Board of County Commissioners Regular and Meetings - Special Meeting

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Lake County Board of County Commissioners regular meeting. It's July 21 2026 at 11am. Please silence or turn off your cell phones and we will start with a Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands,

liberty, and justice for all.

Okay, I guess approval of the agenda.

I'll move to approve the agenda.

I will second the motion. Andy, can you hear us?

Yeah, I sure can.

I second the motion to approve the agenda. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. OK, next we have community information items. I have nothing.

I have none.

Elsa has none. Andy, do you have any community information items?

I do not. Thank you.

OK. This is a reminder that meeting recordings are available. our work sessions as well. They're recorded and available on the Lake County Government YouTube channel. They're transcribed and indexed. The recordings can be watched at a time that's best for you. Subscribe and stay informed on county decisions. Next, we'll move into public comment. It's available for residents wishing to speak on an agenda item or in another issue not on the agenda. To make a public comment, residents may request to speak by raising your hand in person, using the raise hand feature in Zoom, and sending a message in chat. The chair will call on the public in order. Comment is limited to three minutes, not including board questions. Action, if required, will be assigned to county staff. The chair may also ask that the public comment on specific agenda items be held for later in the meeting. In certain instances, public comment will not be accepted, such as on public hearing items noted on the agenda. Is there anybody online who'd like to make a public comment today? You can raise your hand. Seeing none, anybody in the room like to make a public comment today?

I'm looking at you. You're the only one I know. Can I comment once we get to the agenda item? Sure. OK.

I'll make an exception since you took time to be here today. The first item on our agenda is a presentation of the Treasurer's Semi-Annual Report. This will be led by Deidre Romero, our Chief Deputy Treasurer. Good morning, Deidre.

Good morning. So I just have the Semi-Annual Report for you guys to acknowledge. Statutory, we have to give you guys this every So it runs from January of this year to June 30th of this year. It's just the schedule of receipts and disbursements, everything for all the entities, all the incoming revenues, everything transferring out. Just an acknowledgment for you guys so that we can get it posted in the newsfeed.

Thank you. Thank you. Moving right along. Acknowledged.

Item number two, discussion and consideration of resolution 2026-29, a resolution of the Board of County Commissioners and Planning Commission of Lake County, Colorado, adopting written findings of fact

pursuant to Lake County Land Development Code and conditionally approving the application for a conditional use permit for file 25-19, the Alpenflow Group Camp. This will be led by Melissa Kendrick, Community Planning and Development Deputy Director. Good morning, Melissa.

Yes, good morning. As you stated, this is an application for the Alpenflow, and it's a conditional use permit. The application was heard by the Planning Commission and by you all on July 13th. And in the Planning Commission's deliberation, they made a favorable recommendation to you to approve this application. The resolution that you stated includes 12 conditions of approval. The Planning Commission added one additional condition. And I believe it was based on the public comment that was received that afternoon related to concerns about traffic and dust. And so that 12th condition states that they'll add additional signage and communication to a visitor app to mitigate traffic and dust concerns raised during the public hearing. So otherwise, the other conditions were those that were our part of the staff report. on the opportunity to review. And so I think that's all I have. I don't know, Matt, if you want to add anything related to the resolution?

No. Melissa worked on some, I think it was the CPD worked on some written findings. In fact, that's in front of you all, the form of the resolution.

And I looked at it as well.

Okay. I'll move to approve resolution number 2026-29, a resolution adopting written findings of fact pursuant to the Lake County Land Development Code and conventionally approving the application for a conditional use permit for file 25-19, the Alpenflog Bootcamp.

I will second that, but I would like to have some discussion before we take any actions.

Okay, go ahead, Andy.

So I'm working with limited screens right here, and I can't remember specifically which one condition it is exactly, but the one that jumped out at me as something that's inconsistent with how we've treated other group camp applications was the request that they can't have water available to the guests. And that seemed... uh counterproductive to me to like you know how are you gonna deny people water if they need it doesn't seem right to me it seems like we haven't imposed that on any other group camps and i wasn't sure why we kind of had that one on this specific application i read through that this morning andy and uh

It doesn't seem like it prohibits it. It requires non-potable water. In parentheses it says, or other. So I don't think it's prohibited. Is it? In your view?

