FREMONT COUNTY CHILD SUPPORT AWARD

The Fremont County Department of Human Services Child Support Unit has received a state award for its efforts in improving child support payments for Fremont County children. Fremont County's Child Support Unit received the 'Outstanding Medium County Award' at the Colorado Family Support Counsel conference in Breckenridge, CO June 5th through June 7th. The top four counties honored were Fremont, Douglas, Las Animas and Otero.

Criteria for the award is based on non-financial performance measures, financial performance measure, success in meeting state goals, and information received from the administrator on how the county achieved its success.

The Fremont County Child Support Unit staff of ten employees includes Unit Supervisor Wanda Embrey, plus Melody Boydstun, Carie Rutherford, Erin Cleveland, Donna Taylor, Regina Doil, Kristi Zimmerman, Kimberly Alarcon, Victoria Warner and Patricia Stone.

Embry said the dedication and hard work of the staff is the key to their success. She said the unit has worked at being more proactive over the past two years. Embry said they are placing phone calls to the parties to remind them of appointments or court hearings, they are setting more reasonable child support payments for those in arrears, and making contact with non-custodial parents as soon as a case has been opened, so they are aware of Human Services involvement. Embry said they also have the ability to take more cases to court for contempt actions. She says it sometimes takes the threat of having to do jail time in order to get a non-custodial party into a paying behavior. The intent is not to send a person to jail, but to be assured that the child support payments are coming in on a regular basis. Embry says the driving force is that the children are the ones who benefit from this. She says the greatest reward for the staff is getting a thank you from a custodial parent because the child now has a relationship with his/her father or mother.

Child support services are available to anyone who wants them. You do not have to be receiving Human Services assistance in order to receive the services. There are non- public assistance cases that can be opened with a one time fee of $20.00. You can request the specific forms from the Fremont County Human Services office or print them from the website at www.childsupport.state.co.us. The website has answers to many questions regarding establishment and enforcement of paternity and child support.

Coal Creek Bridge Bid Award

A county bridge that has been targeted for replacement for nearly three years will be replaced this summer. The Fremont County Board of Commissioners has approved a bid award to Reynolds Construction of Canon City for replacement of the bridge on County Road 95 south of Florence near Coal Creek.

In recent years the bridge over Second Alkali Creek has been rated "structurally deficient" by state bridge inspectors. In 2005 the bridge received only a 36.7 structural rating out of a possible 100 points. The new bridge will be a two-cell box culvert and the roadway will be realigned to get rid of the curves on the bridge approaches.

Reynolds Construction submitted the lowest of three bids with a price of $339,161.19. The engineer's estimate for the project was $358,000. The next lowest bid was $446,103 which may have put the project out of reach for the funding available. Eighty percent of the cost of the new bridge is being funded by a federal transportation grant with Fremont County paying the other twenty percent.

Reynolds Construction has 120 days to complete the bridge work with construction expected to start in the coming days. County Road 95 will remain open to traffic during the construction period as one lane of traffic is maintained for motorists.

June 13th Commissioners' Meeting

A pair of controversial public hearings dominated the Fremont County Commissioners' three hour regular meeting Tuesday as the Board approved a permit for a gravel pit along Oak Creek Grade Road and denied a permit for paintball shooting grounds north of Penrose.

Neighbors protested the Rockbottom Gravel Pit along County Road #143 on the Griffin Ranch property. Fremont County previously had the lease to operate the gravel pit on about nine acres and was limited to ten trucks per day. Rockbottom owners sought to expand the operation to 12 1/2 trucks per day from sunrise to sunset Monday through Saturday. Neighbors complained the heavy truck traffic would create a lot of safety and dust problems. The Commissioners approved the conditional use permit on a 2 to 1 vote but limited traffic to ten trucks per day from Monday through Friday. Rockbottom will also have to seek special permission each time they want to blast. Commissioner Larry Lasha moved to approve the permit saying with such rapid growth in that area along Oak Creek Grade near the Custer County line, property owners would be buying gravel from someone to build all the new roads. Lasha said it would be safer to have truck traffic hauling from a local pit than to haul it the entire length of Oak Creek Grade Road from Canon City.

Residents of the Pinon Valley subdivision voiced strong opposition to a plan by Ricardo and Fermina Fortson to operate a commercial paintball shooting southwest of Tepley Trail and Olsen Road in the Beaver Park area. Fortson wanted to operate the paintball range on Saturdays and Sundays plus special appointments. The Commissioners voted unanimously to deny the special review use permit. Commissioner Ed Norden said his opposition was not about the paintball facility. Norden said he felt it would be wrong for the County to place any commercial recreational operation in a residential area and to put that commercial traffic on a privately maintained road.

