The Future: “It’s all about resource sharing”

RBC I A meeting called by Rio Blanco County commissioners was held in Rangely Tuesday at Colorado Northwestern Community College to bring all the taxing districts in the county together to discuss current and future projects and how they can take advantage of opportunities by working together.
“It’s all about resource sharing,” Rangely town manager Peter Brixius said of the dinner/meeting. “It was well attended, I think most all of the districts were represented by their director and a board member or two.” Brixius said RBC commissioners Shawn Bolton, Ken Parsons and Kai Turner, along with commissioner-elect Jon Hill and RBC administrator Kimberly Bullen were in attendance.
“The meeting was to get the ball rolling and discuss ways we can share resources, work on projects together and quit duplicating services,” Bolton said. “If the county has an asphalt project and so do the towns of Meeker and Rangely, well let’s come together and get a better price and save some money.”
“I think it’s a beginning,” Brixius said. “The county has always been a great partner, cost sharing with us and we can pass this along and work with the special districts and maybe take it up a notch.”
Bolton said they plan to create a website for districts to post their needs and communicate better with the county, towns and other taxing districts to take advantage of opportunities to increase their buying power by working together. He gave an example using vehicles.
“The county could post the vehicles they need and maybe the towns are also looking at vehicles, we could bid them out together and have more buying power or maybe a vehicle we are trading in would work for one of the districts and they could buy it for the trade-in value,” Bolton said.
Bolton said the county and all the special districts are currently working on their budgets but they would begin working on a website and get together afterward and “see where we’re at at the first of the year.”