I can address that. The potable water is going to be carried in by guests. So there isn't another water source at this point in time. One of the, what might be, Commissioner might be addressing is the fact that the discussion included the idea of using Parkville water in cisterns or tanks that then would be distributed to guests of the campground. And at this point, that would require an oversight program by public health that we don't have. So as part of the moratorium work, we're looking at that as an option. it would require really additional staff. So it has a pretty significant impact on the county. So without that, the applicants are allowed to bring in the water that their guests need. Their guests are able to bring in the water that they need. So I don't know if that answers your question.

Did you hear that OK, Andy?

Yeah, I did. Thanks. That clears that up for me. The only other sticking point was the reporting requirements. I was just curious, do we request that of other group camp permits that we have approved? I missed part of the question.

What type of reporting requirements?

Yeah, like how it's been asked that they report the numbers of guests that are staying there every year. And I'm just curious, do we have that? same request for the other group camps that we've approved?

We have not had that request prior and would like to address this.

Yeah, actually we have the Climax Revival had to verify its occupancy as well. That was a condition of that group camp permit that was issued. That's one that I can think of immediately. Commissioner Lee, that had a similar condition of approval. I think that was the nature of your question. Have we asked this of other group camps? And we have.

Okay, thanks.

Anything else, Andy?

I have no further questions, thank you.

Okay, I've got a couple. Do the vault tanks have alarms? Is that common? Okay. And the next question is adding additional signage and communication through visitor app to mitigate traffic and dust concerns. You can ask people to drive slower. How does that work?

So I believe the Planning Commission, that was a concern that they heard from a neighboring property, some concerns about that. So what the Planning Commission was hoping to do was create some awareness for the customers associated with this, that there are residential uses in the area. So they wanted them to be communicating about controlling speeds, Those kind of things. I will mention, though, just on. I don't think the applicant has voiced an objection about that. But we also are certainly aware that we have a gravel gravel operation located in close proximity and they have what's known as an eighth and air pollution emissions notice. that's required by the state. So some of the dust that the neighbors may be attributing to might be in association with that. And we do recognize that the camping use probably will not generate anything near what that type of industrial use will be adjacent. So there will be another measure that we'll always be implementing and overseeing on that other conditional use permit that exists in that area to make sure that if dust is an issue generally in the area, they have to be in compliance with CDPHE. So I think it was kind of a general ask of this use to just be communicating with the campers, but we are also identifying that there are adjacent properties in the area that certainly are contributing to that concern that was raised by the community. And so those, we would be monitoring that and making sure that dust hasn't become a nuisance in that area and maybe aligning that with the state as well.

The condition is that it's communicated, not that it's mitigated. It is communicated to be thoughtful. That seems doable.

Sarah, you had your finger up. Go ahead.

I just, I wanted to make, yes, we plan on communicating all of that, especially speed zones and all that because That road seems like an open road, but we want everybody to get along and we don't want to annoy our neighbors. Some of the other things that will be done on the property that aren't completed right now without permission is getting those throughways and the pathways and the roadways up to snuff and likely putting down road base. And so that's dust control on the property that we plan on addressing. One thing I would like to point out, though, is that actually in County Road 11 that bisects the property, the Planning Commission seemed to me to focus mostly on the driving in and out on 11A. But County Road 11 is quite dusty, and that's not where we're pointing any of our traffic, vehicular traffic. So I just kind of want to point that out, because that could be something that might be seen from neighbors or anyone out there and that's not, anyone who's on a vehicle on that road is not, would not likely be a guest of ours.

So hoping to have future conversations with Public Works on that and see if we can do anything about that.

