on just some stickers to say you can't come in here that doesn't stop Somebody that's like I've been to meetings people get mad People are angry. What's what's stopping somebody's coming in just like when they just had enough and they just Come in and shoot the place up and there's absolutely nobody to stop if they're Saying the sheriff department is slow or whatever coming back up That means that you know most those shootings only last minutes before they've done their master or majority of their damage. So that's just that's just a question that I'm asking you just like just telling somebody to that you can't do it is it going to stop somebody from coming into the shooting? That's my question. It's just like, because at that point, you have somebody that's some serious issues or they don't care. So at that point, from taking somebody's life, are they really going to care if they have an extra 20 years or whatever it is for breaking that law? So that's just my question about it. Thank you for your comment. All right. And Heather, I see you're online, but you've already had a chance to comment, and we're not going to go through another round. So anyone else, last call for public comment? Moved to call. Question, Madam Chair. We're going to close public comment. You have to move to public comment. I wanted to ask if our staff had any comment, Cindy or Mike, if you had any comment. After all of this, I found a very enlightening and very eye opening, frankly. Let's. I'm going to ask you to unmute. I saw you kept bouncing in and out. It must have been connection. We had an iPhone show up that I think they've had trouble connecting. So I'll let them speak and then mic you can. Is that okay? All right. I'm going to ask you to unmute. I saw you kept bouncing in and out. It must have been connection. them speak and then Mike you can. Is that okay? All right, I phone I'm going to ask you to unmute. I saw you kept bouncing in and out must be in contact connection. You're breaking up. Okay, yeah, try again. Let's please give us your name. Greg Johnson. Okay. Go ahead. The first thing I wanted to comment on was, I wish the chair would follow the procedure of a public hearing and not allow people that did not comment for the ordinance to comment during the public comment portion for people opposed. And the same thing with all of a sudden, I don't know if it's always been the policy that people can't speak twice. But I think this brings up a very important point for your next item. And I think a county manager or the town attorney could help you conduct these public hearings properly. Regarding the ordinance itself, I almost laughed myself silly when it said the purpose was to improve public safety. I don't know how you're getting to that. I want to remind everybody that the flat canyon school shooting, there was an armed resource officer on site. That good guy didn't resolve that issue before the tragedy. And I see this ordinance as just another episode of you, Amy and Dave, trying to do their national issue, you know, tour of things that don't have anything to do with the park on a government in your role here. You didn't include the election time where this ordinance doesn't prohibit guns there. You did take the effort to say that the court had not fallen into this ordinance you're proposing, which is a good point because this ordinance is for unincorporated park county. Again, it's just so obvious that you're just trying to promote a national political issue and not doing your jobs as county commissioners. And that's really all I have time to say. Thank you for your comment. All right, anyone else? Last call. Mike. Thank you, Commissioner. I appreciate the opportunity. I want to make a couple of quick statements more than anything I'm not necessarily in support of or against this particular ordinance. But as somebody who works here daily, every day, an idea of staff on a daily basis. Their description of the way they feel about protection and basically preservation in this building is not unfounded. We've had a couple of incidents recently where we've had to call on enforcement. And I think the overall sense is that we do need to do a good job of protecting the staff. So as part of that, I can't, we have a contract that I can't go into a whole lot of details with at this point. But we have been entitled with the FBI and homely security for evaluation of our structures, not just this building, but several other buildings. And there are measures that we're looking into to try and put in place. One of the ones we're trying to look at initially and as soon as possible, we've had discussions about resurrecting a person at this front desk so that they can actively encounter who comes through the front door. That will put this person in more risks than anybody else in this building. And we'll most likely have to be a security level or law enforcement level person. We haven't determined exactly how to make that happen yet. That short of putting metal detectors in, if you've been into county offices in the front range area, Jefferson County, Denver, Colorado Springs, you go through metal detectors when you enter the building. We don't want to face that here in Park County, but as you've heard several members of the staff bring forward, the rise of math, fentanyl, other drugs, what we're experiencing seems to be a heightened level of anxiety that there are two camps. One of them we heard from a citizen has valid points about if you were faced with that threat, we would be not better to defend yourself. However, we need also to think that the people we put on staff in Park County are not all ranchers. They're not all minors or loggers. that the people we put on staff in Park County are not our answers. They're not all minors or loggers. We have administrative staff in this office. We have people that their expertise is a computer. They don't work with guns or self-defense on a daily basis and would not be well equipped for that. So I just want to mostly reassure staff that it is not going to notice, that it is not, it is something that we are looking into as far as how can we make some adjustments. I think Park County has enjoyed a relatively long period of not having these kinds of encounters. I'm not going to go into a lot of details, but being a person that was witness to a workplace violence situation involving the weapon, it was brandished by an individual that nobody ever saw it coming. And there's documents both directions. So I find it personal also. Again, I'm not in support or in opposition of this, but I do want people, especially staff and the people that come to this building to know that we're trying to make it safe. And this is not the only measure that's out there, we're trying multiple other measures. Thank you. Move we close public comment? I was going to say, motion that we close a public comment on this matter. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All right discussion. We want to go first. Commissioner Ellsner. Well, I can always start. You know, I've got a couple of concerns. One is we should have asked staff. That's our bad. There should have been a survey to all of our staff that would have been anonymous. We know how many surveys we sent out, how many to get we back. So they could actually voice their concerns without fear of repercussion because I understand there is a fear of repercussion. The other thing, people said, well, it takes a long time for the sheriff to get here. Fair play has got a police department department can get here really quick. So anybody that says, oh, the sheriff can't get here, so you have to defend yourself. Fair play actually, you know, they pay their deputies more or their police officers more than we pay our deputies, so they are fully staffed. So from that standpoint, we do have law enforcement thing you get here probably in a minute or two. It's not one of these long things. The other thing you have to look at is, everybody, while these mass shootings, mass shootings aren't what scare me. Those don't happen very often when they do happen, they get all kinds of press. So everybody gets afraid of mass shootings. What I fear is someone who comes into the office having an okay day sorta kinda and then doesn't get what they want and gets angry and they have a gun. And if there are statistics out there that say, those are the ones that you have to fear. Is the guy that shows up? Yes, he can carry the gun into the building. And now he's angry. So he pulls, he's gunned and shoot somebody. Those happen, those happen quite often. And if you really look at statistics, those happen more people are killed by that type of an incident than by mass shootings. Those just don't get all the press. How many of the parties down in Denver suddenly end up in someone getting shot because someone had a gun with them and got mad and said, boom! And that was it. So I think we need to separate that out. This is one building. Saying that you can't carry a gun in the one building does not violate constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has been very clear there are safe spaces. This could be a safe space because of the business that goes on here. It's not saying you can't own a gun, you can't buy ammunition. It's just saying one building is not a place maybe where you should carry a gun. I want to thank Mike for saying, hey, we're looking at having an armed person out there, security out there. I think that would be great. Make sure all the doors are locked, which they are. So people can't get in here unless they come into the front door. And the first person they're going to see is a security officer. That's going to make them think. And then why do they need to carry a gun into the building to conduct business in the building? I can't find a logical point there. They could put it in their car and say, oh, it's terrible to have to lock up your gun in a car. Well, there are a lot of places that you might end up going into if you're carrying. And suddenly you can't go in there. What do you do with your gun? Well, you have you lock it up in your car. So if someone is not doing that properly, then that becomes an issue. I think at the least on this, we should postpone any decision today and do a survey of our employees to get a sense what do our employees want. What does the public want? Well, you know, I worry about our employees here feeling safe at work and being secure. How can we best do that? How do they think we can best do that? So I would say I would like to just postpone any action on this until a future date so we can get a better idea of what other things can we do. I had a discussion and this was at Colorado County's Inc. and it was last year because Clerk Creek County wanted the legislature to give us the rights to be able to outlaw shooting in a subdivision. Right now the County can sort of do that, but it's really difficult. But the commissioner that I was discussing this with, he was from Well County and I have tremendous respect for him, said, well, you're taking away my constitutional rights if I can't shoot my backyard. And I said, you know, the Constitution guarantees you can have the gun, you can have your ammunition, but the Constitution does not guarantee you can discharge that weapon carelessly. And that's what we're starting to look at. Yes, you can have the gun, yes, you can have ammunition, but there's some places where it is not appropriate. The Supreme Court has found that there are places that are, it's not appropriate, and I would like to postpone this so we can talk to our staff and make sure our staff is comfortable with the position that we take because without our staff we don't have county government and without county government we have some real problems getting a road's plow and everything else. So that's my take on it. