Tomorrow, March 25 at 9 a.m. is the Gilpin County Board of Commissioners meeting where they are prepared to sign the contract awarding the contractors to build their “Community Annex” which ballooned up from a need to repair/replace the Food Pantry. It has now come to be bid at $3.3 MILLION.
My prior blogpost describes the details of last Tuesday’s meeting where that information was new to the community! They cut some of the plan to reduce costs, but got only to $2,465,000! They are still $665,000 over budget TO REPLACE THE FOOD PANTRY!!!
This week, they are prepared to sign it and move forward!
If you have an opinion about this - one way or the other, please let the commissioners know by tomorrow morning at 9:00. Join us if you can!
I am sharing below some facts and interesting issues we have had with our commissioners over the past 21 months. You are welcome to use any of those talking points, if you like.
Donna
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Commissioners,
Last week we watched and listened while we all learned the funds proposed for the food pantry grew from $1.1M to $3.3M in 1 yr. and 9 months. We went from repairing or replacing the current food pantry to this 2500 sq. ft. plan with offices and a commercial kitchen. It is not the taxpayers’ job to invest in other peoples’ small businesses.
You took $500,000 from our Reserve Fund (earmarked for fire mitigation) to spend on this Annex! Y’all planned this behind the scenes, even up to last week when you finally had to say the words, $3.3 MILLION DOLLARS and then take an axe to the project to get it down to $665,000 over budget, or $2,465,000!
You could have spent some of the reserve Fund to help get our rec center opened seven days a week, but you didn’t do so. You put a tax increase on the ballot, instead! You, however, chose to do it for this overblown food pantry plan. It doesn’t make any sense, and it is worth postponing until the community agrees with your plan. People are angry over this abuse of your power as commissioners.
You were speaking about the use of Nederland’s commercial kitchen last Tuesday. Their commercial kitchen isn’t in their food pantry - it’s in their rec center, where they serve their senior lunches! Why would you put a commercial kitchen in the food pantry and not improve the kitchen we now have at the rec center if there is a need? After all, if you’re going to build a commercial kitchen, wouldn’t it make sense to add it on to a building where you actually use the food to feed our citizens now and then?
I found something else interesting this week…both newspapers had reporters at the Work Session where the $3.3 M figure was mentioned publicly. That is newsworthy. But it was nowhere to be seen in the Register-Call. I don’t know if the Mountain-Ear published a story or not, as I don’t subscribe to that publication.
We ask that you postpone the decision on the Community Annex, and let this Community weigh in…now that we know the numbers are so high!
Many of us have appeared before this Board over the past 1 year and 9 months, asking/begging you to represent us, over any hidden agendas you may have.
It started on June 13, 2023:
You voted on that day to begin the process for the 1A Tax for the Rec Center - You asked the people to vote a FOREVER tax for the rec center! Your tax would have brought $1.3 M additional per year, but from our pockets! You actually threatened to close it down, fill in the pools, etc. The people said NO!
You also voted to invest in the food pantry repair or replacement on that day.
On that same day, you voted to spend $88,600/year for an after-school program for teens that had an average of 23 kids attend.
I asked you then not to make decisions that would press the taxpayers, as our property values had just taken a huge leap and we didn’t even have the numbers for our tax hike at the time!
You spent all that money anyway, and it’s even worse now!
I realized that day - the problem here in Gilpin County is this…THE PEOPLE DON’T KNOW!
You’ve hired someone to search for grants from State and Federal government agencies. This is irresponsible. This country is more than $36T in debt because of politicians like that!
#11 on today’s agenda - $100,000 to hire a consulting firm to look into where we will put affordable housing. Really? How about you take a look around and work at this yourselves?
Today, you are voting to spend $125,000 for a consultant to tell you what it will entail to build an infrastructure in Rollinsville! A matching grant. Do the people in Rollinsville even want their quiet community to be built up?
You refused the offer by Black Hawk to give $1M a year to get that rec center up and running seven days a week, as it did for more than 17 years, but you refuse. The people would be better served if you’d make it a priority to get us back to pre-Covid levels. It’s been five years!
You updated your Employee Handbook last month, but still refused to remove the line you added in recent years that allows county employees to campaign for or against issues on the ballot while on the job.
You voted for the Resolution 24-54 to make it illegal for Gilpin citizens to wear any political clothing on county property - including the fairgrounds and the gym. The people fought that, too.
Electric Car Charger at this Courthouse…who would ever visit this building long enough to have to charge their EV? Unless it’s just for Ray’s Tesla, then that’s ridiculous, too, because Ray lives in the county, right? Parking is limited at this building already! You still don’t have a dedicated Handicapped space up here for those who may want to attend a meeting. Are you prioritizing an EV space over the citizens with mobility issues?
The Clerk wrote her own rules for the last election, which were contrary to state election law. The SOS came up and stopped Sahari from prohibiting the oversight by Watchers to confirm the legitimacy of ballot envelopes. Ten days of citizen oversight of the election were lost because of this Clerk’s illegal practice. You have said nothing. Elections have consequences. And here we are today. Not at all satisfied if this Board makes this bad decision on the Food Pantry replacement. No offense to Commissioner Aiken. We don’t know yet where he will stand on these issues. We ask that you postpone the decision on the Community Annex, and let this Community weigh in…now that we know the numbers are so high. We have requested for a year, but were denied the information. This is our money. We want a say in this (now) $2,465,000 expenditure!
What we really want, and deserve, is open government. Colorado’s Sunshine Law requires you to do this in public…release information as important as a $3.3M bid to the people of this little county. It’s not right that you kept it secret until one week before you planned to award the bid to the contractor. That is not openness, not Sunshine. Please…postpone this now and give the people a chance to respond to their elected officials on the topic now that we have all the information.
THE GILPIN LIGHT blog was created to shed light on the plans being made in the darkness in Gilpin County. If anyone would like to get updates, they can email me at thegilpinlight@gmail.com.
The public can speak for three minutes at the beginning (9:00) and at the end of the meeting.
You can also attend the meeting on ZOOM, at this link…
Any opinion? You may want to tell someone!!!!!
You can email the Commissioners at the following addresses:
Jeff Aiken -
jaiken@gilpincounty.org
Susan Berumen -
sberumen@gilpincounty.org
Sandy Hollingsworth -
shollingsworth@gilpincounty.org
Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for caring for this community. Consider acting. ✌️
Donna Okray Parman
Founder, The Gilpin Light
thegilpinlight@gmail.com
