OHV users will likely be pleased to hear that the Rio Blanco County Board of Commissioners and the U.S. Forest Service are considering opening the Buford/New Castle Road to OHV use.
The road, which connects Buford with New Castle across a section of the Flat Tops, is managed by the U.S. Forest Service under a travel management plan written in 2011. It’s currently open to full-size vehicles, motorcycles and snowmobiles, but not OHV or UTV use. The 2011 travel plan indicated safety concerns on the road.
“Letters of support would open a review to see if we can mitigate those concerns,” District Manager Curtis Keetch said.
The travel plan was put in place before Rio Blanco County opened roads to OHV use, which is a significant change that would warrant review. At a minimum, additional signage would be required.
“It’s hard to know what the capacity is going to be up there. Meeker has been discovered now and that’s going to continue,” Keetch said, adding that the road receives significant traffic and is a “pretty vital link” to the Flat Tops loop.
Because of staffing and budget constraints, the timeline is uncertain, but the RBC commissioners agreed to provide a letter of support, and Commission Chair Jeff Rector said he would seek one from Garfield County Commissioners as well.
HIRING FREEZE
The board discussed in a work session — before addressing a resolution in the regular meeting — a county hiring freeze in light of projections of decreased revenue. Some positions, they agreed, have to be filled because of safety issues, but giving the board an opportunity to weigh in on new hires was something they all agreed on.
TERM LIMITS
Resident Mike Sizemore, in public comment, revisited the idea of term limits for elected county officials, a topic he presented back in 2018. Current state statutes do not allow citizens to petition county-level questions onto the ballot.
Sizemore pointed out that some counties have term limits on some elected officials, but not on others. He specifically mentioned the sheriff’s office, which “has a lot of power” in counties.
Only about a quarter of Colorado’s 64 counties have term limits. The argument made for no term limits on elected offices that require specialized skills is that in small counties, finding people with that skill set is difficult. The argument for term limits is that people take advantage of good-paying county jobs with benefits to become career politicians.
The HT conducted an informal poll in 2018 in response to the term limit discussion. At that time, 52% said they were not in favor of term limits. Comments received echoed the argument that most county elected officials have specialized training and qualifications, and that term-limiting them would put the county at a disadvantage. Others said only the commissioners should be term-limited.
According to the National Association of Counties (NACO), “in 1994, the state of Colorado amended the State Constitution to impose term limits on all county officials, giving individual counties the option to vote to remove them later if they saw fit.” In 1999, Rio Blanco County voters opted to remove term limits for all elected county officials. A NACO report on the history of term limits (https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/documents/County%20Term%20Limits.pdf) said in the years that followed, “Rural counties found it necessary to consider repealing term limits because they discovered that there were not enough qualified candidates either running or willing to run for office.”
It’s up to the commissioners to determine whether the term limit question is added to the November ballot. After conferring with County Attorney Todd Starr, the board agreed to move forward with putting the term limit question on the ballot for each elected county official: commissioners, clerk and recorder, assessor, treasurer, surveyor, coroner and sheriff. Commissioner Rector said he wanted the surveyor and coroner excluded. Woodruff said each elected office should have the opportunity to explain to the public why their position requires specialized training and skills and should be exempt from term limits.
Commissioner Gary Moyer asked if the ballot measure could be retroactive.
“In my opinion, eight years is enough, and sometimes it’s too long,” Sizemore agreed.
“There would be some real legal hurdles,” with applying term limits retroactively, Starr said. “If it was approved in the November 2021 election, those commissioners [officials] sworn in to office, that would be their first term governed by the term limits.”
The deadline for adding a question to the November ballot is Sept. 4. The board directed staff to begin drafting the ballot questions to be discussed in two weeks at the next Meeker meeting.
RIVER DISTRICT UPDATE
The commissioners heard an update from Andy Mueller, Colorado River District general manager, and board member Alden VandenBrink. Mueller said the District, to which RBC contributes about $200,000 a year, supports the White River Storage Project (Wolf Creek Reservoir), and is working to represent the needs of Rio Blanco County in the face of some Front Range opposition to “allegedly controversial questions.”
MANAGING COMMISSIONERS PLAN
In the regular meeting, the commissioners voted to rescind a 2019 resolution that established a “managing commissioner” plan that assigned oversight of county departments to individual commissioners in lieu of having a county manager or administrator.
Rector and Commissioner Si Woodruff both said they’d heard from staff that the program wasn’t working well and was “causing dissension,” although they all agreed, along with staff, that it helped streamline the annual budget process.
Starr said the commissioners could rescind the resolution, and then revise it to have individual commissioners work with specific department heads only for budget planning purposes.
By NIKI TURNER | [email protected]