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Whistle. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Whistle. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Boy, this was enlightening. I think all of our administrative staff spoke. And it certainly made an impact with me. Let me share a little bit of my perspective from it as an old dog. I started back at the dump building in 1979 and there was no security. None. Except the back door. Every once in a while we had to look at the back door. Right? Because we were much more close-quarter than we are in this building. We had no protection. And I appreciate that. And spending the majority of my career there and then coming to the palace, this building, and the differences that it is, but it still has limitations, it has restrictions, it has bad design, if I could say, just because of the layout and how we did it, because this building, you have have to remember is not necessarily what we wanted it is what we could afford. That bus we did it compared to the dump but it still has some layout issues that are not, I don't know if they're correctable right, there's some inherent obsolescence and stuff in this building but it's absolutely correct. The biggest treasurer and I hope to be in this organization is me for our county staff. If we don't have staff, we don't have anything. We don't have you and I have a lot of people who are in the same field. I have great respect because it's absolutely correct. The biggest treasurer and I hope to be in this organization is me for our county staff because if we don't have staff we don't have anything. We don't have you and we don't have you, we don't have you, that work doesn't get done. And if that work doesn't get done then the county is successful in doing what we're charged to do. And so with that I don't have any problem putting that, but let's step back just a second to and see the cause and effect of what what Created this to come before us the car road legislature restricted constitutional rights in our opinion to open carry or conceal carry that is a constitutional right Unless it's not forget that rights shall not be infringed, but it is regulated It is not carte blanche. So with that, those restrictions are a reasonable, rational, common sense. And it is odd for this building, and I'm somewhat proud of it, but yet concerned that we don't have an armed security guard when you walk through the front door because that is the norm and that's part of our unique rural character perhaps perhaps that's good luck perhaps that's fate but at some point I can tell you I was in a county commissioner meeting when Emily Keys was shot. I'll never forget that day. I never want to happen again. I'm okay to table. All right. We'll give Commissioner Whistle a minute to collect his thoughts. I had no idea the staff felt this way. And it was good to hear from all of you because, you know, we do not function without you. And we value you very much. And it makes me really sad that you don't feel safe here. And I've never given in the thought, but I think that I agree with Commissioner Elzner. I think we need to pause and go through our security review of the building and take a look at what we need to do to harden this building. If people don't feel safe, there's a reason. And I know people are volatile and things have gotten pretty crazy since COVID. I do it agree to that. And we need to look at what we can do to help you all feel like you can do your job and do it safely. Now, safety is never going to be 100% because a couple comments. A bad, a person intending to do bad does not care about the law. And this law, we have not had people have been able to conceal carry into this building and open carry into this building since this was signed this year. So nothing is bad has happened in the past. So this is just drawing a line forward. So that's my concern. How would you regulate if you knew somebody had a firearm or not if they had it concealed in their pocket? You wouldn't know. And so I contend that bad guys don't follow the law. So that's a concern. And so the only way you counteract that is to have good guys who can deal with the bad guys. That is my contention. And I took a note to uphold the United States and Colorado constitutions and I take that oath very seriously because it's between me, it's between all the citizens and it's between God and the Second Amendment says shall not be infringed and that is a real hard thing for me. But I would like to do the review to see where are we falling short? What do we need to do here in this building to help people feel safe? Or safe, as safe as it's humanly possible to do. And Commissioner Ellsman made a comment about shooting up parties. Well, alcohol and guns are really bad combination. You know, so a lot of those are people just acting without any self-restraint at all. So I think that we should, we'll have a meeting with Mike, find out some of the information that he's been cleaning and table this until a future uncertain date. How is that? That sounds good and I would also like to, you know, when you look at the bill that did this, there is a clause in it that says concerning prohibiting carrying a firearm in sensitive spaces recognized by the United States Supreme Court as places at which longstanding laws prohibit carrying firearms. There have been longstanding laws prohibiting carrying firearms in legislative places and county buildings and all of that. So this isn't a constant wall. The Constitution says this. The Supreme Court basically said we can do this. St. Acala, I'd have said we can do this, and this is what we're gonna do, and they have the backing of the Supreme Court. So to me, let's sit down. Let's do a survey of our staff. Make sure that we understand their feelings. And then we can take a look and see what we need to do. So I would make the motion to postpone this until sometime, first part of November. Would that give us time to do a survey. Okay, first part of December. Or to a future date or do you want to say the date? I mean, we can say to a future date uncertain. By the, okay, but we will keep it on our to-do list for certain. Right. Because we need to get this voted on one way or the other because we're in the middle of a second reading. Commissioner Whistle. Second the motion is as presented. to get this voted on one way or the other because we're in the middle of a second reading. Commissioner Whistle. Second the motion as presented. Okay, all in favor. Aye. Aye. Mr. Point of discussion. Sure. Yeah, I think it's reasonable to engage our folks and get their feedback. I appreciate the fact of the comments made about that you guys are here every day and we're not. That's true. I try to be here every day but I know I'm not here every day and the others have other commitments too. But without you being here every day and I want to plug this again, we are not successful. It is up to you guys and you and your work that make us successful. And for that we will forever grateful. And we need your input on this. We need what you think will make you safe because when you look at human nature, the first thing that we want to have is safety. And if you're not safe, the rest of it doesn't follow very well. And having this right up front and we appreciate your courage, your words, and your thoughts and your position. We may not agree on them, but we certainly understand them and appreciate them. And we're trying to balance the legislation that was forced that as versus your perception and real safety. So with that, thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Last item on the agenda is discussion regarding the county manager position. All right. Commissioner Whistle, we will give you the floor. I started it. I'd let Lord knows if we would be here in September or heaven such a full house. Thanks for coming. We've been running through this, and let me say to Mike and Cindy and all the rest of our staff if I haven't. Thank you for stepping into the breach. And this was in no way any attempt other than to get the ball rolling and have this discussion, because we can only meet in open session. So why not have it in open session? And with that, I've watched, I've had some great conversations with our appointed staff and with some of our electeds, and they're saying, what in the world are you doing? Well, I've been observing this place for a long time and I've been observing our model. And we've talked about it over the years. I've served with 34 county commissioners with Commissioner Mitchell now in my life in Park County and many other elected officials. And with that change in people, there's 33 people in 34 terms. My wife was there twice, a Lil young. And I revered the time with her and she taught me a lot. She's the best commissioner I ever served with. But with that comes the responsibility of how this place operates. We have been under a strong county manager system for about 13 or 14 years. It has evolved over time and we had a long time and Tom, Heizeman, and he settled into a rhythm and a groove and a process that I think people were comfortable with. That ended. Everything does at some point. I just learned from staff that there was a letter written, I think unanimously or almost unanimously of our pointed and other executive staff that supported that level or method of management, which I had no knowledge of until last night. So with that, we are moving forward but I think we could move forward better. So my goal the only reason I'm here in this four-year term is to try and make the county be better. So with that we are I've watched that office I watched everything run through Tom's office. I watched Mike do his very best and I appreciate him very much. He may not think that right now, but I want to tell him for sure. I understand what he's done and I do appreciate it. I see it. And if you're not here, you don't see it. I do. I appreciate it. I appreciate Cindy. I appreciate Cindy on your road back to recovery and health and being our old Cindy. But with that came issues and it these unusual circumstances we had. And I would like to push us in a direction to find some stability and some calm. Because right now everything's kind of upside down. When I talk to our staff, uncertainty is is hurting their morale, performance, and motivation. I think the public, when you look at uncertainty or change, you look at what bad is going to happen. Oh my gosh, they may do this. But that's only fear of the unknown. So with that, I was trying to get us to move towards getting into a process to make a decision in solving our county manager issue on a more permanent basis. And