Well, starting a business isn't easy so good job sticking with it and I hope you guys are successful. It's really easy to go around and criticize everything and it's really hard to start a business and then it doesn't get easier it's it stays hard so work hard and uh good luck to you five years give it five years i agree matt well said shall we take it to a vote everybody ready sure andy Next on the agenda.

Go forth Alpenflow.

Yeah.

Flow Alpenly.

Next up is item number three, discussion and consideration of land use file 26-22. A subdivision exemption for the Excel Energy Service Center to dedicate rights of way.

easements this will be led by Melissa Kendrick we're going to allow some public comments or if you just state your name and where you live not your address but just it's right Dean Irie I live on 17th Street okay and I just have a request and a couple of my neighbors couldn't be here too so just that they during the building process that they're just a little more respectful of the neighbors and Generally, I don't know if there's a specific noise ordinance in the county. Generally in Colorado, it can't start before 7 during the week, not before 9 on weekends. They're starting earlier than that, and it's pretty loud and annoying. So I could make a request that they start. in those appropriate times, building. Of course, there's a lot of dust with the building. Anything that they could do to mitigate that would be helpful, watering it down. It's really dusty over there because of what they're doing. And is there any way they could be quieter? Like, their backup vehicles are extremely loud, the beeping. I mean, I don't want to put anyone at risk, but if they could somehow tone that down, that would be really, make them a lot nicer neighbors. So that's just my request.

Thank you.

Seems reasonable, especially the 7 a.m. start. What time do they start? They sometimes start like 6.45 during the week and 8 a.m. on weekends. And how late are they working? You know, generally not bad. That's not really the issue so much. That's the start time. Okay.

Is there a way we can communicate that? Actually, we can do it through the building permit. So they sign a building permit affidavit that outlines the protocols for the site. And so if they've expanded those kind of things, then we can make sure that we go back in and do the building permit. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have an ordinance or something that prohibits construction before 7 a.m.?

building permit does not I think it would be a statutory if it's within the I know that we have statutory thresholds for the actual audible levels associated with it but I'm not sure statute talks about the time but as a partner we can certainly reach out and we need Candace's assistance with that conversation.

Yeah, there's decibel levels that regulate time, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so seven days a week that have different decibel levels associated with the latter in the daytime, obviously, but nothing that says you can't start construction before 7 a.m., so that's just, you've got to keep your noise down.

Well, Excel's been good partners to us, and their rep is responsive, so if things don't change, let us know, and we'll Thank you for bringing it up again, and thanks for coming in. Okay, now we'll go ahead with Melissa's lead.

So this, I think, will be the last piece of this that needs to come to you as part of this overall process of working with Excel. the facility that's obviously under construction we can make sure I'll make sure that we talk to them about that and in terms of noise but this this component of it this morning is about a dedication your acceptance of the dedication of some right-of-way along 17th Street so if you look at a map it's not it's not straight 17th Street is not straight which is probably not a surprise. But that north side of it, as these properties will develop, we will get the necessary right of way. And this is the first increment of that in this particular block.

So it's part of track B on the exemption plan.

And you all are the ones that need to accept that. And that's really their request before you this morning. And so I can answer any other questions. or answer any questions.

Sorry, it's track B, not track A. Is the sanitary sewer easement?

No, it is on 17th Street. Oh, yeah. If you look, it's kind of triangular looking in size.

Yeah.

So just add to the width of 17th Street.

OK.

Can I ask a question? Sure. What easement do they need on 17th exactly? They don't have an entrance on 17th at all. They enter the property on Harrison.

Melissa, can you answer that?

Yeah, it's not an easement. It's actually right of way. So what we want to do, and many of the streets in Redville are in this situation where it wasn't necessarily parallel lines of the right of way we want today. And so when properties develop, like this one does, then we ask for that additional right-of-way to kind of even it out. So they're not asking for access on that end.

It's like the road is like this right now and we want it like this. Yeah. Okay. I move to accept the public service company dedication of public right-of-way for 17th Street as depicted on the PSCO. Lead Bill Service Center Subdivision Administrative Exemption Plat prepared by Precision Surveying and Mapping, part of the Northeast Quarter of Section 23, Township 9 South and Range 80 West.

