News Now Blog

The Fremont County Commissioners voted at their August 23rd regular meeting to deny an application for expansion of a medical marijuana cultivation facility in Penrose.   Today’s Health Care at 934 C Street in Penrose was seeking to build another five greenhouses in addition to the three existing greenhouses on the site.  Facility Manager Kyle Wendland told the commissioners the request for five additional greenhouses on the site was not an effort to increase plant count, but rather to make operations more efficient and provide more odor mitigation.   Wendland said they are trying to add a lot more plants, but trying to spread them out and have less concentration in the greenhouses so odor mitigation will be more effective.    Wendland said Today’s Health Care currently cultivates 2,000 marijuana plants for 33 patients.

Several Penrose residents spoke in opposition to the expansion complaining about marijuana odors from the operation and trash and debris piling up against neighboring properties.   Barb Elliott told the commissioners, “I don’t buy their plant count story.”   District 2 Commissioner Debbie Bell made the motion to deny the expansion saying that she believes Penrose residents have already absorbed enough from medical marijuana grow operations.   Today’s Health attorney Dennis Linden argued that the greenhouse expansion is a permitted use in the agricultural zone and noted that code enforcement officers have never cited the operation for odor violations.  The commissioner’s motion to deny indicated that findings on the action would be stated at the board’s September 13th meeting.

The commissioners also voted at the August 23rd meeting to renew a Temporary Use Permit for Diana’s Pumpkin Patch at 1649 Poplar Avenue which will operate from September 17th through October 31st.    Sue Madone again addressed concerns from neighbors about parking along the narrow streets in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.   Madone said with the off street parking they have created plus parking on the right of way along their property they have 225 parking spaces available.   The fall festival event has grown annually and the parking problems have prompted some neighbors to repeatedly call the Sheriff.    Madone said the event is hugely popular for kids and families.   She noted that this year their corn maze is one of 19 corn mazes across the nation to have corporate sponsorship from Culver’s Restaurants.   It is the only site in Colorado being sponsored by Culver’s this year.

The commissioners also reviewed the 2015 county audit report with auditor John Cutler of Cutler and Associates.    Cutler addressed with the commissioners an issue raised again in the auditor’s management letter in which he noted that the County Treasurer’s Office continues to manually perform several bank reconciliations outside of the County’s financial software system.    He said they also urged that the Treasurer consult with the financial system consultant to correct the clerical error that is causing system cash reconciliation error.

The commissioners addressed the matter with County Treasurer Kathy Elliott during the meeting and noted that this is the second consecutive year that the auditor has called out the reconciliation error.   Board Chairman Ed Norden said the commissioners would expect that the error be corrected for the current year and that the Treasurer’s Office undertake the necessary training to reconcile county cash transactions within the software system.

In other business at the August 23rd meeting the commissioners:

• Set a formal hearing for 10 a.m. on September 13th to review performance under the ambulance licenses held by Deer Mountain Fire District and Arkansas Valley Ambulance and discuss ongoing conflicts between the two agencies;
• Gave final second reading approval to an ordinance amending certain provisions that regulate cultivation of marijuana by property owners and caregivers.   Among the amendments, in order for a property owner to be allowed to grow up to 99 marijuana plants on ten or more acres they must be at least a 50 percent owner of the property in question;
• Voted to suspend fire restrictions upon recommendation of the Sheriff due to recent rainfall;
• Awarded a bid to Maxwell Asphalt of Salt Lake City to perform work on the Fremont County Airport runway maintenance project.   The total project cost is $312,353.   The Federal Aviation Administration pays 90 percent of the cost;
• Awarded a bid to Patch Construction in the amount of $24,561 to hook up utilities at the Fremont County Airport for the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention’s new offices;
• Approved a lease agreement with the City of Florence for $750 a month for temporary use of commercial kitchen facilities at Florence City Hall while the Sheriff’s jail laundry and kitchen renovation project is underway;
• Ratified a vote of approval to sign the contract with Nunn Construction in the amount of $2,591,000 for the jail renovation;
• Approved an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Cañon City which will allow the city to erect communications equipment on the roof of the Fremont County Judicial Building which is part of the city’s electronic monitoring of utility systems.

The long awaited renovation of kitchen and laundry facilities at the Fremont County Jail will begin August 29th after a construction bid was awarded at a special meeting.     The Fremont County Board of Commissioners met in special session on August 4th and awarded a bid of $2,592,288 to Nunn Construction of Colorado Springs.   Fremont County Manager Sunny Bryant said Nunn was one of two contractors that bid on the project and their original bid of $2.64 million was the low bid.    Bryant said that after interviews with both contractors by the architect, the Sheriff, and other county officials some items were eliminated and other prices negotiated to settle on the final bid price.

The jail renovation is no small undertaking since food and laundry service for the jail inmates must continue while the kitchen and laundry areas are being renovated.    Sheriff Jim Beicker said he has worked out an arrangement with the Department of Corrections to handle inmate laundry.   Beicker said a lease has also been arranged with the City of Florence for the jail’s food service contractor to temporarily relocate to the full commercial kitchen facilities in the basement of the Florence Municipal Building.   Those commercial kitchen facilities were part of the former St. Joseph’s Hospital.