taking into consideration the process we have already been through. Cindy had the first take at it because she was with this longest in my opinion. That's how I voted. That wasn't able to continue. And we're grateful that she's back. Mike stepped up in a very, very time of need and has done his very best to fill those shoes. And for that, again, I'm forever grateful. But at some point, we need to settle the uncertainty and move forward with that. And those learning curves and those experiences that we all learn from. We know, I know, I can tell you, the first year is an elected official's figure and out what the words mean. The second year of an elected official is figuring out the calendar. The third year of an elected official is figuring out, okay, I'm semi-comfortable. And by the fourth year and you're gone, you understand. So it's really no different for an employee. It's a learning process. I always refer to it in the assessor's office, is we had chairs and we put people through the chairs and promote them up in the organization as the cream would rise to the top and the most experience who would become our executives. I think that's a good model. But everybody has to learn. No one comes born with county manager PhD that I'm aware of. It's developed and I'm willing to help develop that person or the next amount of time that I have. And so with that, I wanted to get the conversation started. There are certainly more voices than me, but that's the purpose of this. Mr. Elzer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say what you said I agree with. Unfortunately, I see a lot of emails. It does just the opposite of that. It doesn't build people. They're very derogatory. They attack our county employees. They attack our interim manager in a way that I just cannot believe the way you write things. I personally would, you know, if we said, hey, we make a decision today, I'd say, well, I would make the motion to make Mike our county manager. I think he has done a terrific job in extremely difficult situation. I think our staff would probably go along with that. If you want to bring stability and peace to this, we need to have someone as county manager who knows their county manager. And then quite frankly, we need to have someone edit your emails before you send them to the county manager so they can be civil. To me, it is just its civility in this is the best way to go. Civility with our staff. We saw it this morning when you went after another elected official. But, you know, that is my position. I think we have someone who has risen to the challenge in extremely difficult times. He probably knows more about the county now than at least our problems than Tom Eisenman did because he has been confronted with all of the problems where people kind of said, well, yeah, Tom knows what's going on. So he'll fix it. Well, Tom was really good, but he did not know everything that was going on. Mike has learned an awful lot. So, I mean, that is my way of bringing stability would be to say, get rid of the title interim and then make Mike our county manager because I think that would be the best way. Okay. Um, my turn. Um, boy, you know, Tom had, Tom had big shoes and he did a really good job filling them and he did leave a void and It went the time went quicker than we realized when he finally Walked out of here for the last time But I would like to go through and interview the two who are still standing Who interviewed before for county manager and interview Mike because we never interviewed Mike. And he just kind of stepped in and I think we should go through that process and interview if they are reached back out and asked them and if they I believe from what I've heard and just bumping into them at other events that they would be open to that and then that would afford us to make a decision. Just because side by side comparison is really beneficial. Asking the same questions, find out how things are dealt with, find out the thought process behind scenarios that you might want to ask and I think that that would be a really good way for us to get to the end point of this. Madam Chair, we went through that process and there were four of us that put the two that are standing down pretty low. And I would say as long as we have a large enough group, because it became very obvious when we went through it that the two of you had someone you specifically wanted were the rest of the people doing the interview said no way. So that concerns me with doing the interview again. The other thing you have to recognize is that you hire a county manager. There's a six month probationary period. There are county manager. Let's give them six months to do his job with our support, not our nastiness, and see what happens. And if then at the end of that, you can say yes, they're great or no, we need to do a search again. But to open it up and interview people that we picked some and then we got it to a smaller group. And that's why we stopped there when we couldn't agree on someone. We said, okay, we need to open it up and bring other people in. Well, if you're going to do that, I think you need to go back to, let's open it up and bring other people in and see if we can do a better mix. But I think we're just, you know, running around in the circle, and I don't think it's fair to Mike for one, but as if you have a large enough group to do the interview that could do that interview, I would go along with that. But right now, I look at it and say, four of us went one way, two of us went the other way. And it's kind of obvious who the two went the other way are. So, I mean, that is my concern. It has to be a large enough group to do the interview, to look for someone, not someone who is smart and all of that. Someone who has government experience and understands the position. Because that is the most important part we have and that's where I think Mike comes in very well. But I think we need to hone it and say, you know, you've got to have local government experience before you can take on this position because local government experience is a heck of a lot different from any other government experience. We deal with different issues, we fight different battles, we need someone that understands that and doesn't learn on the fly because quite honestly in six months, you cannot learn on the fly unless you come with a lot of government experience it has to do with counties. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Whistle. I disagree with your opinion. I disagree with the process. I disagree with the model. When I left this place, it enlightened me and relieved me of groupthink. This place suffers from groupthink. Whether you want to say it or not, it does. And to continue what we're doing the same way and expecting a different result is not realistic. I'm not discounting Mike at all, but I know we have two applicants that were finalists that are still available, that are still local, and that are still interested in this position. And I would like to re-interview them again along with Mike because he has not had that opportunity. He did not submit an application, he pulled it. He needs the opportunity to have that right, that experience. So with that, I want to expand this and move this on in a method that Chairman-in-the-Kenneth talked about, have a set of interviews in the very near future. And from that, we get back, we meet, and we go from there. But I think we need to look at it. The other thing I want to put on the table, we agreed to go out and look at a different way with headhunters or recruiters or whatever name you wish to use. When you look at the market right now in Colorado counties, we use Elbert, for example. Elbert is very similar to us. They hired a new county manager in the last year and a half, somewhere in there. Nice gentleman, Metting. They said, wanted to use their process, they said, but you can't have him. And then everybody else who had got a new county manager said, they say, oh, you can't have him or her. And so with that, got some insight for them how they went about the recruiting process. In the market, the market is significantly higher than we were paying Mr. Eisenman as a long-term county administrator. Our reality is the market of demand and salaries and benefits. And all of you setting there, if we go out and shoot the moon for the new person, what does it say about you? Compression, I've seen it. I've watched it all my life. When the guys coming in the door are making more than the people have been there helping you for 10 years. Right? But I think we owe it to the organization to look beyond our borders as a right of investigation and discovery. I think we owe that to local people who stepped up most of the applicants of the 22 were local, not all were, but with that I think we can look inside our own house and look at the talent there and if not then we will have to redirect our efforts. But I think it's worth looking again of the people who have stepped up and see what they have to say and how they do a second time because it's always easier to second interview than a first interview. First interview is pretty tough. I understand that. And so that's the path I personally would like to pursue. Okay, Commissioner Ellsmer. Yeah, first interview is always tough as a contractor doing IT work. It was always tough that first interview you had to really show what you had, which I think happened. Second interview is, oh, I know they asked me this question and I would, no, I know this. If you would commit to using the same interview committee, the second time around, I would feel comfortable with that. But I really fear that you're going to change that to where it's why bother with the interviews because your mind's already made up. My mind's already made up. How are we going to handle that? It's going to be an interesting issue. I think going into an election, I think it's a very, very bad time to do it. I think we should just say, might continue on interim and tell things that dust settles on the election to figure out who's going to be here because really, you know, I'm a lame duck sort of. Sure, I haven't quit all the meetings I go to, but it's something that we have postponed this so long from when Tom left. I think whoever the new commissioners are and it could be you too and Jason it could be you and Rob and Mr. Hansel. We don't know who the new commissioners are and I think it would only be fair to say let's keep Mike as an interim until after the election or I should say after January I believe 12th or 13th I can't 14th two days after my birth take 10 I'm going to retire a real old man I think that would be the best way to do it is just say we're going to have an interim until January and let the new commissioners, whoever they are, be a part of picking who they get to work with. I think that would give us a stability through what I, you know, elections are tough times. Elections are tough times on staff that their bosses are the ones running for election. Mostly because bosses running for reelection, or if you know someone that works in the government that's running for the first time, they are just by this time nasty, ugly, and difficult to deal with because the pressures of an election