In other business the Board of Commissioners:

• Approved a temporary use permit to allow the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to host their annual banquet and auction on August 12th at 380 'B' Skyland Ave. in the Airport Industrial Park;
• Recognized Jeanine Ormandy upon her retirement after 25 years of service with the Fremont County Nursing Service;
• Approved the annual renewal of all ambulance service licenses in the County;
• Granted a waiver for paving an access apron and installing privacy strips in chain link fencing for Roberts Mini-Storage on South 9th Street in Canon City.

The Board also expressed appreciation to Sharon Kendall for her years of work as the County Clerk's Recording Secretary for Commissioners' Board meetings. Kendall worked her last meeting with the Board Tuesday and is retiring.

Fremont County Tourism Council Special Meeting

There will be a special joint meeting of the Fremont CountyTourism Council & the Action 22 Council on Thursday, June 15, 2006, from 10:00A.M. to 2:00 P.M. It will be held at the Big Horn Mountain Lodge located at the Royal Gorge Bridge west of Canon City. For directions to the lodge check with the Royal Gorge Admissions gate.

The Royal Gorge Bridge will be providing lunch for committee members. The general public is invited & encouraged to attend.

Any questions can be directed to the FCTC Chairperson Vickie Casey or FCTC Secretary Danny DeGeorge at 269-8245.

Sheriff & Commissioners Convene Citizens Group

Citizens representing a broad cross section of interests and communities in Fremont County got a first hand look at jail overcrowding and fiscal issues facing the County at a June 1st gathering. Fremont County Sheriff Jim Beicker and the Fremont County Commissioners convened the meeting at the new 96 bed county jail to discuss the county's fiscal problems and present a plan to open the new jail and address road maintenance needs.

Over 60 citizens from Penrose to Howard and Williamsburg to the Tallahassee area were on hand to offer feedback and their own ideas on what kind of revenue questions should be prepared for the November ballot.

Commissioner Ed Norden said that Sheriff Beicker and the Commissioners have been meeting regularly in recent weeks discussing ways to help the Sheriff get through the current 2006 budget year and beyond. Norden said the plan targets July 1, 2007, as the date to begin moving inmates into the new jail and to complete that effort by October 1st, 2007, by staffing the new jail with seventeen detention officers so that all 96 beds can eventually be filled. Norden said the plan calls for leasing perhaps 40 to 50 of the beds in the first couple of years to produce revenue to help offset the costs. But with the possibility of Fremont County needing those jail beds for incarcerating its own inmates, the Sheriff and Commissioners have estimated it will take $1.5 million per year to staff and operate the new jail.

The Commissioners explained that deteriorating conditions of county roads would be addressed in a five year road improvement plan that was assembled last fall by the county road foremen and shop supervisor. To finance those needs the Commissioners said it's estimated it would take about $850,000 in the first year plus the cost of inflation in subsequent years.

Commissioner Mike Stiehl offered details as to how Fremont County got into its current financial predicament. Stiehl noted that since 2004 Fremont County government has lost $750,000 in specific ownership taxes from motor vehicle registrations. He said the new mill levies that voters approved for new school construction in Canon City and Florence redistributed more specific ownership taxes to the RE-1 and RE-2 School Districts. Stiehl said the county also had to cover a shortage in contingency funds in the Human Services budget when the State of Colorado cut monies to the counties. Stiehl said those revenue shortfalls combined with spiraling inmate medical costs and fuel costs has led to a situation where Fremont County ended 2005 with only $291,000 in cash reserves in the general fund. Stiehl warned that another wildfire like Iron Mountain in 2002 would wipe out the reserves and the county would be broke.

The Commissioners said approval of a half cent sales tax last year in Florence may prevent the county from seeking a half cent sales tax of its own. That's because state law limits total sales tax collections to 6.9 percent in any jurisdiction and that limit has been reached in Florence. The Commissioners said the only options left would be to consider expanding the existing county sales tax to include food sales or to ask voters for a property tax increase. Stiehl noted that Fremont County's 12.9 property tax mill levy is one of the lowest county mill levies in Colorado. An option of placing a sunset provision on any new tax was also discussed. Several citizens said they thought sunseting a tax for the needed revenue was not a good idea.

The Sheriff and Commissioners were also told that any plan for new revenue should also address patrol needs in the Sheriff's department to find a way to increase Sheriff's patrols in western Fremont County.

Several citizens among the group of 65 agreed to attend future meetings to help guide the Commissioners, the Sheriff, and the Road Department in devising a specific plan for a ballot question that could be taken to the voters in November.