I will second that.

Cuvo.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Okay. Thank you, Melissa.

Thank you.

Next, we have county attorney updates. Mr. Holmes.

A few things. I got an order from the Court of Appeals today dismissing Mr. Prestash's case, Hansen for All.

It was dismissed by the district court last year at some point in time. And the Court of Appeals dismissed it July 8.

There's about seven different policies that are in various stages right now that Cami's gotten drafts to me that I need to work on and bring for the boards. We're working on the courthouse, the monument policy we discussed in the work session. There's a couple records retention policies that we're working on. We're supposed to as well so we can track those and make sure we're complying with CORA and then there's a social media policy that we're working on and a security camera policy as well as an open records act policy for the sheriff they're under a different open records law they're under the criminal that with the sheriff. And, you know, as you know, there's several ongoing man-use enforcement cases, and we're going with the man's office as well. So, yeah, I think, I feel like things are getting somewhat back to normal in my office, which was good. We still got a lot going on, but also, you know, got to move forward with other stuff, business.

Thank you, Matt.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, next is county manager updates, Candace.

So just have a few updates. I've done nothing but really fire thanks for the last almost 30 days. We are really excited we were able to pull back some of those pre-evac and evac zones so that we could open up a little bit more of the community to activities. So really excited that our rec programming is all back online. Just to be really clear, decisions that were made about programming that was close to or right along any of those zones was made in conjunction with our Incident Command Team, the Sheriff's Office, and the Office of Emergency Management. So I think it's really important for people to understand any of the decisions that we've made as a county have been made checking those groups before we make any of them. But we're really excited that they've finally let us feel some of those back. In the Office of Emergency Management, they're going to be focusing on, so part of our emergency operations plan is the recovery phase. And that is really what that team is going to be focusing on. Our emergency operations plan actually details what we'll do in recovery. And so we're starting to work on getting a lot of those systems stood up, making sure the right key players are in place, to help that work, you know, continue. For most people, life goes back to normal. For us, we still have quite a lot of work to do on the recovery side. Things for businesses, looking at, you know, I know on Ann's team, Shelby has been phenomenal. Big shout out to her. With all of our GIS mapping, our FEMA floodplain map was way out of date, and she's done a Huge amount of work she's meeting today with NOAA. OEM is meeting with them to really get our floodplain mapping completely updated and start to make some plans for things that we may need to be focused on from a recovery standpoint for the county. Other items are our audit is still in process and we are hoping to get that wrapped up by the end of this month. I've got a call with our auditor today just to check in and see where they are at with the final pieces of that. Other things that I'm really excited about are to get back to a lot of the internal work that we've been doing with HR systems that kind of got put on pause for the last half of our lives. We have started budget meetings with directors, which has been wild. Uh, with not knowing what your schedule is every day until you show up and it just being dictated by whatever is happening, you know, out there with the fire every day, directors have been awesome meeting with finance. Um, and we're going to continue doing those meetings. Um, each director received an Excel spreadsheet of their accounting codes, what they've spent in prior years, what they spent last year. We've asked all directors to hold at the same expenditure levels unless something is just, you know, like mission critical or, for example, you know, Tyler that we use. The cost of Tyler went up. You can't help that the vendor is charging you more. So other than things that we have to have to function, we've said, hey, we want everyone to hold, which doesn't probably sound that significant except for in 25. We didn't allow for anyone to ask more than they had in 24. So to hold expenditures constant other than things that have gone up for two years is pretty challenging on the county end, especially things cost more. So we are really being conscientious to try to do that work. Just knowing that a lot of our budgets at the state level for DHS public health grant funding, those have all really been scaled back by the state and federal. opportunities that are available and money that's being passed from the state. So we're doing that work right now with departments. I think that's it. That's all I've got. Thank you. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Candace. So those decisions weren't just made by pulling something out of a hat? No. OK.

Turns out.

All right. Well, thank you. Now we'll move on to the consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I'll move to approve the consent agenda.