are amazing. So, I would prefer to say, let's do do this in January and then you've got a couple of advantages. You don't have me harassing you on what your decision should be. You'll have new board members doing that. Thank you. Commissioner Whistle. Well really there's only one person that can do this job the best and that's probably you. why don't you apply? That is one of the dumbest things that has come out of your mouth. Thank you. Well, it's really amazing because it didn't come out of my mouth. It came out of your friend Mr. Green here that if they get elected, you're going to be the next county manager. No. He has never said that because he has asked me and I said, there is absolutely no way of doing that. Mr. Whistle, once again, you need to apologize to Rob Green and apologize to me. I've already talked to our school superintendent and said, you know, I would like to be a substitute teacher. And our school superintendent said, you know, we always need substitute teachers. I've got a couple of degrees. I can handle that. I do not want to be the county manager because I do not want to have to drive to Fairplay every day because that's what the county manager has to do. You are so full of yourself and so full of other things that I'm not going to say. That was a lie. And you owe Rob Green an apology for even bringing that up. Who's the nasty man now? Okay, Mike would like to make a comment. Mike. So I understand there's a lot of emotion. I understand there's a lot of turmoil going. One of the big considerations is, we are right in the middle of the budget season in the stress on staff, is immense. We are going into an election that is extremely divisive at this point. That puts not just staff on edge, I know it puts the board on edge as well. I'm in a precarious position. I didn't want this job. I didn't want the first job I got when I came here. I actually wanted your jobs. And what I found out in that process was the expertise I have, and I'm not the precarious position I have is that if you open it up to another interview and I'm not opposed to that, I will stand against whoever you want. The issue is the best person for this job needs to be sitting in this seat. I mean, 100% support of that. I believe most of the staff that I view as an regular basis is in support of that. We want the best person here. Park County has experienced decades of mismanaged hiring practices, mismanaged money, mismanaged policies, mismanaged rules, mismanaged regulations, that's recognized. When I stepped forward over two and a half years ago, the reason I stepped forward and I was instructed, advised, never make a decision that relies on emotion, whether it's positive emotion or negative emotion, never make a life decision based on emotion and I was angry. I was mad when I came here the treatment that I received as a citizen, as a resident in a park county was reprehensible. That's what put me in this position. I take on the role of Director of Development Services and there had not been any movement towards improvement, either on customer service or in the support of any economic or long range development within the county. It was astounding how little work had been done at this county. It's a large job. It's noticed by, excuse me, how we have taken on the task of re-addressing the strategic master plan to hear from the people of this county. We have started to go forward with lay-on-use regulation updates. We are looking at numerous ordinances that could stand some improvement. While we need those ordinances in place, they need adjusting. They need addressing. About nine months into that tenure as things were progressing in development services, my wheelhouse no doubt has been a major transportation and major constriction in that field to C.Dod and Federal I was. And so I was asked if I would look at public works and see how we could improve on that area. Again, I was faced with very surprising hiring practices and levels of training or lack thereof and absolute mere zero funding for a department. While the budget has $6.1 million in it, it was mismanaged for over 10 years, and our reserve fund had grown to a level just sort of $8 million, or just great at $8 million. They shouldn't ever happen. When we're talking about taking the county in a better direction, I'm here for that county. I'm not saying I'm the best person for the job, but I think the structure of where we're going with this county, the county manager working with staff is the right structure. What the failure has been in the past is communication, communication between the county manager and the board. The board acts as a combined unit to oversee the policies and regulations and the budget, the finances of the county. I think that is an extremely important position that needs to be protected. I think that also puts the county manager in a place where that role to be able to guide and advise staff in support of the regulations and the rules and the ordinances and the resolutions that are put forward by the board is also an extremely important role. It requires that somebody has at least a well-founded understanding of where these mechanisms come from. We've witnessed it and we have a complete and total reorganization of the Rotten Bridge Department that is showing results. So I appreciate the concern that members of the board show for Park County going in the right direction. Absolutely. I share that concern. I'm going to tell you everybody that sits in this audience right now, shares the same concern. We want Park County to go forward. A lot of my instructions the staff of recent have been The I don't even know if it's instructions as we sit down to talk about the budget and where we want to take strategic here He said those those Those entities what I was faced with by on large was Asylode effect in each of these departments They had not had guidance they they had not had support. And so each department, the clerk or the court office is a pretty good example when we were talking about election opportunities and how we can support those election opportunities. The clerk was exhausted because there's no budget that she has available to support security and staffing and things of that nature in various voting locations. And I reminded her that's not her by herself, that's not her responsibility. We have facilities, we have grounds, we have other budgets. It's a thing that we need to tackle as a county, not as an individual, not as an individual unit. As I went to other areas, road and bridge development services, communications, emergency services. They're unaware of the possibility of support that they could get. When I try to explain to them what we want to be, Park County has a reputation and if people don't sit up and recognize what that reputation was, then it's a huge disservice to this county. Knowing that this county has looked at, it's laughed at, it's ridiculed. People think we are corrupt and we have been in the past. We do not want to continue that situation. So I've told staff, we need to be communications. We need to be a beacon. Rodin Bridge, we need to be a beacon. We need to be the beacon. Rodent bridge, we need to be a beacon. We need to be the place that people start looking at and go wait a minute if you've seen what they did in part of the county because it's changing. It's making huge differences. Grants that we heard about in the earlier work session today are a direct result of the communication and the restructuring of road and bridge and a recognition from the governor's office. So, are we there? We're not even close. Do I want this job? Absolutely. I haven't finished the work that I started and I would be privileged to be able to continue. That's my position. I'm open to continuing the interviews if that's what you feel is the best course. Again, I think sitting in this job needs to be the right person. It needs to be the person that has the tools, the capability and the leadership to help the staff move forward in supporting the Board of County Commissioners. And I guess that's my thing. I want to throw out a little bit to Commissioner Wissle, you mentioned that there was a letter that you were unaware of that potentially could have come out earlier this year. That letter has been resurrected by the staff. And I would like to submit that to you later today as support from the leadership portion of the staff. Not it does not include the elected at this point, but it does include the leadership staff. So I want to put that forward just as a. I have been discussions. How can we support this structure better? How can we do a better job? So I will be forwarding that to the commission as soon as we have the final signatures on it. So with that, like I said, the precarious position is if there's an interview I want to be on that interview process. So I struggle with, I hope this isn't not taken as an end of favorite, it really needs my, but I make it the comments that I made today. So. Okay. Mr. Whistle. Thanks Mike. I really do appreciate you. Because you, I've said it for many, many weeks when we're struggling in this unusual circumstances. It's kind of like you walk away from a three car wreck every day. You're walking away, but you're feeling like you've run over. That's just coming with the amount of responsibility and stress that he's been carrying. And I think you guys who work with him can see that because I see it. When you're here, you see it. And that's part of the reasons I'm here is to see and to hear and to listen and to learn. And I'm objective. My training is to be an objective observer of facts and information. So I'm not in any particular camp other than I want to try a little bit different approach because I think it's worthwhile. And I'm doing that not just to be an experiment, but with the results in mind. So with that, I think we can form a path to put some certainty in the process and then get to a point where we can have a conclusion and then everybody can move on down the road hopefully in unison and as a team. We all have strengths and weaknesses and one of my challenges and one of my joys is to put people in places that they're successful in a job they love to do. There's nothing worse than going to a job that you hate. And this is a job that takes a lot of different skills. I think it begins completely with a very honest, trustworthy, honorable person. And I don't think there's anyone in our cadre that doesn't fit that category. That's the main thing we have to, as our founder said, in order to have this experiment in self-governance we need honest men. If we don't have honest men, we can't have honest government. And so with that comes the need to be truthful, transparent, and upfront with people good or bad. And with that, I think it's worth this next step and this opportunity to try and find that next right person whoever that is in the near future. Okay, so are we going to make a decision on going for it? I mean, well, I just like the idea of taking the two finalists plus Mike and putting together a schedule for interviews in the near future and see what our calendar does. And I believe we do we meet next week? Do we have a special meeting? We do. We have a special meeting next week. We normally