There will some other costs associated with the jail renovation.   The county will have to buy a truck for transporting inmate meals from Florence to the jail three times every day.   Undersheriff Ty Martin estimates there will also be some extra security costs associated with keeping the construction area inside the jail secure during the estimated four month construction period.

Renovation of the jail’s kitchen and laundry facilities was among the capital improvement priorities outlined by the Sheriff when he asked voters to approve a one cent sales tax increase three years ago.

The Fremont County Board of Commissioners has gone on record in support of an amendment to make it more difficult to amend Colorado’s constitution.   A petition drive was launched this summer by a group of government and civic leaders to place a question on Colorado’s November ballot.  “Raise the Bar—Protect Our Constitution” would raise the threshold for voter approval of a constitutional amendment from the current 50 percent plus one vote to 55 percent.

In addition, those who want a constitutional amendment would have to obtain at least 2 percent of the signatures from residents in every one of Colorado’s 35 Senate districts. Currently, both statutory and constitutional amendments can get on the ballot with 5 percent of signatures that can be fully collected along the state’s populous Front Range. That leaves out the voices of people on the Western Slope and the Eastern Plains.

Several supporters note that the U.S. Constitution has just 27 amendments. But the Colorado constitution now has 150, dealing with issues that can and do change.   County Commission Chairman Ed Norden concurred with that view questioning why Colorado voters put such amendments in the Constitution that ban large hog farms and spring bear hunts.

Supporters also point out that trouble occurs when the Constitution gets cluttered with conflicting amendments that, once approved, cannot be readily changed. The most notorious example of this is the constitutional and budgetary clash between the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits Colorado’s revenue and Amendment 23, which requires increased investment in K-12 education. These and other constitutional prescriptions have made a mess of Colorado’s budget and hamstrung lawmakers’ efforts to fulfill their obligations.

In the resolution adopted at their July 12th regular meeting the commissioners noted that there is no incentive to seek a statutory change as opposed to a constitutional amendment since the standard to change both is the same.   The resolution also points out that the ease of amending Colorado's constitution leaves the state vulnerable to out of state special interest groups.   The commissioners adopted the resolution in support of “Raise the Bar” by a unanimous vote.

The Board of Commissioners also approved ratification of their signatures on a letter of support for the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District which is pursuing state grant funding to conduct a Phase 2 water study in the Upper Arkansas River drainage basin.   Phase one of the project was initiated several years ago to study the Salida and Buena Vista region.    Phase Two of the water study will focus on Custer and Fremont Counties.   District 1 Commissioner Tim Payne said one of the key pieces in the Phase 2 study will be to examine the possibility of underground water storage by pumping surface water into underground cavities.

In other business at the July 12th meeting the Board of Commissioners:

• Approved the change of operator and change of name for three quarries in Fremont County operating under conditional use permits.   Martin-Marietta is the new operator of the three quarries which include the Red Canyon Quarry near the Fremont-El Paso County line, the Rocky Mountain Materials Penrose Pit along Highway 120 two miles east of the junction with Highway 115, and the Rocky Mountain Materials Coyote Ridge Quarry along Highway 67 just south of County Road 100;
• Appointed Bill McDowell of Atmos Energy to the Southern Colorado Economic Development District;
• Heard an annual report on activities at the John C. Fremont Library in Florence.

Hot and dry conditions which have contributed to the Hayden Pass wildfire at Coaldale have now prompted the Fremont County Board of Commissioners to impose a fire ban at the request of Fremont County Sheriff Jim Beicker.   A resolution to impose a fire ban was added to the Board of Commissioners’ regular meeting agenda Tuesday morning.    Sheriff Beicker told the commissioners that in light of the Hayden Pass wildfire he has become more aware of low moisture content in wildfire fuels across the county.    Beicker told the Board, “We don’t need another fire event and the long range forecast shows very little moisture”.

Beicker said he intends to have further conversations with the local fire districts and the Bureau of Land Management in an effort to make sure everyone is on the same page.   Beicker said he is initially imposing Stage 1 fire restrictions which prohibits all agricultural burning, all fireworks and explosives.  Campfires are only permitted within developed campgrounds.   Use of charcoal grills are prohibited in undeveloped areas and use of gas grills are allowed only in areas free of flammable vegetation.   Stage One first restrictions also prohibit outdoor smoking and discarding of cigarette butts from any vehicle is also strictly prohibited.   The restrictions apply to all unincorporated areas of Fremont County and went into effect immediately.

County commissioners in Park and Teller County imposed fire bans yesterday and the Custer County Board of Commissioners is also expected to consider imposing a fire ban this week.   A detailed list of what’s prohibited and what’s allowed under Stage 1 fire restrictions can be reviewed on the home page of Fremont County’s web site at www.fremontco.com.