Andy, you still with us?

Yeah, I'm here. I will second that. Should we have discussion on item 18?

You can discuss anything you want.

Do you want to pull that off?

Or whatever, never mind. Great.

Go ahead, Andy. I believe we have flagged some issues with the section of the reroute that runs on County Road, supposed County Road, Section 3A. And I'm not sure if we want to, I don't know how to proceed on this. I'll just be fully honest. We're running out of time. I think I need to hear from staff, like maybe if they could further elaborate on some of the concerns that staff has with that county road section 3 or 3A that runs up behind a couple residences up on the east side there. I think I'd just like to dig into that a little bit before we make a decision.

yeah so ann joined us today so she can share a little bit of information since she was working on the permit if that's okay with you all yeah yeah um so i think the the concern that came up is we had a property owner of the 3a when we had our out there and guides um running their course of the uh high country tours that operator had gone off onto private property at one point and trimmed some trees And so internally, there was something that came in from Public Works that just identified that, oh, hey, in this area, we have had a concern property owner. But what the amendment is looking to do is use the approved course that we've approved for the Leadbow Marathon and heavy half consistently for almost a decade.

I think it's been probably about maybe almost that long.

Oh, it's only been three years? Three decades. Oh, three. For, I thought Level Marathon got added. It didn't get added. But that 3A is not in that piece, so we should talk about it. Correct. And these courses are intended to be in right-of-way, not on private property. So just hold those. But what the applicant has asked to do is to pivot to two approved routes, the culmination of two approved routes. So I think the concern that came in from Public Works, which was certainly valid that we had a concerned citizen about some trespass onto their private property, this application is not attempting to do that. They are attempting to stay the course that they have used historically on permitted routes that we permitted in the past. So that's what I would add in a bit.

Thank you for the clarification. Let's catch all that, Andy.

Yeah, I sure did. Could we make a request of the organizers to maybe have some volunteer staff or some regular staff positioned in the area to make sure that we don't have any trespassing issues in that area?

You bet.

Great. I did have one more question about the approval that I'd like to ask. And it was about the section that makes use of the mineral belt trail. Will the mineral belt trail be blocked off completely to everyone? Is there a way to have it so that the raised series utilizes the mineral belt while still having like half of it available to the public?

Yes, Commissioner Lee, we have two designated marshals to be at either point where it comes in and out, and it will not be closed to use. They will help with the right of way and just make sure that we don't get anybody hurt would be their role and make sure that we don't have any issues there, but it will not, it will stay public and open. That's fantastic. All right. Thank you. We're not requesting, I don't need to choose that. We're not requesting it to be closed. I requested it not be closed. Not close. We just won't put course marshals for safety there.

Yeah. That was a, uh, something that came up in the mineral belt trail committee meeting last night. Andy is, you know, warning folks that are coming downhill and warning the racers.

Do you have any issue with, I would like to put event in progress in that area on either side of where it comes in and out just to alert people. Any problems with that?

I don't think I can speak to that. I don't personally have a problem with it, but I'm not sure if I'm... And I can add it back to the Mineral Belt Committee.

But I thought that comes back to you guys ultimately, doesn't it? I don't know if I understand how that works. I mean, through public works, because...

And we have no problem with that for more people. Because that way, it's a safety issue. We do the same thing with the high school cycling league as well. So this is something that we have done in the past. We have other guns that make that same type of cautionary kind of precaution to make sure that user groups don't have any conflicts.

Let's get those racers and their families into the restaurants.

We're working on it, Commissioner. I'm working on it.

every possible way thank you for your support thanks andy great thank you okay shall we take the consent agenda to a vote aye aye aye consent agenda is approved

This concludes the Lake County Commissioners regular meeting on July 21st, 2026.

This is a reminder that all packet materials and agenda items are available upon request. And you can find that at our Lake County... Subscribe, email, or text notifications. Please visit the Lake County website. Thank you all for coming.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thanks, Andy.

Be careful out there.