don't, but we do. Yes, we had. It's for the title three. Right, title three hearing that we have to do. So we do have a meeting scheduled. So when we use that next Tuesday as an opportunity or before I would. I think again, you're heading down in a direction that's going to cause the county a lot of problems because you're rushing it. You're rushing it at a time when we need to sit back and think as I say, the finalist at the left were not our first choice by a long shot, at least four of us, two of you, yes, maybe. So I think that is an issue. And to rush this sink next week, really, you're going to do it next week and you're going to throw a new manager at a staff that is overwhelmed with budget trying to get everything else done. I would make the motion that this be postponed until after the new commissioners are sworn in because they are the ones that would be working with them. And I just want to say that, you know, part of my biggest concern and I'm just going to go with the emails that go around, this one was, gee, I want to add something to the agenda, I found out about it because someone was kind enough to forward it to me. It was addressed to Mike Smith and Amy Mitchell. Oh, wait, there's another commissioner here. You two have done a great job of keeping everything to yourselves in conversations. Last week, after our regular meeting, you sat in here by yourselves with no one else in the room for two hours discussing things. That is against the law. Flat out against the law. That is against open meetings. You can say, well, people could walk in because the door wasn't locked. The meeting had been adjourned. You can no longer carry on conversations discussing policy. That is against the law. That is the way you two have been running. So I look at this as it this is not going to be a fair interview process. This is not going to be a fair decision. It's going to be you two already deciding who you want and ramming it down, everybody else's throat. Commissioner Elzner, I'd like to address that. Yes, please do. I try not to bring politics into this boardroom. I am not bringing politics into this boardroom. Excuse me. But Commissioner Whistle is the chair of the Republican Party and I am running for reelection. Do you not think that we were, we have the right to have a conversation about what the Republican Party is doing? You do not have the right, you do not have the right to have that conversation in privacy. Period. And it is sad in this county that the chair of the Republican Party is a commissioner, the previous chair of the Republican Party, who altered the rules so she didn't have to have a primary is a commissioner That is what I think is wrong. Well, there was no no discussion about county policy How can I be happy meeting that I can't be happy with what you say anyway? Well, that's fine then forget it I just wanted to say you know, anyone can create whatever reality they want, but the truth is the truth. And Commissioner Ellisoner does not know it. Go ahead. It's a train of order, Madam Chair. Yes. It's a point of order, Mr. Ellisoner. You were the chairman of the Republican Party when you ran for Commissioner. Would not resign or so. Yes, I did. As chairman Mitchell did. And commissioner, you are so I'm not going to pull up the minutes. You well, again, you are lying. This is why I can't trust you. As soon as I announced, we had someone else take over. Yes, we did. We did not. But that's okay because it doesn't matter. John Lane, always ready. Yes, you are. The second I announce. Okay, so, um, no, we're not, we, um, we are going to find a date that works and we are going to conduct the hearings. That's what I move. And we will conduct the views. Okay, say something for a minute. No, no, no, no, no, we are not having public comment. Well, you guys are having a public week. That's what we do here is this is our opportunity to have a conversation. This is a team effort guys. Come on. I'm listening to this and I should just go back to the school and stop some kids from fighting because you guys are acting childish. You're absolutely correct. I think you're correct. You are absolutely correct and we are there. You are absolutely correct and we don't want to get in the gutter but we are there. We should not be here. But we have to deal with these personality issues as we go through it. And we have been. We have been. And we generally, if you will notice, for a year and three quarters, our decorum has been exemplary. You guys, our decorum would disagree with this gentleman here, not that lady back there. People here, these two people, okay, you don't have to agree with it. That's okay. That's your opinion. But I know what we have gone through. And I know the amount of tie raids on the record coming from my far right and it is by far superior on his selector the people that are out of order and not having to corral. Sorry we're not trying to have a dialogue here we need to finish our work and then we will move on. I'm trying to get through our agenda items. The only time we can have a conversation is here in public. The sausage making is ugly. It is not fun, but that's the rules. That's how it works. So I'm sorry if you're not enjoying this conversation, but that's the only way we can do it. So we've got a motion that we're going to set interviews with the two last standing and Mike and go through the process, redo the formal process. I think that's a good thing for us to do and I would rather do it sooner rather than later because the clock's ticking. We're going to conduct interviews with the two last county managers. County managers, candidates we interviewed, plus Mike, sooner rather than later with a date that works for all of them. I, you know sooner rather than later is just kind of one of those. Within the next couple weeks. I think that's doing a terrible service to our staff. I will vote against that. Thank you. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All right. Holy you please at least have the courtesy. All opposed. All opposed. All opposed. Opposed. Okay. Last item on the agenda is public comment. So everybody line up and please give us your name because we have to record everyone who made a comment. And we'll go through. We're happy to hear from you all. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Gerson Genshork and I actually came to this meeting specifically, well, for a number of reasons, just looking at the agenda and the county manager and I came to support Mike. The very first things that I heard you say, Dave, what, excuse me, Commissioner Whistle, I'll show you that respect, but it was, we need to clean up our wheelhouse. And that was what you were referring to Monica about. Why don't you guys clean up your wheelhouse first? Because this wheelhouse is not clean whatsoever. The behavior that this board is exhibiting to the rest of the county is absolutely ridiculous and childish. Number two, both of you two have stated that thank you very much. You thank the community for the things they've said. And the most recent thing that you said was, you know, I'm here to, you know, listen and learn. And I don't see that whatsoever. The community is obviously here in support of somebody who has done a very good job who took over when you guys needed the help. And now what you're going to do is you're going to turn your back on him. You know that's ridiculous. You already had interviews for two people and you didn't hire him and yet you're going to interview them again even though you had an interim in the place for the last several months who did a really good job. I know you've been here longer than I have commissioner whistle but in the meantime I was licensed in Park County. I've been licensed in Park County since 1999 so I've since in Park County since 1999. So I've worked with Mr. Eisenman for that many years on many different issues. And since Mike has gotten into office, the building departments specifically, because that's where I work with is developmental services, the building department planning and zoning, it has gotten so much smoother to be able to go up there and get work done. And that's the first time in how many years. I suggested to Tom for multiple years, hey Tom, when you're going to retire, when you're going to retire because we needed to get him out of here. And you guys never had the courage to be able to do anything like that. You guys being the county commissioners, which you were in a part of. But in the meantime, we have somebody that is actually succeeding at this position and you guys aren't going to hire him on full time. This is ridiculous. And yet we'll see how many people get up here and speak for Mike and you didn't want to hear public opinion. You wanted to go about it your own way, but what you said specifically, we want to hear what you have to say. Commissioner Mitchell, you should really watch out who you're tying your wagon to. It says an election year. My wagon is not tied to anyone anyone but thank you for your comment. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. My name is Mead Hopkins. A resident down in South Park. Yeah, I think Mr. Commissioner Whistle, the way you've been sitting right now listening to the last gentleman pretty shows, shows most of us. All you hear is blah, blah, blah. And I think that's a problem. And I think anybody that wants to berate an elected official in front of the public on items they don't even know you're coming to talk to them about. The least shows a poor leadership style. In fact, it's called authoritarian. So when you're here telling people you want to re-engage on the county manager position and Yeah, I can see you're getting angry with me. I want to hit a couple buttons However, when you say that and then you've had all the time in the past You could have done this months ago, but with an upcoming election It seems to too obvious too coincidental that you're choosing to do this now I think it's a really poor decision, and I think you should be more concerned about your position on this commission than Amy Mitchell, because it's not like you're immune to recall or anything else. So be very careful your decision making, and make sure that you get some involvement of the community. I've heard two things today, one from Commissioner Mitchell, one from you. Eye-opening and I had no idea. In your area of responsibility, there shouldn't be any eye-opening coming out of here. Well, should there be any surprises? Fairly, you're not here enough and I think I've heard that from the staff. You're very infrequently here. So reconsider your positions of what you think you want for this county because what I'm hearing and what I've heard, it's not where the county wants to go. Thank you. Right. Thank you for your comment. Next. And I will get to you online. Once we cleared the room or maybe we will start alternating. Go ahead. Please give us your name. Yeah, Bob White. I don't agree with the vote you just took because I think you're looking at it too insignificantly. This is not a nuclear operation, but if it was, think of the kind of vetting process you would have to go through. But it is complex. Running this counter is complex and it requires a certain educational background and it requires certain experience, which you outlined initially when you started looking for someone. You didn't find someone, but maybe it's going to take a while. I think you got to go back to that process. It's really important that you find the correct administrator for this county. I ran a successful company. If I was taking this job, you'd get sued all the time. I can run stuff really well, but I would fail at this. It requires special experience. And I think you're just saying, well, shoot, let's just interview these two people who were amongst our finalists and Mike. And that sounds a little haphazard to me. Another thing that I think you need to consider on this committee, I think there was what, five people, there was nobody from the public. It's like you ignore us. You need to have someone on the selection committee from the public. That shows us that you want our opinion number one and number two that person can probably help that process. The last thing I want to say is that you know the anger and frustration that we see behind this countertop. That's kind of a mirror to our community, especially this side of the county. The anger and the frustrations that's been growing for years, in my 23 years, I see it ramp up every year. It's real and it keeps continuing and it gets worse. And some of it is because of how you act. And some of it is because of how you don't listen to us. And I could give you lots of examples of fights that I've been involved in where it's like, my God, we've got so much of the community that's interested in this direction. And we see the commissioners just go their own way. I remember a commissioner when we were talking about the master plan. That when that master plan was created, my understanding was it was the largest community involved support ever. Tons of people were involved in the creation of our master plan. And I watched a commissioner say, we have to remember it's only a guiding document. You know what that said? We don't care what you decided in the master plan. We're going to decide what are we going to do. It's just a guiding document. So please understand the anger that we see here, we're feeling too. And for various reasons, and some of it is what's happening behind this counter. Anyway, I hope you find a community member for this committee. I hope you take it more seriously. You go back to the drawing board and it may take months. I kind of with Ellsner on the idea that, you know, we've got election coming up and you want a new group to be able to work with a new administrator. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Great to make again and I just am not talking for the rest of the department heads, but I think that Mike Smith made a really good point. It is budget season. Mr. Ellsner also made a good point. It's an election year, and I think it would be ludicrous to rush the decision on county manager before all of this is over. I don't know about the rest of the department heads, but it's a stressful time of year. And we need everybody to work together, which obviously isn't happening right now. So I think that it would be very prudent to wait until after this election to make your decisions. And I agree with Mr. White, you need public people on this committee to help make this decision. Thank you for your comment. My name is John Mack and I am a concern to this I have been my objection now when it legal. David Whistle this con flick a jivad with Monica Jones has been going on for too long and it needs to stop. You're so free to give advice to her about classes she should take. You need to take a class and anger management and in conflict resolution. This problem needs to stop Madam Chair. You are in charge of the board. You should seek to it that it stops. Thank you for your comment. Applause. to a third it stops. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No, come on up. We've got everybody lined up so I think we can go quickly. All right, thank you. Mary Ann was last key in Park County. I hope that you are listening very carefully. You say you listen and the point being made, I've been here for other things before where the listening did not occur. You hear from the staff, you hear from the public, Mike has documented positive results in a very short amount of time. Think of what he could do. It is no less, you. The staff has expressed to you their stress right now with the budget season. There is no reason to rush this. I think that to the person said it's burdened to wait till afterwards. There is no reason to do this before the election and until the staff has completed this budget cycle, there is no reason to do it unless it's because you want to control the outcome before the election and that is really poor optics on your part. I would encourage you to be open to the people of Barc County and wait until after the election, wait till after the staff has gone through their cycle and let this be conducted in a very fair and reasonable way and not rush it in right under the election to ensure that you get your way. You've already demonstrated that you are willing to do this. And I think that the optics look very poor on your part. Thank you for your comment. I was not prepared to have to speak today. I'm here simply to say to Commissioner Whistle that you owe me an apology for the lie that you told. I have never ever said that Commissioner Ellsner should apply for the job of county manager. And you said this, your lie about me was on the public record. I would like a public apology. We have nine news is on the Zoom. So they're hearing this. They will hear the lie that you told about me. And yes, I am running for election. So I want the facts to be corrected that I did not that what you said was not true. And normally we don't have dialogue during public comment. We just accept public comment. Well I wanted to be on the record that what Commissioner Whistle said was not true. Okay, thank you for your comment. All right, next. There's an 112 days I will be sitting next to you and it'll be fun. My name is Sheila Bonfist and I am an employee here at the county and I just wanted to let the commissioners know how thoroughly insulting it is, that you're going to take two months to figure out whether or not there can be guns allowed in the county building to keep us safe, which didn't even cross your mind. But you're going to take two weeks to replace somebody who has done nothing but great things for us since he has taken this position. We work with them every day. Maybe you should ask for our feedback and find what we think, how Mike is doing with us, with all the county employees that are in here right now. And you're going to brush this through in a two week time frame without consulting of people that are actually working with him day to day is thoroughly insulting to not just me, but every single one of these people that are in here with him day to day is thoroughly insulting to not just me, but every single one of these people that are in here that work their tails off for the county because we care about the county not as much as Mike does because Mike has given his heart and soul to this county. He isn't everything he can to make it a better place. And we all respect him greatly for that. So maybe it would be great if you could take that into consideration before rushing this through. Thank you for your comment. Hello I'm Sarah Lairmore I do know most of you as I have worked for the county. Yeah, it's us. It is. So again, I am Sarah Laramore. I know most of you have been with the county for over a decade. I question your agenda as to why it is so imperative that you find a county manager before the election. I don't understand why we cannot sit back and wait. We have an intern who has done a fantastic job. Like I said, I've been here for quite a while. I worked under Tom Eisman before Tom was a county manager. Tom did great things, but Tom was also a pleaser. Tom would kick the problem down the road, and I'm still dealing with issues that have been kicked down the road for decades. But it is nice to have somebody who is willing to back his staff, find solutions and be a problem solver. Mike Smith has done a fantastic job since he's been here and even better job as intern manager. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Catherine. I've worked here for about two years. In fact, I was Mike's first hire into the building department. And I have to say in the two years that I've been here working under Mike, I have seen absolutely fantastic changes. Not just with the staff, but with the processes. And I've heard those comments from builders, from homeowners, from everybody I've worked with both in the office and in the field. I do have a full-time job outside of this and I also own a small business with my husband. My 22 to 26 hours here a week is not necessarily something that I need. I came back after an educational opportunity and one of the reasons I came back was because I was excited to work with Mike. I was excited to work with the staff Mike had put in place. And I was excited to be part of the changes that Mike was actively implementing here at the county. So I just wanted to voice my support for Mike. I think his involvement in the development department, the public works department, and the community in general has been astonishing. So please don't make your decision hastily. As you describe the learning process, first year, terminology, second year calendar, third year, you start to feel comfortable fourth year, you might be able to do the job. I think Mike has greatly exceeded that learning curve, so I encourage you to keep him as county manager. Thank you for your comment. I'm Karen Susich again. I just want to talk about what I've learned from Mike. So Mike came into our department when it was failing. We didn't have a director. We had one inspector. We didn't have a good reputation with the public and the way that we did things. It was taking six months to get plans reviewed. Mike came in and I would say first week watched, learned, and then listened. He's the kind of person that is going to make our county better. He's not going to just say yes to try to appease someone, but he's going to try to find a solution. There is a reason that he's been put into Park County, and the reason is to lead. He came in here, he took over development services, and within three months, it was running smoother than it has in the seven years I was with development services. Then halfway through, even just getting started with development services, he was tasked to go takeover public works. So now he's the director of two major departments within the county and this man handled that with grace. He is shown what he can do for the county. He has shown how much love he has for his community and what he would like to make sure that we have for the future. He has knowledge that needs to be brought to the table, that needs to be listened to. And I would hope that, like Keyless said, you guys are going to take two months to run over the weather we should have weapons in the building or not. But we're going to give two weeks to decide on a county manager. I think we need to rethink this. He has done an amazing job as interim. Let's see what he can do. Thank you for your comments So as a protected person by statute I would much rather not be on the camera or state my name however In my opinion because I'm gonna be all over the place because I'm emotional You should be embarrassed embarrassed for how you treated Monica and because I'm going to be all over the place, because I'm emotional. You should be embarrassed. Embarrassed. For how you treated Monica, and for how you treat other people, including Mike, here's why. Because you don't follow the rules. And you have not followed rules. You and I had a conversation about a property should not have come to me. So in my opinion, I agree with Elton. It should be not until action because I think that there is a cat. Maybe even in this room. I'm sure in this room because I've seen the interaction because that's what I do I watch. I watch people's the way they look, who they talk to, their eyes. So my point is it's unacceptable. He has done a great job. He has supported us beyond supported us. You guys need to understand that. And I don't think you do. And it's like a bully you two against this one. Really, we're all adults, right? We're all here to do a job. Let's do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. I'm Allison Zann. I'm going to try not to choke over my words here. I also did not plan on talking, but I could not talk. So I work in development services. This is my second rotation with the county. I was here very briefly in 2020 when the lack of leadership, support and management and development services was running rampant. So, I got out of there as quick as I could. It was a toxic workplace. It was terrible. Just recently in the back about a year now, because trusted individuals that work here, friends and acquaintances stated that there was a new manager in town and things had changed and it was a supportive, healthy workplace. It took only hours of working here. I accepted the position when offered and it took less than a day to see that reality and I attribute that entirely to Mike Smith and the changes that he made in development services. And that's all that I can get out. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Good morning. My name is Lucas Meyer. I am one of the other final two. And so there was obviously a lot of things that happened in this process that I think were just not out for everybody in the public. There were some questions about whether the process early on was corrupted by certain people's agendas. And so there are issues regarding that. I will say that I will give out my personal cell phone number in this meeting. If you want to call me, you can call me. If I can comment on it, I will comment on it. I will be honest. My cell phone is 319-651-9178. Please, anyone feel free to call me. I will say, though, if I am getting a bunch of calls be patient. I will call you back, okay? Mike I do appreciate everything that you've done. You have stepped up. Let's do have a friendly competition going forward. And I do agree with some of the other comments out here that I think that we should have members of the public on the hiring board for that. So let's talk later. Thank you for your comment. All right, I'm going to get to the people online. Heather, I will ask you to unmute. Hello. My name is Heather Loon, again. And since I was denied the right to public hearing earlier, I have much to say. If there's a running theme here. You guys, you are denying the people of Park County. They're right to have their government work for them. Ultimately, control seems to be nerve-kicking. You've even been cutting off your laws for the speakers. So you tell me. Since Dave whistle thinks he can speak for Mike Smith and Mike's exhaustion and all of these things while he works two positions in the county. I'm using my time to speak about Mike's integrity. After a lot of time speaking with Mike, asking questions and getting answers for the first time in my 12 and a half years here, he listens and you do not. I am one who appreciates digging into the basic cause of issues. I want to say that the comments and the name calling by Dave whistle and not stopped by you, the chair, Amy Mitchell, is a way to encourage anger and people and for them to become divided. And they think of it as a way that you're giving them permission to hate. And for them to use gun, a gun dangerously, to satisfy this need to hate. How would I know if the concealed quote, concealed carry permitted, unquote, person is not going to be the shooter. I want you to answer how would I know? And to conclude, whistle, you're in your trained in being objective. No, no, no, I'm trained in being objective. I was the observer of classrooms in the middle school with significantly identified emotional disabled kids and learning disabled kids and all the other kids in a middle school. The place where people are scared to death to work and think I was crazy. Well you did not remember your painting or you never had training. It's all about decorum, right? You guys, this is not decorum, but yourself didn't check. It's up to you to decide how you're going to behave from now into the future because we have a future here in Park County and right now I wholeheartedly with all my might and intensity believe Rob Green and Jack Council will take us into that future. Thank you that is all. All right thank you for your comment. Commissioner Ilesner is going to make a comment and then I'll keep going through our online people. This is just for people online. We have noise canceling microphones. So you hear the applause. The microphone says, oh, that's noise and shuts it up. So if it's a long quiet, there's a lot of applause. If it's short quiet, there's not much applause, but that is what's happening. It's not something that we're doing intentionally. Thank you I will ask Kimberly to unmute. Thank you so here's my three-minute public comment on a couple different things. You know everyone got their chance to speak in the last, when you had the open comment on the gun stuff, even Heather just got to speak. I'm pretty disappointed in a lot of stuff what I'm hearing to hear, but it's more so that all these people in the room are not actually calling out Dick Elzner, right? Cause they're all friends with him. Dick Elzner and Mike Smith are also friends. Dick Elzner is friends with Rob Green. He's helping him run his campaign. I have also been made aware of comments that Rob Green has said in so far as Dick wanting to wait. And so if you guys all think there's agenda going on that here, there is. It's Dick and Rob Green and Jack Hansel's agenda in order to push what they want through after January 1st because they think they're going to win. And that's fine. That is an agenda. And I can make these comments as well. The second thing is that Mike Smith, I have actually called your road and bridge office 15 times in the last six months. My roads haven't been plowed. I live in lower valley of the sun. My roads have not been graded once. This entire summer, Mike, and most of my neighbors would agree. Now they're not involved in the process as I am. So I don't actually know. Am I being targeted or my road's not being plowed because I am who I am? Like that's for you to answer, sir, and I've actually never received a phone call back from you. Also, most of the public doesn't know that this whole county manager position was put to an open application for 22 individuals. That was done over six months ago. You guys interviewed all the people that you decided passed those application checks. Every single one of those applications went through checks. It came down to six applications and those people were interviewed. It then came down to two applications and those people were interviewed. And then somehow in the background it was stonewall. We don't all, the public doesn't know what has happened. And I appreciate Dave Whistle or Amy Mitchell or anyone trying to expose what's going on in our county, including with assessor Jones. We don't get to know what's going on unless we are sitting in these meetings. And it is so hard to block out five hours of my day to sit here for three minutes and make a public comment and listen to all of this. So is everyone else here doing that? So I like that I get to hear that all there's all this stuff about abatement. I can tell you that my hearing that I went through for my property taxes was an absolute joke. They didn't listen to me. Monica Jones never got back to me. I sent a list of 18 questions. Never were answered. I was just given a decision. Um, so, um, Mike, I also would like to hear when people, when public gets to give comments, when all of these people get to get comments, I doubt any person in this building that works for you is going to say anything negative about your job performance because then they fear repercussion. And so it'd be interesting if it was an anonymous survey of road and bridge and as county manager how you're doing. Plus why didn't you apply or did you apply in your application? You withdrew your application. Is that what happened? Because I don't understand how you're sitting where you're sitting right now. Other than you just took it over, because you're trying to be nice, can you handle both? All right. Both jobs? I don't know. But there's something fishy going on, and I'd like it exposed to all of the issues. Thank you for your comment. And I don't think we've been timing. I don't think we've been timing everybody, but I will go to Patty. I will ask you to unmute. Thank you. I concur with many of the other speakers. I do not understand why there is a rush to change the manager's position when the interim manager seems to be doing a fine job. It is a responsibility for the next board of commissioners. They are the ones that will have to work with him. And at that time, they can decide whether they want to reopen. I would strongly support having Mike continue as interim manager until the new board takes place, takes office, and I really encourage any future actions you take like this to include the public. As you can see, the public is interested. We will show up. I used to, I was president of a school board, and all of our committees had representatives from people in the community, from parents and from others. The county should be the same. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I will go to iPhone. Ask you to unmute. Hi. This is Greg Johnson. Can you hear me all right? We can hear you. Okay. First of all, the first I heard of the county manager position being vacated was at a board of county commissioners meeting and Dick Ellsner made the comment. We will never replace Tom Iseman. And I went in and saw Tom after the meeting and said, you know, I think you need to tell that Dick that in the other commissioners, that if they don't find somebody as good, if not better than you, then the county commissioners are not doing their job. This is an opportunity for our county to move forward and get somebody better than Tom Eisenman was. Mike said earlier, Mike Smith earlier said he doesn't know if he's the right person for this county manager job. I'm listening to the contractors and the county employees that have seen what he has done to improve the functioning of our county government that have seen what he has done to improve the functioning of our county government. That's what we need. And I saw that he got moved into a new position created for him as operations manager. And I think that has proven to be a great move. But the other thing is, as I know about the Peter principle also. And I think we need again to reopen this search for a county commissioner that's going to move us forward. And you know, you get what you pay for. And if we need to pay more for the best candidate out there, then I think that's the responsibility of the commissioners to make sure that that happens. Also one final comment I was listening to Commissioner Whistle's, so a little bit queer about honest men and government. And I'd like to introduce you to that gentleman, Tudy, you're right. That's Richard Elzner from Bailey, Colorado. And at the public hearing for the Platt Canyon School District, you anchored on the one item that you could reject that application on was that all of the people that you know in Bailey did not want this to go forward to a vote. Well, that's what the District Court judges hearing. And it was to the slip of the tongue because I watched you read it off of your iPhone. So this was a prepared live and I just appreciate that and I do think we need honest people on the Board of County Commissioners. All right. Thank you for your comment. We will go to Heather. I think you already made your comment. I will give you another opportunity. All right. I'm asking you to unmute unless you forgot to take down your hand. All right, I will go on to Chris Peterson. Ask you to unmute. unmute unmute unmute. All right, this is your second go round and we still have people having had a chance to speak. So please I know I have one sentence to say and that is that the only time, honestly, the screaming from Kimberly, I know Kimberly, we've sat in rooms together for hours at a time. We've both been election judges in the only time that I felt uncomfortable in that county building was when she sat outside the election like the place where the people from Jefferson, the year they're Post office was canceled coming up to vote in person, staying outside, giving them pointers on how to vote. We had to stop it. There's been a lot of the stuff in the oath that we take now that has been made to stop that kind of behavior. That is all. Thank you. Thank you. And All right, Chris Peterson. I'll ask you to unmute. Can you hear me, okay? Yes, can hear you. All right, thanks. I was at lived here for about 30 years and I've never had better relations with the county than I have in the last couple years since Mike's been there. It was like the county didn't even exist for me before that and now whether it's roads, whether it's the building department which I'm dealing with now, I mean it's all working so much better and well I mean I can curl with Dick that in a perfect world, you guys would just appoint him permanent manager right now. If you're not going to do that, then I agree with others that there's no rush. Waiting for them to see what the commissioners look like in a couple of months makes perfect sense to me. There's no reason to rush it. You know, I've talked with Mike quite a few times and I mean I've never dealt with anybody who is more calm and more reasoned and more civil no matter who he's talking to you know he's he's great in the position he's in right now so let's not let's not rush to change things. Thanks. All right. Thank you for your comment. Joe, I will ask you to unmute. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. You know, I would just everyone always likes to talk about how Park County, you know, even Mike alluded to it, has not been run properly. And we've had our challenges in the past. And I would like to say that I applaud Amy Mitchell and Dave Whistle for their bravery to move forward on moving this county in a new direction, or at least opening it up to the idea, it changes hard, and people are always gonna push back against that, but I always feel like it's the same old people. It's the same people that are contractors, or work with the county, or work for the county. And I'm here to tell you, as in the Bailey part of the county, that we're with you. And I like the change. And I speak for a lot of people. And we approve of what you're doing, Madam Chair. And I just want to give you a little word of encouragement. So thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. All right, we will go to Angela Engel. I will ask you to unmute. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, great. Let me just get to the top of this. My name is Angela Engel. I'm here to date a request an internal independent audit of your STR processing of applications. I've been coming to the fair play area since I was a child. 27 years ago we bought a small cabin at 11,500 feet. It is a summer cabin only accessible for three and a half months out of the year. It was my dad's before it belonged to me. And Bristlecone Cabin has always served as a community cabin, where outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers come to enjoy their play. Our 40 acres is the last in the valley, and we value this occlusion. We've always maintained good relationships with our neighbors and never needed county services. So we were reluctant to begin this process of licensing the cabin as an STR. Fourteen months ago, I sat down with Mike Smith and Dominic and went over the unique aspects of this 400 square foot cabin. We're off-grid, we have no trash service. Nor does the county maintain the road in the winter. Mike personally ensured me that if I completed all the steps that we would be licensed. This process has been absolutely exhausting. We had to put in a brand new septic system because our previous system was a single tank and the new rules require a dual tank. We complied. We received the certificate of occupancy last November and I hand carried the completed STR application to the Planning and Zoning Department before the online system was in place. Because the outdoor shower was not accepted, in March I was told that if I put in an indoor shower, I would then be licensed. Dora has a completely different set of rules for short-term rentals, which required a licensed plumber redo the work that my engineer husband had already done. But still, we complied. And he signed off in July Since we began this licensing process 14 months ago. We've pulled six permits had seven inspections Spent our savings of 30,000 dollars. I have sent over 100 combined email Telephone and text messages to the planning and zoning department We've worked with nine different people to get this done, and all have done their job except for one. I have submitted the completed application twice now. I have emailed you the last exchange with Miss Shawna Annick, who after finding a dozen different ways to obstruct this process, has denied our ST application because we don't have trash service. I can tell you what frustrates us most as citizens and taxpayers is a bureaucratic system that won't do their job or follow the very rules you have put in place. Phone calls aren't answered, emails aren't returned. Before you make the decision, on who the next county manager should be, it's in your interest to get to the bottom of why this STR process has been so utterly dysfunctional. I have completed the STR survey, I plan to attend your upcoming community meaning and I'd like you to consider exemptions for unique properties such as ours. I'm also again asking for an independent audit of these 12 of these past 12 months and the current STR processing of applications. I am a believer in good government, but I have to tell you, it won't matter how well you write the next ordinance if you don't have the right people in place to do the work. So before you regulate us as property owners, please make sure your own house is in order. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. All right. Anyone else? That is everyone online. So my name is Andy Grand. No mic for a few years now. I run while work with the building. Up in development services. I'm not going to go into my background too much other than saying I've been in the building industry my entire life. Okay, I started a company was doing maybe a hundred and a, ended up leading it at about 25 million a year. Had 50 employees, my wife and I had retired out here down in Guffy, so I made the change. Came over to Park County here as a building inspector, and been working myself up in development services. Most of what I heard today is I think all you guys, everybody up here has the same thing in common, which is to help the people out in our community. Okay, how I took this job three years ago, I felt I work for the people of heart county. They're not my boss, but that's who I work for. That's who I serve. When I first came here, we were not living up to that at all. That department was not running well. Again, spending so much time on the other side, being the contractor, being the developer, I was shocked at what was happening. Lo and behold, little time passed, I was here maybe eight months and then might show us up. He's our director. And he and I immediately started communicating, working together, it's been an awesome relationship. That department, we turn that thing around in no time, just like Karen said. We have an incredible group of people up there who wake up every day, come in here and try to do what's right for the people we work for. We have been working very hard and it's under his direction. He leaves us alone and we go about our business. And I don't know, I'm not going to sit there and pat all of his cells on the back, but I think the comments that you used to get from development services two, three years ago has drastically changed. So with that being said, I don't, I flat out don't see a reason just not to, you know, I understand the interview process. I think it should wait till elections are done. But you've got the right guy right here straight up And we can absolutely do great things. He recognizes talent and he lets the talent be talented and lets us go. And I don't think I can ask for any more than that. So he's got 150% of my support. That's all. Thank you for your comment. Right that is all of public comments. Yeah, I was saying seeing no one else jump up and run to the microphone because we've had a lot of people do that and no one online I would make a motion to close public comment. I will gladly second that all in favor. Hi. Hi. I Move to adjourn. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. And we are going to have a quick administrative session. We just want to go over a couple letters of support that were requested from entities within the county who are working on getting grants and they would like support from the county level. And one is we discussed this morning, the State Historical Fund, grant application is being put forth for the KUML hotel and they would like our support for that grant. And they are working on doing some roof repair to put a new roof on to protect the structure. So that's the first one. The second one is National Old Growth Initiative. We've got a full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-blown, full-bl